#42 - Eugen Sandow, Father of Modern Bodybuilding

Eugene Sandow is the creator of bodybuilding! This historical episode covers his massive contributions to the physique culture. Strongman, bodybuilder, author, and teacher are just some of the many titles Eugene Sandow held throughout his very full and exciting life!

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Transcript

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Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Way of Life. I'm your host Gus Holland. Today is going to be another historical episode. It's going to be based on Eugene Sandow. Eugene Sandow is the stage name or performing name of Frederick Wilhelm Mueller. I will be referring to him as Eugene or Eugene Sandow for the rest of the episode, just because that is his stage name. That is what he went by for most of his life. bodybuilder and showman from Prussia. He became interested in bodybuilding which at the time wasn't really a thing. At the age of 10 he visited Italy where he became fascinated with the idea of building one's body, increasing your physique and strength. Eugene Sandow's father was German and his mother was of Russian descent. Even though the parents were born Jewish they were of the early life, they wanted him to become a Lutheran minister. In 1885, he left Prussia to avoid being recruited into military service and ended up traveling all throughout Europe. Traveling through Europe would lead him into becoming a circus athlete and adopting the stage name of Eugene Sandow. He got this stage name from his Russian mother's maiden name, he visited a gym that was owned by Ludwig Dierlacher, who had the stage name of Professor Attila. Ludwig would perform a whole bunch of different strongman feats to raise money for himself and his gym. After hanging out with Dierlacher and training with him, you know, becoming friends and kind of getting mentored by him, Dierlacher recognized Sandow's He encouraged him to travel to London in order to take part in strongmen competitions. Eugene Sandow took his advice, went to London, competed in some strongmen competitions, and eventually beat the reigning champion over there and won the recognition throughout the entire area. As you would imagine, this did lead to quite a lot of hype around his stage name of Eugene a bunch of requests for different various strength performances all throughout Britain. From that point on for the next four years Sandow would focus on refining his technique and creating the perfect entertainment routine which included various types of posing and displays of strength. Now eventually several years down the line after signing a couple different contracts and Florence Siegfried would team up to I'm not a hundred percent sure on this but I believe Siegfried was somewhat of a tour manager for him or you know somebody that that tried to put him in more spotlight and book shows for him not a hundred percent sure on that but eventually the two of them would come to realize through the different shows that people were actually much more his physique than his physical strength. This would lead to Siegfried suggesting that Sandow move into more of a posing form of entertainment, which he named muscle display performances. So from here on out, he had a new routine, which he where he would incorporate these muscle display performances combined with different feats of strength, primarily with barbells. One popular break them through flexing. In 1894 Sandow was featured in a series of short films by Edison Studios. The film series would primarily focus on Sandow flexing his muscles rather than performing feats of strength. Around this time he was touring in the United States but Sandow made a brief return to England in order to marry his girlfriend Blanche Brooke. She was a woman from Manchester. I don't have too much information on that but I do know that due to increased amounts of stress as well as some health problems, he did decide to return to England permanently in order to recuperate. Shortly after, he was back on his feet and he decided to open the very first of his institutes of physical culture. At these institutes, he would teach different methods of exercise, dietary habits, and weight training. were largely unknown at this time and created an enormous impact on the physical culture at the time. The Sandow Institute was an early gymnasium that was open to the public for exercise. But in 1898, he also founded a monthly periodical which was originally titled Physical Culture. Eventually, this would be renamed to be called Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture. monthly periodical, which was the Sandow's magazine of physical culture. He decided to begin writing books. He wrote several books between the years of 1897 and 1904. The last book that he wrote was where he coined the term bodybuilding. In modern time, bodybuilding is one word. However, in the title of his last book, bodybuilding is hyphenated as body hyphen building. Throughout his life, he would constantly work on improving various types and he also invented multiple devices. One of these as an as an example are rubber band, rubber excuse me, rubber strands for stretching and spring gripped dumbbells. The spring grip dumbbells were invented in order to strengthen your wrists. In the year 1900, William Bankier, I believe that's how you say it, wrote Ideal Physical Culture in which he challenged and jumping. Sandow would not go on to accept this challenge which led Bankier to call him a coward, charlatan, and a liar. Less than a year later in 1901 Sandow would organize the world's first major bodybuilding competition in London's Royal Albert Hall. This competition filled the venue space so much that people were actually turned away from the door. There were three judges presiding over the contest which were Sir Charles Laws who was a sculptor, Conan Doyle, who was author and Eugene Sandow himself. In 1902, Sandow was defeated by Katie Brumbach in a weightlifting contest in New York City. In this competition, Brumbach defeated Sandow by lifting a weight of 300 pounds over her head in which Sandow could only manage to lift it up to his chest. After this victory, Katie Brumbach adopted the stage name of Sandwina as a was able to buy the lease of 61 Holland Park Avenue, thanks to a generous gift from an Indian businessman whose health had improved dramatically after he had adopted Sandow's Regimen. This was a four-story terrace house, which would be Sandow's home for 19 years. Throughout his life, Sandow would travel all across the world on various tours to countries, including but not limited to India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa. At his own expense in 1909, he would provide training for future recruits of the Territorial Army. The Territorial Army is an army reserve for active duty volunteers of the British Army. He would also do the same for volunteers for active service in World War I. This would lead him to be designated as a special instructor in physical culture to King George V, who had followed Sandow's teachings. ideal. The Grecian ideal is the ideal physical structure that was put in place by ancient Greeks. Sanda would actually go to specific museums and locations in Greece and Rome, specifically to measure the statues that were located there in order for him to try and achieve the perfect physique. This is one of the many reasons he's considered the father of modern bodybuilding. Just real quickly, publications that Eugene Sandow was a part of. I believe his first book was How to Preserve Health and Attain Strength, which was in 1894. In that same year, Sandow would also write Systems of Physical Training and Sandow on Physical Training. Three years later in 1897, he would write Strength and How to Obtain it. And then from 1898 to 1907, he would publish his magazine of Physical Culture. where he wrote the book Bodybuilding, another book called Strength and Health, and also another one called The Construction and Reconstruction of the Human Body. The foreword for the construction and reconstruction of the human body was written by Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1919, he wrote a book called Life is Movement. I have not read all these books yet, but I do plan on reading as many of them as I can. I have read Strength and How to Obtain It. It is a great book. especially for people that are just getting into gym culture or just trying to improve their body in general. And you can actually find strength in how to obtain it on several free platforms, including LibriVox. Just as a quick side note, it is also suggested that Sandow was the person who had the most influence on modern yoga as exercise. as what the newspapers announced as a brain hemorrhage at the age of 58. Allegedly this was brought on after he was straining himself without assistance to lift his car out of a ditch after a road accident two or three years earlier. However there was no autopsy so his death was actually certified as being caused by an aortic aneurysm. An aortic aneurysm is an enlargement or dilation of the aorta greater than 1.5 times That about wraps it up for Eugene Sandow who was born Frederick Wilhelm Mueller. He died at the age of 58 At the height of 5 foot 9. I'm not quite sure how much he weighed He had two children and was only ever married to Blanche Brooks There is some rumor around that that they had some marital issues toward the end end of his life But Blanche Brooks never really commented on the matter after his death site of his former home, 61 Holland Park Avenue in London, which is now currently 161 Holland Park Avenue, you can find a plaque that says English heritage, Eugene Sandow, 1867 to 1925, bodybuilder and promoter of physical culture lived and died here. I think that's pretty cool for them to memorialize him like that at his home. But that wraps it up. I If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to rate, review, share it with a friend. All of the links will be in the description below for Instagram, as well as the hotline. Also, the website will be live in a day or two. And I'm pretty excited about that. So you can find that at way of life podcast dot com, where you can listen to the podcast. There's a small about section as well as a store where you can buy merch and stuff to support the show. Thanks a lot again for listening and I will talk to y'all later. Have a great day