The Founding Father of Bodybuilding

riedEugen Sandow flexed his way into the history books. Despite living in one of history’s more conservative periods, Sandow had the guts to disrobe to his underwear in front of thousands. He had the charisma to get the thousands to pay to watch him do it. Widely regarded as the father of modern-day bodybuilding, this is Eugen Sandow’s incredible story.

Before Stardom

Before taking the name Eugen Sandow, Friedrich Wilhelm Müller was born in East Prussia in 1867. He kept an active lifestyle in his childhood and was genetically blessed with good looks. He was also ambitious.

To avoid military service, Müller travelled all over Europe and eventually came under the tutelage of a strongman named Professor Atilla.

With Professor Atilla, he joined the circus, changed his name to Eugen Sandow, and performed feats of strength. But the income from this wasn’t enough to sustain him.

Fortunately, he leveraged his physique and attractive features to model for sculptures. His frame was the inspiration for many famous works still kept on display in museums all over Europe today.

Rise into Stardom

Across public spaces in Europe, there were strength machine games that people could play. One day, Sandow came across one and found out that he was strong enough to break the machine. And according to his biography, Sandow decided to break every machine in the city.

This event caught the attention of the police who couldn’t believe that someone was physically strong enough to do such acts. To avoid jail, Sandow demonstrated his prowess in front of them, and it worked. The police let him go, and the story found its way to the papers and created more buzz for Sandow’s shows.

But Sandow’s real launch into stardom was his notorious face off with fellow strongmen Charles Sampson and Franz “Cyclops” Bienkowski.

Sampson’s act were feats of hand and wrist strength, while cyclops specialized in lifting heavy objects. They appeared nightly in London’s performance halls, and their performance usually included challenging audience members to match their feats.

This routine worked pretty well for the duo until Eugen Sandow showed up.

You see, Sandow didn’t match the typical build of a strongman. He wasn’t particularly tall, and his frame could usually hide behind a full set of clothes.

So you can imagine the roaring laughter that came from Sampson, Cyclops, and members of the audience when Sandow came up on stage.

But this was part of his act.

He went up and ripped off his clothes!

This surprise revealed a muscled physique along with his strongman costume. And the crowd was in awe.

He matched every lift that Sampson could do and the audience ate it up. At this point, the disgruntled Sampson was now screaming that this was unfair, which only drove more sympathy for Sandow. He had won the challenge and the crowd.

The story hit the papers, and his fame exponentially grew overnight.

Sandow’s Secret to Success

Sandow started to receive requests for him to perform all over Britain. Some of his acts included wrestling a lion, lifting a horse, and making himself a human bridge. He was a superb showman.

But all the circus tricks aside, what got people even more excited was Sandow’s fantastic physique.

It was Flo Ziegfield, an American broadway organizer, that first noticed Sandow’s real appeal. Ziegfield suggested that apart from demonstrating strength, Sandow should also display his body. Under Ziegfield’s direction, Sandow’s act was taken to another level by including a “muscle demonstration” portion.

Sandow, often powdered up in white, would come out of a cabinet covered by a black curtain and disrobe before the audience. He would then do a series of poses showing off the definition and tone of his musculature.

The white powder in just the right lighting made him resemble Ancient Greek statues. And his proportionate features brought a newfound appreciation for human anatomy.

Sandow’s appeal was so profound that he was even one of the first subjects that Thomas Edison ever caught on film.

Sex Appeal and Superstardom

His new act differentiated him from his contemporary strongmen at the time and appealed to a global audience. He travelled across Europe, to the United States, and even to India and Japan while always wowing the crowd.

And when he returned to his residence in London, his name brand was priceless.

Sandow’s act was so ridiculously lucrative that he was able to charge both men and women spectators to come to his dressing room a fee of US$300 to “feel and finger” his muscles. There were incidents of women fainting from his exhibition.

One story from the New York Herald in 1893 described the experience in detail:

“[Sandow] took my hand while I was in his dressing room and rubbed it across his abdominal muscles, and the feeling was just about the same as it would be rubbing the hand over an old fashioned washboard.”

This lead to an exciting life of stardom which included becoming the personal trainer of King George V., overseeing fitness regimens in the British military, and being buddies with Arthur Conan Doyle.

He wrote books on fitness, sold strength training machines, and even opened up and franchised training facilities under the Sandow brand.

The First Bodybuilding Show

His fame and passion for physical improvement allowed him to host the first-ever bodybuilding show.

In 1901, he held what was called “The Great Competition.” Judges would rate the muscular development and proportionality of the competitors for a cash prize. To qualify, one had to send pictures of themselves posing to show off their physique. They were judged based on the following criteria:

• General development
• Equality or balance of development
• The condition and tone of the tissues
• General health
• Condition of the skin

In the final event, there was a total of 60 contestants that all posed in black tights and leopard skin.

The show was held at Royal Albert Hall in London, and the place was packed.

Sandow’s Legacy

Today, Sandow is widely remembered as the founder of bodybuilding. He was ahead of his time not just in the appreciation of physical culture, but also in the areas of marketing, business, and showmanship.

His image is forever etched into history, being the man on top of competitive bodybuilding’s most coveted trophy.

Sandow was a strongman even till death. He passed from allegedly developing a brain aneurysm from lifting his car from a ditch. He was 58.

He is buried in London, UK at the Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium.