Little Friedrich Müller was a puny weakling who longed to be athletic and strong like the ancient Roman gladiators. He exercised and exercised. But he to no avail. As a young man, he found himself under the tutelage of a professional body builder. Friedrich worked and worked. He changed his name to Eugen Sandow and he got bigger and stronger. Everyone wanted to become “as strong as Sandow.” Inspired by his own experiences body-building, Don Tate tells the story of how Eugen Sandow changed the way people think about strength and exercise and made it a part of everyday life. Backmatter includes more information about Sandow, suggestions for exercise, an author’s note, and a bibliography.

Little Friedrich Müller was a puny weakling who longed to be athletic and strong like the ancient Roman gladiators. He exercised and exercised. But he to no avail. As a young man, he found himself under the tutelage of a professional body builder. Friedrich worked and worked. He changed his name to Eugen Sandow and he got bigger and stronger. Everyone wanted to become “as strong as Sandow.” Inspired by his own experiences body-building, Don Tate tells the story of how Eugen Sandow changed the way people think about strength and exercise and made it a part of everyday life. Backmatter includes more information about Sandow, suggestions for exercise, an author’s note, and a bibliography.

Before Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Reeves, or Charles Atlas, there was Eugen Sandow, a muscular vaudeville strongman who used his good looks, intelligence, and business savvy to forge a fitness empire. The German-born Sandow (1867-1925) established a worldwide string of gyms, published a popular magazine, sold exercise equipment, and pioneered the use of food supplements. He even marketed a patented health corset for his female followers. Among the colorful figures who played a part in Sandow's life are Bernarr Macfadden, Florenz Ziegfeld, Lillian Russell, and others in sports and the theater. Sandow the Magnificent is the story of this first showman to emphasize physique display rather than lifting prowess. Sandow's is also the story of the earliest days of the fitness movement, and Chapman explains the popularity of physical culture in terms of its wider social implications. Sandow was a proponent of exercise to alleviate physical ailments, anticipating the field of physical therapy. By making exercise fashionable, he encouraged the fitness craze that still endures. As the first superstar in his field, Sandow also pried open some surprising cracks in the Victorian wall of prudery. His nude photographs, a kind of soft-core pornography, were anxiously sought by both male and female admirers, and after many of his major public events he gave private "receptions" wearing little more than a G-string.

Find more similar titles, Sandow's other books and a Free catalog go to www.StrongmanBooks.com Eugene Sandow, born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, was a Prussian pioneering bodybuilder in 19th century and is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Bodybuilding." Sandow was regarded as the ideal or perfectly built man. But not just show muscles, Sandow was a performing strongman as well topping many of the other strongmen of his era. In this book Sandow details his ideas, methods and in fact entire system of physical training for strength and muscle. Also includes tons of stories from his travels and much more.