Old Time Strongmen Volume Three

Soruce - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Sandow

Eugen Sandow is possibly my least worthy candidate of being included in this series about Strongmen but he carved his place in history and undeniably earned his place as a Strongman of the era.

Born Friedrich Wilhelm Müller 1867 of Prussian parents Eugen became an early pioneer of modern bodybuilding. He's often referred to as the father of modern bodybuilding and by some accounts he focused more on physical appearance than actual feats of strength. You have to admit he was a good looking man.

Source - https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/eugen-sandow-father-of-bodybuilding/

His training regimes are still part of the culture of modern bodybuilding where light weights and high reps are the prescribed course of action to develop an astheticly pleasing appearance. While he was undoubtably a very strong man, most of his self promotion was focused on his appearance more than his actual feats of strength.

Source - https://wolfandiron.com/eugen-sandow-part-4-sandows-exercise-routine/

He often posed for promotional pictures wearing loin cloths and sometimes even had his private parts obscured by leaves and other pictorial devices seemingly to appeal to the women of the day. There's plenty of pictures of Eugen from behind where he is fully exposed, so modesty didn't seem to be one of his best assets.

One time he was lurking in the crowd when the great Arthur Saxon was performing his feats of strength at a carnival & Arthur had the audacity to declare that Eugen could not repeat his show of strength in a now forgotten lift know as the Bent Press. Unbeknownst to Arthur, Eugen was in the crowd and took up the challenge to prove himself the stronger man. Sandow failed the lift and left in disgrace.

In an attempt to save face and restore his reputation Sandow took the Saxon trio to court and an ignorant judge ruled that Sandow had "handled the bell in exactly the same bodily attitude as Arthur", even though Sandow missed the lift.

Sandow was even said to embellish his appearance by using charcoal to highlight the definitions in his musculature and would almost never appear on stage before he'd "pumped" himself up with high rep sets using light weights.

All this sounds quite negative but Eugen did perform many feats of strength on stage and quite often there were wagers on who would be the victor in these challenges, which he almost always won. So it's not too hard to imagine he did sometimes lift heavy and chose to obscure his training methods whenever he appeared for a photo shoot.

Source - https://wolfandiron.com/eugen-sandow-part-4-sandows-exercise-routine/

He was a great man and integral part of the physical culture movement as it started to diversify from pure feats of strength to early forms of what we now call bodybuilding.

Eugen died in 1925 of a suspected aortic aneurysm without an autopsy to confirm that was the case and was buried in an unmarked grave at the request of wife. He will be remembered for a long time as one of the stalwarts of physical culture and as the father of modern Bodybuilding.. Any bodybuilder today should know who he was but in reality most don't.

He wasn't a fraud as he performed many feats of strength many strong men today would struggle with and won a lot of money in the process. He certainly was a talented self promoter and showman though.