48 Fun Facts About Bodybuilding

Eugen Sandow, the 'father of modern bodybuilding', was born in which Prussian city that now belongs to Russia?

Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, knew him as Friedrich Wilhelm Müller: he left Prussia at about 18, toured Europe as a circus athlete and re-emerged under the stage name Eugen Sandow.

Eugen Sandow's first bodybuilding contest, the Great Competition of 1901, was held at which London venue?

The Royal Albert Hall filled so completely for Sandow's final that would-be spectators had to be turned away at the doors.

Which famous author sat on the judging panel of Sandow's 1901 Great Competition?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was no stranger to sport, having played first-class cricket for the MCC, and he shared the judging with Sandow himself and the sculptor Sir Charles Lawes.

Which London museum took a plaster cast of Eugen Sandow's body in 1901 as a perfect specimen of manhood?

The Natural History Museum showed the cast for just three months before banishing it to the basement; in the 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger had a copy made for his own collection.

Eugen Sandow's stage career was built with the help of which famous Broadway impresario as manager?

Florenz Ziegfeld saw that crowds cared more about Sandow's muscles than the weights he lifted, so he built the act around poses he billed as 'muscle display performances'.

Which film pioneer's studio captured Eugen Sandow flexing on camera in 1894?

Thomas Edison's studio filmed Sandow simply flexing rather than lifting, and a decade later it filmed the winner of America's first big physique contest as well.

The famous Charles Atlas comic-strip advert was titled 'The Insult That Made a Man Out of' whom?

Mac gets sand kicked in his face by a beach bully, the story Atlas always told about himself at 97 pounds, and the advert built on it stayed in print for decades.

The Charles Atlas exercise system was marketed under what two-word name?

Dynamic Tension needs no weights at all: it pits one muscle against another, and the name was coined by his business partner, the advertising man Charles Roman.

The International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) was founded in 1946 by which two Canadian brothers?

Joe and Ben Weider founded it in Montreal, and in 1968 the brothers brought a young Arnold Schwarzenegger over to train in California.

The Mr. Olympia was created in 1965 so the sport's amateur champions could do what?

Keep competing for money: amateur champions had nowhere left to go, so the first contest, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, gave the amateur star Larry Scott a new title to win.

Which two men share the record for the most Mr. Olympia titles, with eight each?

Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman each won eight in a row but bowed out differently: Haney retired unbeaten after 1991, while Coleman went for a ninth in 2006 and lost to Jay Cutler.

Arnold Schwarzenegger called which title, won at 20, his ticket to America?

Mr. Universe did the trick: he won it in 1967, moved to America the following year, and by 23 had added the first of his seven Mr. Olympia titles.

Which training partner of Arnold Schwarzenegger shares the spotlight in Pumping Iron and later won the Mr. Olympia himself?

Franco Columbu, a former boxer, shows off in the film by lifting the back end of a car out of a tight parking space; he won the Mr. Olympia in 1976 and again in 1981.

The 1975 Mr. Olympia featured in Pumping Iron was held in which city?

Pretoria saw Arnold win his sixth straight Mr. Olympia and then announce his retirement from the stage, a moment the film captures.

Lou Ferrigno is best known for playing which television character from 1977 to 1982?

The Incredible Hulk was his boyhood escape: bullied over his hearing loss, he has said he took up bodybuilding after fantasising about being like the comic-book hero.

Cuban-American Sergio Oliva, Mr. Olympia from 1967 to 1969, was known by what nickname?

The Myth won the 1968 Mr. Olympia with nobody entered against him, and a year later he handed Arnold Schwarzenegger his only Mr. Olympia defeat.

Frank Zane, Mr. Olympia 1977-79, was famous for which pose that showed off his tiny waist?

The vacuum pose was his signature: competing at under 200 pounds, Zane regularly placed above men much bigger than he was.

Ronnie Coleman worked in which job in Arlington, Texas, from 1989 to 2000 while competing?

Police officer was a job he kept even as reigning Mr. Olympia; he had joined the force after his accounting degree failed to land him work in that field.

Ronnie Coleman is known by what nickname?

The King is famous for his catchphrases too, psyching himself up for enormous lifts with shouts of 'Yeah buddy!' and 'Lightweight, baby!'

Which president made Lee Haney chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness?

Bill Clinton chose Haney for a post that had already gone to another Mr. Olympia: the first President Bush had given the same chair to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1990.

English six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates was nicknamed what for his low profile between contests?

The Shadow kept out of the public eye and would turn up at major contests unannounced; from 1992 to 1997 he did not lose a single one.

Which former college basketball player, nicknamed 'the Gift', won seven straight Mr. Olympia titles from 2011?

Phil Heath played Division I basketball at the University of Denver before he ever entered a bodybuilding contest; his run ended in 2018, when he finished second to Shawn Rhoden.

Which Canadian won six straight Classic Physique Olympia titles from 2019 to 2024 and then retired?

Chris Bumstead, known to fans as CBum, had finished runner-up in 2017 and 2018 before he turned the tables and never lost the title again.

What is the free-for-all called in which a show's finalists flex side by side for the overall title?

The posedown gives the top finalists about a minute of free posing to music, staged while the judges settle the overall title.

The Men's Physique division, added in 2013, differs from open bodybuilding in that competitors pose in what?

Board shorts hide the thighs, and the judging follows suit: competitors show only front and back, and the rulebook warns that carrying too much muscle will be marked down.

Who won the first Ms. Olympia in 1980?

Rachel McLish lost the title a year later and then won it back in 1982, making her the contest's first two-time champion as well as its first.

Which woman won six consecutive Ms. Olympia titles and retired in 1989 undefeated as a professional?

Cory Everson won the Ms. Olympia at her first attempt and never lost it; when she stepped away, the title passed to Lenda Murray, who was competing in her first professional show.

Bev Francis, later a top female bodybuilder, first made her name in which strength sport?

Powerlifting made her name: unbeaten throughout her career in it, she became the first woman to bench press more than 300 pounds, at the 1981 world championships.

The 1985 documentary Pumping Iron II: The Women followed competitors preparing for a contest at which venue?

Caesars Palace staged the 1983 contest at the heart of the film, where the judges argued over whether one entrant's unprecedented muscle should count for her or against her.

Late-1970s contests in Canton, Ohio, rank as the first true women's bodybuilding shows because entrants were judged only on what?

Muscularity alone decided it, a clean break from the women's events tacked on to men's shows until then, which were run as beauty contests or bikini shows.

Which wrestling promoter launched the short-lived World Bodybuilding Federation at the start of the 1990s?

Vince McMahon lured bodybuilding's stars with big contracts and staged pay-per-view shows, but the second one sold so poorly that he shut the federation a month later, in July 1992.

The Arnold Sports Festival, established in 1989, is held each year in which US city?

Columbus, Ohio had been lucky for him long before 1989: it was there, at the 1970 Mr. World, that he beat Sergio Oliva for the first time.

Muscle Beach is now linked with Venice, but it began in 1934 beside which pier?

Santa Monica had the original from the mid-1930s; the weight pen in Venice arrived in the early 1950s and took the famous name officially only in 1987.

Which mid-1960s chain is credited with bringing hardcore bodybuilding gyms to parts of the US that had none?

Gold's Gym began in 1965 as a single building in Venice Beach filled with homemade equipment, and within five years its founder had sold up and gone back to sea.

Which of these is a mandatory pose for men only in competitive bodybuilding?

Most Muscular closes the men's list of eight mandatory poses and is missing from the women's, and even the men of Classic Physique are barred from choosing it as their favourite pose.

In bodybuilding jargon, what is cutting?

Cutting means losing body fat before a contest while keeping muscle: after months of eating to grow, competitors drop into a calorie deficit, kept moderate so the fat goes and the muscle stays.

What is done at the final stage of contest prep to maximise definition and vascularity?

Carbohydrate loading and dehydration work as a pair: the carbohydrates refill muscles emptied by weeks of dieting, and shedding water lets veins and muscle outlines show through the skin.

Whey protein, sold in tubs as a bodybuilding supplement, is a by-product of making which food?

Cheese: whey is the liquid left behind when milk curdles; filtered and spray-dried, it becomes the powder that goes into a protein shake.

Which class of drugs did Congress move into Schedule III in 1990 through a law named after them?

Anabolic steroids had been legal, and openly discussed in 1970s gyms; once they were on the schedule, simply possessing them without a prescription became a federal crime.

Besides urine tests, what do some 'natural' bodybuilding federations use to screen competitors for banned drugs?

Lie detectors are part of the routine: competitors can be wired to a polygraph on or just before contest day and questioned about what they have taken.

What is the usual abbreviation for the muscle ache that peaks a day or two after an unfamiliar workout?

DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, fades fast with practice: the muscle adapts so quickly that repeating the same workout soon afterwards hurts far less.

Which 2013 documentary, narrated by Mickey Rourke and billed as a successor to Pumping Iron, followed seven contenders for the Mr. Olympia?

Generation Iron trailed the seven leading contenders for the 2012 title, and the two rivals of the original film, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, both turn up in it.

In gym slang, what is 'dirty bulking'?

Dirty bulking, eating a huge calorie surplus without tracking macros, often means burgers and fries: size comes quickly, but so does fat, which then takes a harsher diet to strip away.

The magazine launched as Your Physique grew into which bodybuilding title, its name since 1980?

Muscle & Fitness is the name it took in 1980; by his own account its founder started the magazine with seven dollars in his pocket and had made a $10,000 profit within 18 months.

Which bodybuilding champion of the 1940s and 50s became an international film star playing Hercules in the late 1950s?

Steve Reeves's Hercules set off a wave of Italian sword-and-sandal epics, and one boy who grew up on his films was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

About 95% of the body's creatine is stored in which tissue?

Skeletal muscle holds nearly all of it, and food tops the store up only slowly, since a normal diet of meat and fish supplies just one or two grams a day, which is why lifters take it as a powder.

Which WCW wrestler was hired as a figurehead for the WBF and hosted its show on USA Network?

Lex Luger never got his big moment: he was due to guest pose at the federation's 1992 championship, but a motorcycle accident kept him off the stage.

Which fitness pioneer, a regular at the original Muscle Beach, hosted a television exercise show from 1951 to 1985?

Jack LaLanne, nicknamed the Godfather of Fitness, kept his show simple, coaxing viewers through exercises with a chair or whatever else they had at home.