Bodybuilding Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
48 free Bodybuilding trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Bodybuilding is a sport that argues about whether it is a sport, which makes it perfect trivia territory. This quiz begins with Eugen Sandow flexing for Victorian audiences and judging the first contest at the Royal Albert Hall in 1901 with Arthur Conan Doyle, moves through Charles Atlas, Muscle Beach and the Weider brothers' IFBB, and arrives at the Mr. Olympia: Larry Scott in 1965, Sergio Oliva, Arnold Schwarzenegger's seven, Frank Zane's vacuum, the eight-title reigns of Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman, Dorian Yates, Phil Heath and Chris Bumstead in Classic Physique. There are questions on Pumping Iron and Lou Ferrigno, on Ms. Olympia and Rachel McLish, Cory Everson and Bev Francis, on Vince McMahon's short-lived WBF, the Arnold Classic, and on how the sport actually works: the mandatory poses, bulking and cutting, the Sandow trophy, pro cards, natural federations and the divisions added since 2012. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen Arnold flex, a third are medium and the rest will test people who know their front lat spread from their most muscular. Every answer is verified against reference and biography pages, and each question carries its source.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Eugen Sandow, the 'father of modern bodybuilding', was born in which Prussian city that now belongs to Russia?
Königsberg
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.
Q 02Eugen Sandow's first bodybuilding contest, the Great Competition of 1901, was held at which London venue?
The Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall filled so completely for Sandow's final that would-be spectators had to be turned away at the doors.
Q 03Which famous author sat on the judging panel of Sandow's 1901 Great Competition?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
Q 04Which London museum took a plaster cast of Eugen Sandow's body in 1901 as a perfect specimen of manhood?
The Natural History Museum
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.
Q 05Eugen Sandow's stage career was built with the help of which famous Broadway impresario as manager?
Florenz Ziegfeld
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'.
Q 06Which film pioneer's studio captured Eugen Sandow flexing on camera in 1894?
Thomas Edison
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.
Q 07The famous Charles Atlas comic-strip advert was titled 'The Insult That Made a Man Out of' whom?
Mac
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.
Q 08The Charles Atlas exercise system was marketed under what two-word name?
Dynamic Tension
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.
Q 09The International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) was founded in 1946 by which two Canadian brothers?
Joe and Ben Weider
Joe and Ben Weider founded it in Montreal, and in 1968 the brothers brought a young Arnold Schwarzenegger over to train in California.
Q 10The Mr. Olympia was created in 1965 so the sport's amateur champions could do what?
Keep competing for money
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.
Q 11Which two men share the record for the most Mr. Olympia titles, with eight each?
Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman
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.
Q 12Arnold Schwarzenegger called which title, won at 20, his ticket to America?
Mr. Universe
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.
Q 13Which training partner of Arnold Schwarzenegger shares the spotlight in Pumping Iron and later won the Mr. Olympia himself?
Franco Columbu
Q 21English six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates was nicknamed what for his low profile between contests?
The Shadow
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.
Q 22Which former college basketball player, nicknamed 'the Gift', won seven straight Mr. Olympia titles from 2011?
Phil Heath
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.
Q 23Which Canadian won six straight Classic Physique Olympia titles from 2019 to 2024 and then retired?
Chris Bumstead
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.
Q 14The 1975 Mr. Olympia featured in Pumping Iron was held in which city?
Pretoria
Pretoria saw Arnold win his sixth straight Mr. Olympia and then announce his retirement from the stage, a moment the film captures.
Q 15Lou Ferrigno is best known for playing which television character from 1977 to 1982?
The Incredible Hulk
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.
Q 16Cuban-American Sergio Oliva, Mr. Olympia from 1967 to 1969, was known by what nickname?
The Myth
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.
Q 17Frank Zane, Mr. Olympia 1977-79, was famous for which pose that showed off his tiny waist?
The vacuum
The vacuum pose was his signature: competing at under 200 pounds, Zane regularly placed above men much bigger than he was.
Q 18Ronnie Coleman worked in which job in Arlington, Texas, from 1989 to 2000 while competing?
Police officer
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.
Q 19Ronnie Coleman is known by what nickname?
The King
The King is famous for his catchphrases too, psyching himself up for enormous lifts with shouts of 'Yeah buddy!' and 'Lightweight, baby!'
Q 20Which president made Lee Haney chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness?
Bill Clinton
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.
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.
Q 24What is the free-for-all called in which a show's finalists flex side by side for the overall title?
The posedown
The posedown gives the top finalists about a minute of free posing to music, staged while the judges settle the overall title.
Q 25The Men's Physique division, added in 2013, differs from open bodybuilding in that competitors pose in what?
Board shorts
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.
Q 26Who won the first Ms. Olympia in 1980?
Rachel McLish
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.
Q 27Which woman won six consecutive Ms. Olympia titles and retired in 1989 undefeated as a professional?
Cory Everson
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.
Q 28Bev Francis, later a top female bodybuilder, first made her name in which strength sport?
Powerlifting
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.
Q 29The 1985 documentary Pumping Iron II: The Women followed competitors preparing for a contest at which venue?
Caesars Palace
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.
Q 30Late-1970s contests in Canton, Ohio, rank as the first true women's bodybuilding shows because entrants were judged only on what?
Muscularity
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.