10 Facts About Bodybuilding Legend Eugen Sandow

Childhood Ambition

Eugen Sandow was born Friedrich Müller in modern-day Russia in 1867. He loved being fit and active as a child, but he knew he wanted to perfect his physique after a childhood trip to Italy, finding inspiration in the statues of Greek and Roman gods.

According to historian David L. Chapman, author of Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding, before making it big as a strongman, Sandow worked as an art model in Belgium to support himself. This work wasn’t respectable at the time and never paid much, but many of the artists he modeled for used his figure to represent Greek, Roman, and Christian stories and myths. Many of these works are still featured today in the Belgium Royal Musuem of Art.

So, in a way he was able to achieve his childhood goals early on, but Sandow wanted more. And there was so much more yet to come.

After struggling to make his mark as a circus strongman in Europe as a teen, he met and was mentored by German strongman “Professor Attila,” who immediately recognized Sandow’s potential and encouraged him to take his act on the road. This is when Eugen Sandow began going by this name, and for many years historians and fans alike are unsure how he decided upon this new name, until it was uncovered his mother’s maiden name—Sandov.

Atilla would be the one to help Sandow achieve his first big break, challenging and defeating two famous strongmen, Charles Sampson and Cyclops, at one of their one shows in London. 

Worldwide Travels (and Lion Fights)

In public spaces across Europe, there were ‘strength machine’ games people could play to test one’s self. Sandow soon discovered he was strong enough to break these machines, and would do so as a way of attracting people to see his shows. Chapman wrote of one incident where Sandow went around and broke every machine in the city, leaving everyone curious as to who could do such a thing, and ultimately arrested by the police. Even the officers couldn’t believe he was strong enough to break the machines and gave him another machine to break as a test. When he broke yet another machine, the police were so impressed they didn’t put him in jail and helped him gain a lot of public attention for his show at a theater that evening.

In his performances, Sandow often stood atop a posing box so that audiences could see him better and to highlight his muscle definition, similar to the tans, lighting, and stages bodybuilders utilize today.

During a tour in the U.S., Sandow and Ziegfeld Follies, the circus he was traveling with at the time, set up an event for him to wrestle a lion. The practice round of the fight, without an outside audience, went well and the lion actively tried to fight Sandow back. However, when it came the night of the show, it was clear that the lion’s claws were covered, and the animal was far older and less threatening than the public had hoped. The crowds were unimpressed and the newspapers scoffed at Sandow in the aftermath, according to Chapman. 

Film Star

Before big-screen strongmen like Arnold Schwarzenegger and The Rock, there was Sandow. In 1894, Sandow posed for Thomas Edison’s film camera. You can check out the short, but sweet, footage of Sandow posing in a video posted to YouTube by the Library of Congress. The fact that Sandow was one of Edison’s first film subjects is a testament to how much of an icon and cultural touchstone he was for the world during this time. 

The Institute of Physical Culture

Sandow started the world of gym culture with The Institute of Physical Culture, which opened in London in 1897. Along with opening his gym, Sandow also began creating publications on physical fitness, teaching people different workouts and selling products. His books include, Strength and How to Obtain It and Sandow on Physical Training. He also wrote Life is Movement, which would be used by the British military in World War I. This is ironic considering WWI would eventually cause Sandow to lose most of his fortune, since his publications, fitness equipment, and supplements were all being manufactured in Germany, according to historian David Waller’s book The Perfect Man. 

Bromance with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Yes, you read that correctly, the OG bodybuilder was incredibly tight with the author of Sherlock Holmes. Sandow trained Doyle for years, with Doyle citing this training as the reason he survived a near fatal car crash on March 27, 1904. This friendship led to Doyle being one of the judges at Sandow’s first bodybuilding competition in London.

“The Great Competition” AKA The First Bodybuilding Competition, pretty much ever

On September 14, 1901 the course of history was changed forever. Well, maybe not all of history, but it was the day that Eugen Sandow hosted “The Great Competition” at the Royal Albert Hall in London, an event that would go on to become the first bodybuilding competition in modern history.

The event consisted of 66 competitors from across the British Isles selected as the strongest and having the best physique. The judges were Sandow himself; his training BFF, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and sculptor Sir Charles Lawes (since we already know how Sandow wanted his physique to be statuesque). The men stood on stage to be inspected by judges, all wearing black tights, leather belts and, of course, leopard skin loincloths. The three finalists received the first Sandow statues in bronze, silver, and gold.

The winner was William M. Murray of Nottingham, who used his winning gold trophy to display in a gym he opened in his home town. This was, of course, after he used his trophy to woo all the ladies working at the hotel Doyle that had put him up the night after the competition, according to IFBB. 

Trainer to the King?

In 1911, Sandow received the high honor in England being appointed Professor of Scientific and Physical Culture to King George V. Sandow became so close to the King that when he was dying, according to Waller, King’s own physician Sir Thomas Horder, attending to him. 

A Feminist Before His Time?

Sandow spoke openly about wanting women to dress for comfort instead of for style in order take care of their bodies, seeing heels and corsets as inhibitors for their physical health. Sandow championed women who wanted to work out, saying working out and becoming fit wouldn’t make them any less attractive, which was pretty revolutionary for the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Here he is quoted on the subject of women working out in one of his publicaitons. 

“The influence of exercise on the bodily frame of women is, strange to say, still indifferently recognized. The prevalent idea is that muscular exercise of any active kind, for a young girl, coarsens and makes a boy of her. The idea is a delusion; mischievous, indeed, when we realize the value to a growing girl of gymnastics, in their milder form of calisthenics; and its evil results are seen not only in the ailments, among many others, to which we have just referred; but also in the absence of comeliness, grace, and that beauty and shapeliness of physical contour which we associate with a perfectly-formed and finely-conditioned woman.”

Despite encouraging women to take part in physical fitness, relations with his wife Blanche and two daughters were strained more often than not, with historians reporting Sandow was often unfaithful. Many historians including Chapman and Waller, speculate whether Sandow was bisexual or not. He often had male partners accompany him on his tours around the U.S. However, since all of his belongings including his journals, had been burned by his family following his death, it’s unlikley any of this can ever be proven.

Vain as Hell

Whenever you feel self-consious checking yourself out in the locker room mirror after a heavy set, don’t. Sandow was incredibly vain and completely unashamed, quoted in his magazine saying “It is desirable to exercise before a looking-glass, For you can thus follow the movements of the various muscles; and to see the muscles at work, and to mark their steady development, is itself a help and a pleasure.”

Sandow obviously took this idea one step further, when he would commission artitsts and sculptors to design images and statues of his physique, according to Waller. Thank goodness he did, because thess designs would later become the inspiration for the Sandow statue winners of Mr. Olympia receive.

History of the Sandow Statuette

The first Sandow statuettes were awards at “The Great Competition” in 1901, a competition Sandow helped plan and judged himself. He must have been incredibly egocentric to make the prize to his own competition be a statue of himself. The statues had been first created in 1891 after Sandow had caught the attention of sculptor Fredrick W. Pomeroy and they collaborated on the design that February.

The first Sandow trophy was received by 1977 Mr. Olympia winner Frank Zane. The idea of having the Sandow trophy be the actual Mr. Olympia trophy was developed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Weider, and Jim Lormier during this time.

You can find out more about the history of the Sandow statuette on IFBB’s website and in a video done by Nick’s Strength and Power on YouTube.

The legacy (and vanity) of Eugen Sandow will live on with the culture of bodybuilding, as more men and women cross the stage in search of greatness to achieve their very own Sandows. Just like the young Sandow looking up to the physiques of the Roman and Greek gods, this seems like the exact kind of legacy he would’ve wanted.