Bodybuilding

From Theodore Roosevelt to Charles Atlas to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the story is a familiar one: A weak or sickly boy, riddled with self-doubt and powerlessness, develops into a strong, confident, and magnetic man through a disciplined bodybuilding regimen. Bodybuilding had its origins in the United States in the late nineteenth century, and it has grown in popularity, both as a fitness practice and a competitive sport, into the twenty-first century. Throughout its history, bodybuilding has been fundamentally concerned with the transformation of the self. This metamorphosis through muscle building represents a fundamentally modern ideal of masculinity that emerged at a time of vast social and cultural change.

As constructions of masculinity in the United States became increasingly grounded in the biological and medical aspects of the male body during the late nineteenth century, America witnessed a craze in physical-culture regimens aimed at developing the physique and promoting health. Theodore Roosevelt was the best-known example of this new ethic of “strenuous manhood,” but the push toward a muscular virility extended outside of elite circles to a wider American populace. The Prussian-born bodybuilder Eugen Sandow became an instant celebrity when he toured the United States in the 1890s, performing feats of strength and displaying his (near-naked) muscular physique. Bernarr Macfadden, a health reformer and canny businessman, was inspired to develop his own body after seeing Sandow perform, and he attracted more than 100,000 readers to his monthly magazine Physical Culture (founded in 1898) through a combination of sensational images and health advice.

This new focus on strength and fitness reflected widespread anxieties about the status of white middle-class manhood in turn-of-the-century industrial America. Fitness promoters capitalized on fears that white middle-class men were becoming weak and “overcivilized” in corporate America, and that their influence was being eroded by the threats posed by labor unrest, immigration, and the emerging women's movement. In contrast, the developed body combined classical Greek ideals of beauty with aggressiveness and sexuality, thereby co-opting the strength and vitality associated with races perceived as more primitive, while still preserving a mantle of civilization for white men. Celebrity strongmen such as Sandow and Macfadden became part of a new society of spectacle and mass consumption, displaying their erotically charged bodies in front of mixed-gender audiences and through mass-produced photographs and widely circulated magazines.

Following the initial enthusiasm for strength training around 1900, muscle building continued to be promoted over the next several decades by popular figures such as Charles Atlas (the 97-pound weakling) and Bob Hoffman, the owner of York Barbell and Strength and Health magazine. Whereas the turn-of-the-century physical culture movement had emphasized the revitalization of white Anglo-Saxon men, most of the weightlifters who congregated in Bob Hoffman's “muscletown” of York, Pennsylvania, during the mid-twentieth century were first- or second-generation immigrants who sought success and acceptance in America through a rigorous regimen of weight training. Hoffman even identified the hard work and discipline of his immigrant corps as the true sources of American power, arguing that a physically fit, democratic America could overcome the threats posed by world dictators and communism.

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