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GYM LORE: The History of Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding, as a sport goes back to the 12 th century in India where the first training methods and bodybuilding nutrition were invented. By the 16 th century, bodybuilding has turn out to be a national activity and by this time, people from different parts of the world have taken up its concept and used stone and wood to invent the first dumbbell, thus spawning the essential component of bodybuilding, which is weightlifting.
The late 1800s to the early 1900s led to bodybuilding becoming an extensively popular commercial sport, particularly among the public. Around Europe , this was also the period where the first national and international bodybuilding competitions took place mostly.
Bodybuilding: Father of Modern Bodybuilding
A key figure in pushing bodybuilding into the kind of sport it is today was Eugen Sandow. Renowned as ‘The Father of Modern Bodybuilding,’ he continuously promoted his fitness and bodybuilding philosophy and even published one of the first bodybuilding magazines, Physical Culture. His persistence in endorsing bodybuilding finally bore fruit when the first official weightlifting contests were held. In Athens , Greece , the sport was first incorporated into the Olympic Games as a main event in the 1896 Olympic Games. And five years after that, Sandow was privileged as one of the judges in a bodybuilding event that drew 2,000 spectators in the Royal Albert Hall in London .
The 1920s saw bodybuilding as a more and more popular sport and a very lucrative industry. New muscular celebrities like Charles Atlas came to the limelight, adding more to the whole commotion over bodybuilding. All over the world, commercially manufactured dumbbells and barbells were selling like hotcakes while new developments in exercise devices, diet plans, and bodybuilding approaches were increasing in volume every year.
The Golden Age of Bodybuilding
Around the 1940s to the 1970s, the Golden Age of Bodybuilding happened. This was the era of muscle beaches, movie franchises like Hercules and Tarzan that figured bodybuilders-turned-actors, and bodybuilding legends like Joe Gold, Harold Zinkin, and the two-time Mr. America John Grimek. During this time, bodybuilding separated itself officially from weightlifting. Its basic ideology was finally hardened and its goals set on health, strength, fitness, and aesthetic muscular building.
Led by the charismatic Arnold Schwarzenegger from 1966 to the present, the latest breed of professional builders promoted the sport to new heights. Using his talent, charisma, and astounding physique, Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger transformed his body into the materialized version of every bodybuilding fans’ ideal form to achieve.
Anabolic steroids were gradually introduced in professional bodybuilding and other competitive sports were around this time. Its existence and the role it plays ruined bodybuilding as a sport but even so, bodybuilding preserved its universal appeal for its main values never changed.
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