| Greg Sushinsky Bodybuilding Presents: |
Preface
Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors” originally started out as an article written for the Wise Traditions
magazine, a publication put out quarterly by the Weston A. Price Foundation. This organization
is built upon the works of nutrition pioneers such as Drs. Weston Price, Francis Pottenger,
Edward Howell, and others who stood out in a unique manner over the past 100 years. With
great insight, these men clearly saw and established a solid relationship between diet and
disease.
Their years of study strongly illustrated the physical degeneration of both man and animal due
to dietary deficiencies. This work has contributed to an excellent historical and anthropological
record of the powerful role food has played in our general physical and mental health -- a role
that has been tragically ignored by a vast majority of the medical establishment.
Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, requested an article on the historical
eating habits of the bodybuilders. Hardly a century’s old culture such as the subjects of Weston
Price’s research, this was still a group of men and women who would produce some of the most
wild and outrageous eating habits ever to be recorded. The arduous task at hand, then, was to
ascertain the documented eating habits of the athletes who have yanked, tugged, heaved,
pulled, and lifted everything conceivable over an established period of time.
It quickly became apparent that in order for the reader to understand and follow the historical
eating habits of the bodybuilder, the evolution of the sport itself would have to be unraveled to
enrich the context of this story and to make it complete. Its origins and growth have been
intertwined, segregated, and at times worked in harmony with other barbell and health
advocates. And with little irony, the pioneering nutritional work of Weston Price, along with
both his forerunners and successors, would significantly impact the evolution of this tale.
The sport has both spawned and traversed several arbitrary eras. Each stage seemingly built
itself upon its predecessor, acquiring momentum and technologies that produced the most
outlandish caricatures of the human body to walk the earth in modern history. However, it can
also be argued that the industry really only incorporated 2 eras, as we shall see.
These athletes, along with the power players that ruled over them, have left their footprints in
the beach sands, gyms, and posing daises over the past few centuries. In some areas, these
prints are deep and clearly defined. Nonetheless, as the sport grew into its own, these tracks
would become less distinct as a veil would rapidly descend to shield many of the antics of the
industry from a naïve public. Though Europe played a huge role in the origins of the strength
game with many of its contributors, the centre stage for this story is the North American
continent. America did become the mecca of bodybuilding, but again, not without enormous
influence from other countries worldwide.
The process of unveiling and presenting the dietary eating history of bodybuilding would
represent a significant challenge since it involved piecing together a record that had not been
attempted in this field before. The advent of the actual sport of bodybuilding, along with its
idiosyncrasies, is fairly well documented for various reasons. First, many of the bodybuilders
who lived through the decades of significant change are still alive and accessible. Some may
want to discount the memories of these men since a few go back to the 1930s and 1940s.
To compound the issue, it is reasonable to assume that some or many would hold personal
biases that would simply represent history as they saw it, which may or may not have reflected
accurately what really happened. With bodybuilding, there is no dispute over the fact that there
were strong warring factions in the formative years and young athletes were sought and
recruited to pledge their allegiance to one camp or the other.
Acknowledging a good percentage of truth in the above statements, the interview process
would still prove extremely beneficial for this project. These men are the root of the booming
fitness industry we see today. They are the true die-hards, who in the decades past, trudged for
miles to remote, dingy and often hard-to-find gyms. In many cases, they would simply build their
own in basements or garages using any scrap material accessible to them. Take away all the
modern conveniences made available by today’s super-fitness facilities, and you would lose 95
percent of those gym populations, leaving only the likes of these men.
They have been pointed at, labelled, clinically categorized, and even laughed at, but to the men
of the Iron Game, the way they are is simply the way they were wired. Most of the individuals
interviewed were now senior in age and looked back at their era with a maturity, not to mention
a good sense of humour. Yes, a good number of their biases still remain, but they were now
perceived with a broader mind and a more educated view that comes with years and wisdom.
Often the stories they told were not self-flattering. This was apparent with many of these men
who look back with a sincere honesty and a willingness to own up to mistakes they made.
Does this make their statements more accurate? Not necessarily, but their sincerity certainly
commanded a deeper respect, and a more careful analysis of what they had to say. Although
many of them do not appear within the story, their input added historical context and
personality that resonated with the source material representing their eras.
However, as would be expected, their recollections often didn’t reconcile with the written
record. Due to the “smoke & mirror” nature of the Iron Game industry, a mitigation process
would often lean towards the vocal anecdotes of the senior athletes over that of the
documentation, for reasons which will become apparent further below.
Regardless, much of the information would in fact come from the written record. Bodybuilding
has a pretty solid trail of documentation going back over 100 years. The industry was producing
magazines from the very early 20th century from both Europe and North America. The
magazines would proliferate as the decades rolled by with some of them becoming powerful
vehicles of influence. These publications definitely reflected partisan views. Bob Hoffman’s
passion was weightlifting and his magazine Strength and Health clearly echoed that passion;
Joe Weider’s material was primarily dedicated to pure bodybuilding.
A more moderate publication drawn upon in hopes of clearer accuracy was Peary and Mabel
Rader’s Iron Man magazine. It did not command the largest circulation, but was by far the most
endeared muscle resource for the vast majority interviewed. The Raders ran a pretty open
forum and reported on all the muscle disciplines and their related events. They were liked and
respected by all, including the factions at war.
The decades of books and magazines actually offer a fascinating walk through a segment of
time viewed through the Iron Game lens. Most of the magazines had gossip columns that kept
the reader up to date on the superficial happenings of the bodybuilding scene on a monthly or
bi-monthly basis. Often, the editors or athletes would produce books and courses to be
marketed and sold through the magazines, so many of these publications are still readily
available through the sport’s collectors.
Men such as Bill Hinbern and Bob Adams have dealt thousands of copies of this material over
the years. Authors such as David L. Chapman, David Willoughby, Terry and Jan Todd (of Iron
Game History), Jim Murray, Vic Boff, John D. Fair and many others contributed countless
articles over the decades that are available for all to read.
Another resource that has taken communications by storm is of course the Internet. It is
virtually the world at your fingertips. Although vast in its wealth of information, it, too, must be
judiciously sifted through in order to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff.
Nevertheless, a number of Iron Game historical websites have put forth tremendous
contributions in presenting some early roots of Physical Culture, and the rise of modern
bodybuilding.
R. Christian Anderson’s sandowmuseum.com, Gil Waldron and Roger Fillary’s sandowplus.co.
uk, Tim Fogarty’s musclememory.com, and Bob Whelan’s naturalstrength.com represent just a
short list of standout efforts worthy of salute and recognition. These are amazing websites
loaded with classic photographs, biographies, film clips, entirely scanned vintage books going
back to the 1900s, contest histories, and scanned covers from just about every bodybuilding
magazine published, not to mention their table of contents made available for searching.
These men should not only be applauded for their tremendous efforts, but supported in any
way possible for these priceless endeavours. This is material that, just a few years ago, was
simply not available to the vast majority of researchers. To be able to view photos of any old
time athlete, download segments or entire books from the turn of the century, or to search the
table of contents of hundreds of magazines spanning 70 years in just seconds are unbelievable
gifts for those who appreciate what these men have done.
These were the resources available from within the bodybuilding field for this project.
Additional material from outside of bodybuilding, particularly from the nutrition field, was also
drawn upon to support the primary research. The challenge for an author reporting on any
historical chronology is to extract the pertinent data and assemble it in an objective manner. It
is far too easy for one to become quite subjective through personal biases and agendas, both
consciously and subconsciously.
Bodybuilding with all its history and politics is not by any means a pristine sport. It has
participated in its share of controversy. The industry is open and ripe for attack from various
angles. There are some observers who look upon bodybuilding as nothing but an egocentric
cesspool of prostitution, homosexuality, and drug abusers, all governed by dirty politics. The
sport’s media, primarily the major magazines, is looked upon as blatant sales catalogues that,
for decades, covered the truth of what was really happening behind the scenes.
Although there is some degree of truth to this line of thinking, it by no means represents the
totality of bodybuilding. To dwell on the seamier aspects would not give an accurate or full
account of what bodybuilding eventually came to represent. Aspects of the sport may have left
their original moorings or intent, but not all landed totally in the sewer. It is true that the major
magazines in most part sheltered the public over the decades by substituting the negatives
with the positives along with their presumed ideals, hence, the necessity of mitigating truth
through both the written record and vocal rendition.
In presenting so much ideology, the millions of young aspiring lifters devoured these
magazines and naively made these ideals become a reality. Over time, this readership grew to
drive the industry’s economy and finally came to represent the vast majority or real totality of
the sport of bodybuilding.
As easy as it would be to attack this seamier side, an all out assault was not the agenda. This
project certainly wasn’t written with any naivety, but at the same time there was no striving for a
total discrediting of the sport. To use a worn out cliché, the goal was to venture out and write a
story that has not been told, and Volume I is the “birth of bodybuilding and its amazing
nutritional origins”, all cloaked in a world of “Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors!”
magazine, a publication put out quarterly by the Weston A. Price Foundation. This organization
is built upon the works of nutrition pioneers such as Drs. Weston Price, Francis Pottenger,
Edward Howell, and others who stood out in a unique manner over the past 100 years. With
great insight, these men clearly saw and established a solid relationship between diet and
disease.
Their years of study strongly illustrated the physical degeneration of both man and animal due
to dietary deficiencies. This work has contributed to an excellent historical and anthropological
record of the powerful role food has played in our general physical and mental health -- a role
that has been tragically ignored by a vast majority of the medical establishment.
Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, requested an article on the historical
eating habits of the bodybuilders. Hardly a century’s old culture such as the subjects of Weston
Price’s research, this was still a group of men and women who would produce some of the most
wild and outrageous eating habits ever to be recorded. The arduous task at hand, then, was to
ascertain the documented eating habits of the athletes who have yanked, tugged, heaved,
pulled, and lifted everything conceivable over an established period of time.
It quickly became apparent that in order for the reader to understand and follow the historical
eating habits of the bodybuilder, the evolution of the sport itself would have to be unraveled to
enrich the context of this story and to make it complete. Its origins and growth have been
intertwined, segregated, and at times worked in harmony with other barbell and health
advocates. And with little irony, the pioneering nutritional work of Weston Price, along with
both his forerunners and successors, would significantly impact the evolution of this tale.
The sport has both spawned and traversed several arbitrary eras. Each stage seemingly built
itself upon its predecessor, acquiring momentum and technologies that produced the most
outlandish caricatures of the human body to walk the earth in modern history. However, it can
also be argued that the industry really only incorporated 2 eras, as we shall see.
These athletes, along with the power players that ruled over them, have left their footprints in
the beach sands, gyms, and posing daises over the past few centuries. In some areas, these
prints are deep and clearly defined. Nonetheless, as the sport grew into its own, these tracks
would become less distinct as a veil would rapidly descend to shield many of the antics of the
industry from a naïve public. Though Europe played a huge role in the origins of the strength
game with many of its contributors, the centre stage for this story is the North American
continent. America did become the mecca of bodybuilding, but again, not without enormous
influence from other countries worldwide.
The process of unveiling and presenting the dietary eating history of bodybuilding would
represent a significant challenge since it involved piecing together a record that had not been
attempted in this field before. The advent of the actual sport of bodybuilding, along with its
idiosyncrasies, is fairly well documented for various reasons. First, many of the bodybuilders
who lived through the decades of significant change are still alive and accessible. Some may
want to discount the memories of these men since a few go back to the 1930s and 1940s.
To compound the issue, it is reasonable to assume that some or many would hold personal
biases that would simply represent history as they saw it, which may or may not have reflected
accurately what really happened. With bodybuilding, there is no dispute over the fact that there
were strong warring factions in the formative years and young athletes were sought and
recruited to pledge their allegiance to one camp or the other.
Acknowledging a good percentage of truth in the above statements, the interview process
would still prove extremely beneficial for this project. These men are the root of the booming
fitness industry we see today. They are the true die-hards, who in the decades past, trudged for
miles to remote, dingy and often hard-to-find gyms. In many cases, they would simply build their
own in basements or garages using any scrap material accessible to them. Take away all the
modern conveniences made available by today’s super-fitness facilities, and you would lose 95
percent of those gym populations, leaving only the likes of these men.
They have been pointed at, labelled, clinically categorized, and even laughed at, but to the men
of the Iron Game, the way they are is simply the way they were wired. Most of the individuals
interviewed were now senior in age and looked back at their era with a maturity, not to mention
a good sense of humour. Yes, a good number of their biases still remain, but they were now
perceived with a broader mind and a more educated view that comes with years and wisdom.
Often the stories they told were not self-flattering. This was apparent with many of these men
who look back with a sincere honesty and a willingness to own up to mistakes they made.
Does this make their statements more accurate? Not necessarily, but their sincerity certainly
commanded a deeper respect, and a more careful analysis of what they had to say. Although
many of them do not appear within the story, their input added historical context and
personality that resonated with the source material representing their eras.
However, as would be expected, their recollections often didn’t reconcile with the written
record. Due to the “smoke & mirror” nature of the Iron Game industry, a mitigation process
would often lean towards the vocal anecdotes of the senior athletes over that of the
documentation, for reasons which will become apparent further below.
Regardless, much of the information would in fact come from the written record. Bodybuilding
has a pretty solid trail of documentation going back over 100 years. The industry was producing
magazines from the very early 20th century from both Europe and North America. The
magazines would proliferate as the decades rolled by with some of them becoming powerful
vehicles of influence. These publications definitely reflected partisan views. Bob Hoffman’s
passion was weightlifting and his magazine Strength and Health clearly echoed that passion;
Joe Weider’s material was primarily dedicated to pure bodybuilding.
A more moderate publication drawn upon in hopes of clearer accuracy was Peary and Mabel
Rader’s Iron Man magazine. It did not command the largest circulation, but was by far the most
endeared muscle resource for the vast majority interviewed. The Raders ran a pretty open
forum and reported on all the muscle disciplines and their related events. They were liked and
respected by all, including the factions at war.
The decades of books and magazines actually offer a fascinating walk through a segment of
time viewed through the Iron Game lens. Most of the magazines had gossip columns that kept
the reader up to date on the superficial happenings of the bodybuilding scene on a monthly or
bi-monthly basis. Often, the editors or athletes would produce books and courses to be
marketed and sold through the magazines, so many of these publications are still readily
available through the sport’s collectors.
Men such as Bill Hinbern and Bob Adams have dealt thousands of copies of this material over
the years. Authors such as David L. Chapman, David Willoughby, Terry and Jan Todd (of Iron
Game History), Jim Murray, Vic Boff, John D. Fair and many others contributed countless
articles over the decades that are available for all to read.
Another resource that has taken communications by storm is of course the Internet. It is
virtually the world at your fingertips. Although vast in its wealth of information, it, too, must be
judiciously sifted through in order to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff.
Nevertheless, a number of Iron Game historical websites have put forth tremendous
contributions in presenting some early roots of Physical Culture, and the rise of modern
bodybuilding.
R. Christian Anderson’s sandowmuseum.com, Gil Waldron and Roger Fillary’s sandowplus.co.
uk, Tim Fogarty’s musclememory.com, and Bob Whelan’s naturalstrength.com represent just a
short list of standout efforts worthy of salute and recognition. These are amazing websites
loaded with classic photographs, biographies, film clips, entirely scanned vintage books going
back to the 1900s, contest histories, and scanned covers from just about every bodybuilding
magazine published, not to mention their table of contents made available for searching.
These men should not only be applauded for their tremendous efforts, but supported in any
way possible for these priceless endeavours. This is material that, just a few years ago, was
simply not available to the vast majority of researchers. To be able to view photos of any old
time athlete, download segments or entire books from the turn of the century, or to search the
table of contents of hundreds of magazines spanning 70 years in just seconds are unbelievable
gifts for those who appreciate what these men have done.
These were the resources available from within the bodybuilding field for this project.
Additional material from outside of bodybuilding, particularly from the nutrition field, was also
drawn upon to support the primary research. The challenge for an author reporting on any
historical chronology is to extract the pertinent data and assemble it in an objective manner. It
is far too easy for one to become quite subjective through personal biases and agendas, both
consciously and subconsciously.
Bodybuilding with all its history and politics is not by any means a pristine sport. It has
participated in its share of controversy. The industry is open and ripe for attack from various
angles. There are some observers who look upon bodybuilding as nothing but an egocentric
cesspool of prostitution, homosexuality, and drug abusers, all governed by dirty politics. The
sport’s media, primarily the major magazines, is looked upon as blatant sales catalogues that,
for decades, covered the truth of what was really happening behind the scenes.
Although there is some degree of truth to this line of thinking, it by no means represents the
totality of bodybuilding. To dwell on the seamier aspects would not give an accurate or full
account of what bodybuilding eventually came to represent. Aspects of the sport may have left
their original moorings or intent, but not all landed totally in the sewer. It is true that the major
magazines in most part sheltered the public over the decades by substituting the negatives
with the positives along with their presumed ideals, hence, the necessity of mitigating truth
through both the written record and vocal rendition.
In presenting so much ideology, the millions of young aspiring lifters devoured these
magazines and naively made these ideals become a reality. Over time, this readership grew to
drive the industry’s economy and finally came to represent the vast majority or real totality of
the sport of bodybuilding.
As easy as it would be to attack this seamier side, an all out assault was not the agenda. This
project certainly wasn’t written with any naivety, but at the same time there was no striving for a
total discrediting of the sport. To use a worn out cliché, the goal was to venture out and write a
story that has not been told, and Volume I is the “birth of bodybuilding and its amazing
nutritional origins”, all cloaked in a world of “Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors!”
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