Bodybuilding Icon Joe Weider dies at 93

[bahodeme]

For starting opening the eyes of some of us (including myself) to weightlifting & body building, thank you. :hatsoff:

(Reuters) - Joe Weider, the self-made fitness and bodybuilding guru who built a magazine empire that included more than a dozen popular publications such as Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Men's Fitness, died on Saturday at the age of 93.

Weider, also known for starting the Mr Olympia bodybuilding contest in the 1960s and mentoring a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, passed away from heart failure at a Los Angeles area hospital, his longtime publicist Charlotte Parker said.

"Joe Weider was a titan in the fitness industry and one of the kindest men I have ever met," Schwarzenegger said in a statement posted on his official website.

"He leaves behind a fantastic legacy of a fitter world," the film star and former governor of California said. "Very few people can claim to have influenced as many lives as Joe did through his magazines, his supplements, his training equipment and his big-hearted personality."

Born in a tough neighborhood of Montreal in 1920, Weider began lifting weights as a teenager to stand up to bullies and older boys before competing in his first bodybuilding contest at the age of 17, according to a biography provided by Parker.

He started his first magazine, Your Physique, in the early 1940s and with his younger brother Ben rented Montreal's Monument National Theater to host the first Mr Canada contest during that same decade.

The two brothers also founded the International Federation of Bodybuilders and in 1965 Weider created the Mr Olympia competition, the sport's premiere bodybuilding contest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/23/entertainment-us-usa-weider-idUSBRE92M0ED20130323

 

[wdoall]

RIP Joe, The 6 pack I sported in my younger years was made possible by you

 

[ApolloBalboa]

A douche for so much false advertising, lying about the prevalent use of drugs in the sport, and arsehole for general reasons, but God bless 'im, he brought bodybuilding into the public eye and gave us Ahnuld. RIP mon frere.

 

[D-rock]

lying about the prevalent use of drugs in the sport

What sport? I hope you're not talking about bodybuilding. Bodybuilding isn't a sport. As far as lying about drugs in it, a part of my can't really blame him. A good portion of the public gets overly and nonsensically hysterical about things like steroids as it is, and people exaggerate it's negative mental effects to a ridiculous degree. I can't imagine what it would be like if he just came out and said, "Yeah, pretty much every high level professional bodybuilder uses them", which is admittedly true. People would have used that statement and went nuts. He didn't really have much option being in that situation.

If an adult wants to take an informed risk with his body and use them in that situation it's none of my concern. If it was an actual competitive sport where they are banned for the unfair advantages they give and the players cared about people not using them (which the vast majority of people in non-natural bodybuilding and people in the culture don't care) you might have a point. As it is I care about as much if a bodybuilder uses steroids as some actor that uses them to get big for a movie role or if some nobody down the street wanted to use them for whatever reason, which is to say very little. (I should note that for a good amount of time in my past I was pretty big into bodybuilding, but I never took any PEDs and stayed natural. That was a choice about my health and how far I wanted to take things though and not some moral stance I took on the issue.)

As far as the false advertising,...okay, I can see that. There have probably been times he played fast and lose with it to cash in. You have a point there.

Being a jerk? Well yes and no. He did do a lot of decent things, but he also did things like meddle with his competitions to the point a lot of people consider some of them fixed.

 

[ApolloBalboa]

What sport? I hope you're not talking about bodybuilding. Bodybuilding isn't a sport. As far as lying about drugs in it, a part of my can't really blame him. A good portion of the public gets overly and nonsensically hysterical about things like steroids as it is, and people exaggerate it's negative mental effects to a ridiculous degree. I can't imagine what it would be like if he just came out and said, "Yeah, pretty much every high level professional bodybuilder uses them", which is admittedly true. People would have used that statement and went nuts. He didn't really have much option being in that situation.

If an adult wants to take an informed risk with his body and use them in that situation it's none of my concern. If it was an actual competitive sport where they are banned for the unfair advantages they give and the players cared about people not using them (which the vast majority of people in non-natural bodybuilding and people in the culture don't care) you might have a point. As it is I care about as much if a bodybuilder uses steroids as some actor that uses them to get big for a movie role or if some nobody down the street wanted to use them for whatever reason, which is to say very little. (I should note that for a good amount of time in my past I was pretty big into bodybuilding, but I never took any PEDs and stayed natural. That was a choice about my health and how far I wanted to take things though and not some moral stance I took on the issue.)

As far as the false advertising,...okay, I can see that. There have probably been times he played fast and lose with it to cash in. You have a point there.

Being a jerk? Well yes and no. He did do a lot of decent things, but he also did things like meddle with his competitions to the point a lot of people consider some of them fixed.

I wouldn't say bodybuilding is a sport in the exact usage of the word, but I wouldn't say a lot of so-called "sports" deserve to be called sports, nowadays or ever. I'll save that debate for another day though.

You make a fair point though, what was he supposed to do, own up and say "everyone uses them?" Even if we (people who follow it or just the general public) know already, it's kind of like "don't ask don't tell". Still, I'll take obvious chemical enhancement to the point of ridiculousness in bodybuilding even if it isn't a sport, to the occasional Dianabol injection in pro football/baseball/hockey where any massive gains are attributed to an athlete's performance or skill. At least with bodybuilding I'm aware it's all chemicals nowadays as opposed to hearing about how such and such has been training hard in the off-season and doing conditioning, when I can tell by the bloated stomach and man titties that it's drugs.

Being a jerk was a bit strong, I'll agree. I was referring to his hand in some of his competitions, but I could've addressed that more directly/chosen a better term for him.

 

[Mr. Daystar]

Just goes to show you, no matter how well you take care of your self...you can't out run the reaper. R.I.P.