There was the strong men of the past and the body builders of today. If you compare the two, there really is not much difference. Many would state the 60’s or 70’s was when it all started happening, but with the strongmen in truth it happened many years before.

It was Bob Hoffman who is stated as being the pioneer for the sport of bodybuilding exercise. Hoffman started to promote body building in the 30’s. It was later on when Joe Weider began also promoting body builders and the sport of body building in general, he did this with the launch of publications, which then in turn helped bring more attention to the sport of body building. Weider actually went on to be the promoter for the Mr. Olympia competition that was, in its times the main and premiere body building contest in the entire world.

Steve Reeves also helped with attracting more attention the sport of body building, there was noone before Reeves that had a physique like him. He was actually made to play Hercules in two Italian films because of the way he was built.

Then the body building world finally found its spokesperson when they found Arnold Schwarzenegger. He went to Weiders gym to begin to train for the Mr Olympia contest. He was the star of a documentary called Pumping Iron, this showed him to be charismatic like noone had ever seen before in that field and a physique that made every one else look like they could not be bothered to train!

The bodybuilding workout and sport has generally been regarded like it was just a bit weird, but with that came a curiosity, and then followed a boom in the body building world. Boys were wanting to join and become like their heroes. It has since become a massive enterprise turning into a million dollar business, that is still strong today and is sure to carry on doing so for ever.

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