Eugen Sandow, known as the 'father of modern bodybuilding', was born in Prussia in 1867. It's easy to believe that bodybuilding was invented by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the art of building muscle was born long before his time. One of the original trailblazers - a man who inspired the bodybuilding movement - was Eugen Sandow. He gained interest in bodybuilding at the age of 10. In his early years he trained with strongman Ludwig Durlacher and began competing in strongman competitions. Later, in 1901 he organised and judged one of the world's first bodybuilding competitions. Sandow was a pioneer in physical fitness and exercise at the turn of the 20th century. He is considered the first man to use strength training to sculpt the ‘perfect physique’. Sandow's physique became a symbol of strength and health. His approach to nutrition was revolutionary for his time, emphasizing the importance of a balanced diet tailored to support rigorous physical training. Sandow believed that a well-structured diet was essential for achieving optimal performance and aesthetic appeal, which laid the groundwork for many contemporary dietary practices in fitness and bodybuilding.
Eugen Sandow: The Man Behind the Muscle
Eugen Sandow, born Friedrich Wilhelm Muller in Königsberg, Prussia (modern day Germany), on April 2, 1867, is often referred to as the “Father of Modern Bodybuilding” and was well known for his impressive physique and strength. Sandow was trained by world renown physical cultureist Ludwig Durlacher, better known as Professor Attila. Attila was the first ever personal trainer and his clients included the elite society of the time. Attila trained members of royal families and the best athletes of the victorian era.
A little backstory - Sandow left Prussia in 1885 to avoid military service. Which many people probably wouldn’t blame him given the horrors of war and political motivations. Four years after fleeing, Eugen made his first appearance on stage in London circa 1889. He also performed feats of strength as a circus athlete, such as bending steel bars and lifting heavy ass weights to showcase his power. Sandow had good promoters that saw dollar signs after seeing the crowd’s reaction to Sandow’s bulging muscles. His promoters read the room and saw that the audience was most impressed by Sandow’s figure than the weight he could lift. So they started promoting that angle. And BOOM. A star was born. Sandow quickly gained fame for his posing routines and being toted the finest specimen of male form. He had groupies of Sandow admirers at any stage he went. They swooned over his flexed muscles. And he became something of an international sex symbol . Sandow turned his fame into many successful business ventures and positively impacted physical culture across the world. He plunged into the world of scientific and physical culture and turned it into bone fide fitness enterprises. He was well promoted and the first strongman to be on film. He also had the advantage of being displayed on a new medium that was incredible technology at the time. Almost like magic capturing moving pictures in great detail. This new technology immortalized Sandow in a way not seen before.
As a young impressionable lad, young Eugen wondered through the natural history museum gawking at Ancient Greek and roman statues. He was captivated by the beauty of the human form and strived to develop the perfect body through physical fitness. You could say that the greek gods of old were the original fitness influencers. Sandow carried out “muscle display performances” along side feats of physical strength with barbells and the crowd thrilling breaking-a-chain-around-his-chest move. Where he’d flex his pectorals and burst out of a fucking chain. Sandow found his way into a movie in 1894 by the Edison Studios. The film showed him posing and flexing his muscles in a fluid motion. This captured the viewer in awe of the smoothness of witnessing Eugen’s performance on the moving pictures. He also appeared in a Kinetoscope film that was part of the first ever commercial motion picture exhibition in history.
Sandow created the Institute of Physical Culture, which was a gymnasium for body builders and fitness buffs. And later founded a monthly periodical, aptly named Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture. Sandow organized the first major bodybuilding contest at the Royal Albert Hall on September 14, 1901. The first bodybuilding was called the “Great Competition” and was judged by and Eugen Sandow himself, and two supporting cast members: athlete and sculptor Sir Charles Lawes (who’s credentials include decorated rower and having works of art exhibited in the Royal Academy of Arts), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote a little known novel about a character names Sherlock Holmes.
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Sandow's Training Philosophy
Sandow believed in the importance of a balanced training regimen that included both weightlifting and cardiovascular exercises. Sandow obviously performed all the traditional strongman movements, like bent press, overhead press, etc. These were the core of his training and did the most to build his legendary strongman physiques. Sandow trained with light dumbbells for many reps. The idea was to put the mind inside the muscle. The light dumbbells were used to help focus on the muscle being worked. This was less about building huge muscles and more about learning muscle control. In fact Eugen famously shilled his ‘Sandow light dumbbell system’ which was a training program designed for using very light weights. He also emphasized the importance of proper nutrition and rest in order to build and maintain a healthy, muscular body. In addition to weight lifting, Sandow incorporated a variety of other exercises into his training routine. His exercise routine included calisthenics, gymnastics, and boxing to build strength, stamina, and grit. Training variety is also a good way to keep things fresh. Bronze era bodybuilding workouts in general were a combination of heavy lifting and total body workouts. As a pioneering bodybuilder and strongman, Eugen Sandow believed in the importance of a balanced training regimen that included a variety of exercises. In addition to weightlifting, Sandow would also incorporate calisthenics, gymnastics, and even boxing into his training routine. He was known to perform a number of strongman feats, such as bending steel bars and lifting heavy weights, in order to showcase his strength and physical prowess.
Examples of exercises that Sandow may have performed include:
- Bench press
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Pull-ups
- Push-ups
- Sit-ups
- Lunges
- Dips
- Bicep curls
- Tricep extensions
- Calf raises
It is important to note that these are just examples of the types of exercises that Sandow may have performed, and that his exact training routine would have varied depending on his goals and the specific needs of his body at the time. He also incorporated static holding exercise such as the iron cross to build up his shoulders. Broad shoulders are needed to get the grecian ideal male physique. You know the look. The V shape torso with wide shoulders and a thin waist. He also developed exercises for chest expansion to further reach those classic bodybuilding proportions. Its’ safe to say Sandow performed exercises like the other strongmen of the 1800 and 1900’s such as bent press, clean and press and club swings. And, although not know for his chest bulk, Sandow dabbled with the chest press and push ups to strengthen and shape the upper body muscles.
The Sandow Inspired Workout for 2025
Sandow recommended completing this workout daily, but we don't all have the luxury or inclination to complete the same programme every single day. So we have made some tweaks to exercises, set and rep recommendations to make it more suitable and effective - but it is still heavily inspired by the work of Sandow himself.
- Alternating Dumbbell Bicep Curl: x 25 reps each side. Increase by 5 reps every session. Start with the dumbbells hanging in front of your hips with palms facing upwards. Keep the elbows glued to your waist and bring one dumbbell up to meet your shoulder. Keep your shoulders pinned back and don’t cheat by using the hips. Repeat on the other side.
- Reverse Barbell Curl: x 25 reps. Increase by 2 reps every session. Stand tall with a barbell hanging at your waist, overhand grip, hands shoulder-width apart. Keep your torso still and upper arms pinned to your sides as you curl the bar upwards towards your chin. Squeeze here and lower the bar under control. Repeat.
- Alternating Cross-Body Dumbbell Curl: x 10 reps each side and 2 sets. Increase by 1 rep every session. Stand holding two dumbbells by your sides, palms facing towards each other. One at a time, curl each weight up towards your opposing shoulder. Return under control to the start position and repeat on the other side.
- Dumbbell Chest Fly: x 15 reps and 2 sets. Increase by one rep every session. Lie back on the bench, then press the dumbbells up above your chest with a neutral grip. Bend your elbows slightly, then lower the weights down to the sides, moving only at the shoulders. Squeeze your pecs to raise the weights back up to the starting position, ready to repeat.
- Alternating Shoulder Press: x 15 reps each side and 2 sets. Increase by 1 rep every session. Hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height, palms facing inward. Push one dumbbell up overhead. Lower to the start position and repeat on the other side.
- Alternating Front Raise: x 5 reps each side and 2 sets. Increase by 1 rep every session. Stand holding a dumbbell in either hand by your side. Slightly bend your knees and lift the dumbbells in front of you until they're shoulder height. Bring them back to starting position and repeat.
- Barbell Wrist Curl: x failure. Sit on a bench and hold a barbell with your palms facing up. Rest your forearms on your knees and lower the bar towards the floor as far as possible. Curl your wrist upward, pause, then slowly lower. Sandow also recommended dumbbell rotations for wrist strength.
- Alternating Dumbbell Lunge: x 20 reps and 2 sets. Increase by 2 reps every session. Stand tall. Keeping your chest up at all times, take a step forward with one leg, bending your front knee until the back knee touches the ground. Stand up explosively, pause and repeat with the other leg.
- Weighted Push-up into Bodyweight Push-up: x 5 reps / to failure. Hit a strong plank position, with your core tight and hands under your shoulders. Place a plate on your back or wear a weight vest. Bend your elbows to bring your chest to the floor. Keep your elbows close to your body as you push back up explosively. Complete 5 reps with weight, remove the weight and carry on to failure.
- Superset:
- Sit-up: x 15 reps and 3 sets. Lie on the floor with your legs bent and your soles on the floor. Lie with your hands behind your head or straight up in front of you. Look up at the ceiling and push your lower back into the floor. Engage your abs, flexing at the stomach as you lift yourself all the way up. Keep your elbows back and your chin in place without jutting forward. Reverse the move slowly back to the floor and repeat.
- Side Bend: x 15 reps and 3 sets. Stand tall with a dumbbell in each hand. While facing forward, tilt the torso laterally. The dumbbell should lower down the side of your thigh. Return to the starting position ready to repeat.
- Finisher: Goblet Squat and Dumbbell Swing: x 20 reps, 15 reps, 10 reps, 5 reps - 20 seconds rest between each set. Hold your dumbbell in front of your chest with your palms facing upwards. Standing tall, keep your chest up and sink your hips back, before bending your knees to drop your thighs until they are at least parallel to the floor. Drive up back to standing, ready to repeat. For dumbbell swings, start with the feet a little wider than the hips. Pull the dumbbell from the floor in front of you, snap the hips forward explosively to drive the dumbbell up to eye line. Trace the arc shape in reverse, back between the legs. Snap the hips and repeat until you finish the set.
Eugen Sandow's Nutritional Philosophy
As a bodybuilder and strongman, Sandow followed a balanced diet that included a variety of nutrient-rich foods in order to support his monster training sessions and physical activity. He ate by instinct. It is also important to note that Sandow lived and trained in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that nutritional value of food was different at that time compared to today. The food was natural back then. Much better for you than today. Less bastardization. No addition of artificial ingredients, synthetic fillers and soybean and seed oils. What I’m saying here is that the food was more nutritious, and blended with the humans system better since it was easier to digest. He ate protein from animals, nuts, seeds, and seasonal fruits and vegetables and local fair based on travel. Sandow ate clean and he ate well. He also preached moderation so a little bit of this and a little bit of that from time to time was fine. Don’t over indulge but don’t deprive yourself either. Sandow drank beer and wine too but he avoided strong spirits and liquor.
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The old school bodybuilders and Victorian strongmen of the Bronze Era were big masticators. They masticated so much. They believed that you could never have too much mastication. These masticators chewed their food into a fine paste because this made the food easier to digest so your body could utilize the nutrients better. Good digestion is essential for good health by extracting maximum nutrition value from food. Sandow’s diet was very basic. Sandow held a varied and balanced diet. He didn’t need ‘detox’ weeks, let alone ‘cheat days’. He maintained his healthy physique through a combination of nutritious foods and regular exercise something that is often forgotten when one looks at modern miracle diets. Moderation for the ‘Father of Bodybuilding’ was the key to success. He didn’t deprive himself of anything nor did he indulge heavily in the richer foods of life.
Sandow did not consume large amounts of protein. Sandow was a proponent of getting his protein requirements from raw eggs and meat but again within the context of moderation and he was not alone in this. George Hackenschmidt largely subsided on a diet of nuts, fruit and vegetables. He drank milk, ate eggs but rarely indulged in eating large quantities of meant. Firstly it seems as if patience and moderation seem to have been important for Sandow. He didn’t try to lose 30pounds in two weeks, nor did he try gaining 30 pounds of muscle in two months. Secondly men like Sandow and Hackenschmidt were proponents of listening to your body. If you feel better when you ate a vegetarian diet you did that, similarly if you felt better eating meat. Finally when we look at Sandow’s diet it’s shocking how simple it was. Granted food quality was perhaps better during Sandow’s time but the incessant need for the modern weight trainer to have protein shakes, pre-workouts, multivitamins, Creatine and so on and so forth seems insane when we look at Sandow’s regime. Has our food gotten so bad that we ‘have to’ use these supplements?
Sandow understood the importance of maintaining proper hydration levels for optimal performance and recovery. He made it a point to drink water consistently throughout the day, rather than waiting until he felt thirsty. This proactive approach ensured that he remained hydrated during his workouts and daily activities. In addition to plain water, Sandow occasionally consumed natural juices or herbal teas to enhance hydration while providing additional nutrients. For instance, fresh fruit juices could offer vitamins and minerals while also replenishing electrolytes lost during intense training sessions. Sandow recognized that hydration goes beyond just water intake; it involves maintaining a balance of electrolytes as well.
Sandow placed significant emphasis on pre- and post-workout nutrition as part of his training regimen. He understood that what one consumes before exercising can greatly impact performance levels during workouts. Typically, Sandow would consume a meal rich in carbohydrates and moderate in protein about an hour before training. This could include oatmeal with fruit or a smoothie made with yogurt and berries-both options providing readily available energy for his workouts. Post-workout nutrition was equally important in Sandow's routine. After intense training sessions, he prioritized replenishing glycogen stores and promoting muscle recovery through adequate protein intake. A common post-workout meal might consist of a protein shake combined with a banana or a meal featuring lean meat with sweet potatoes-both designed to restore energy levels while providing the necessary nutrients for muscle repair.
A Glimpse into a Day of Eating
During an engagement of Mr. Eugen Sandow, the “strong man,” in Washington, January, 1896, an attempt was made to determine the character and amount of food he consumed. Mr. Sandow claims to be the strongest man in the world, and substantiates this claim by performing many wonderful feats of strength, one of which is the raising of a 300-pound dumb-bell above his head with one hand. He is a German by birth, and is now 29 years old; is 5 feet 9 inches tall, and weighs 200 pounds. His waist measures 28 inches; his chest, 47 expanded, 61 inches; upper arm, contracted, 19 1/2 inches; forearm, 16 1/4 inches; thigh, 27 inches; calf 17 1/2 inches; and neck, 18 inches. He states that in his youth he had no phenomenal muscular development, but acquired his present muscular condition by training. This training was begun nine years ago. At the present time he does not take regular exercise other than his professional work. Mr. Sandow does not follow any prescribed diet, but eat whatever he desires, always being careful to eat less than he craves, rather than more. He eats very slowly. He sleeps very late in the morning. Sometimes he takes a cup of weak tea and a little bread in the morning, but usually his first meal is eaten about noon. He eats again about 6 o’clock, and again about midnight, after his exhibition of feats of strength is over.
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In the present experiment it was necessary to limit the period of observation to one day. The plan was to weigh each article of food as it was served to Mr. Sandow, and then weigh what was not consumed. Three meals were eaten; dinner and breakfast at the hotel where he was stopping, and supper at a restaurant. He rejected all the visible fat of the meat. In compiling the data obtained, the composition of the food was calculated from standard tables (Atwarter’s and Konig’s). It was assumed that 1 gram of alcohol was equal to 1.71 grams of carbohydrates. The figures used are those given in Table 46. It will be seen that the heaviest meal was consumed very soon after the severe exercise.
The total amount of food consumed is rather more than the average, though in his own opinion Mr. Sandow is not a large eater. The fact that so much protein is consumed is of especial interest.
Was Eugen Sandow on Steroids?
It’s safe to say Eugen Sandow was natural. Steroids hadn’t been invent during Sandow’s time. Plus, he wasn’t that big. Sure, he was in amazing shape and most men would kill to have a physique like that. But compared to your run of the mill fitness influences Sandow is small. Synthetic testosterone was probably swirling around in the shadows for a while before it became public. He was of German decent so maybe he had the hook up. It’s possible but very unlikely because testosterone wasn’t available until the 1920’s. Sandow was passed his prime at that time.
There are rumors that he enjoyed a fresh line of Columbian cociane from time to time to stay lean and trim. There could be some truth to that since doctors could prescribe the stuff. Cocaine is a stimulant that can give you energy and strength to train hard, and it also could stifle your appetite so you stay lean and mean. Hard to know for sure if Mr. Sandow dabbled with booger sugar but cocaine was just a doctor order away back then so could be true.
How Strong Was Eugen Sandow?
Sandow could one-arm snatch 180 pounds and bench press 270 pounds. So he was Pretty damn strong. He was one of the strongest victorian strongman, he may have even been the world’s strongest man at one time. He was certainly the most well known strength athlete of the Bronze era. In fact, the Eugen Sandow award is given to the reigning champion of body building, Mr. Olympia, if given a bronze statue of Sandow for their victory.
How Did Eugen Sandow Train Legs?
Sandow did dumbbell lunges to build his quadriceps, hamstrings and hips. Jumping, lots of walking, step ups and general all-around heavy lifting built his legs. As you need a strong foundation to keep standing while holding several hundred pounds. Sandow very likely did knee bends or bent knees exercises which you and I refer to as squats.
Eugen Sandow Quotes
Here are some quotes from the man himself. They encapsulate his training philosophy.
- “Health is a divine gift, and the care of the body is a sacred duty, to neglect is to sin.”
- “Life is movement. Once you stop moving, you’re dead. Choose life.”
- “Nothing, in my opinion, is better than the use of the dumbbell, for developing the whole system, particularly if it is used intelligently, and with a knowledge of the location and functions of the muscles.”
- “You may go through the list of exercises with dumbbells a hundred times a day, but unless you fix your mind upon those muscles to which the work is applied, such exercise will bring but little, if any, benefit. If, upon the other hand, you concentrate your mind upon the muscles in use, then immediately development begins.”