2021.03.01世界上第一个健身影响者是维多利亚时代的壮汉
REWINDThe world’s first fitness influencer was a Victorian strongman
A century before Instagram, Eugen Sandow used familiar techniques to build a fitness empire
Mar 1st 2021
BY WILL COLDWELL
When Eugen Sandow (pictured) opened his first School of Physical Culture in London in the summer of 1897, he ensured that its decor matched his personal brand. On arrival at 32A St James’s Street, visitors found themselves facing a life-sized statue of the founder himself. A nearby oil painting depicted Sandow as an ancient gladiator. In both cases his sculpted physique evoked the spirit of Greek classicism that Sandow, regarded in his heyday as the “perfect man”, strove to embody.
The opening of the school heralded the birth of the Sandow fitness empire. It was the culmination of a decade of celebrity status that Sandow, a circus strongman from Prussia with a winning smile and a striking moustache, had enjoyed since arriving in Britain in 1889. That year he earned the title of “strongest man on Earth” when he vanquished Charles Samson, a Frenchman. In a bicep-popping competition at the London Aquarium, the men burst chains with their chests and lifted a (presumably normal) man at arm’s length. Sandow secured victory when he lifted a 280-pound (127kg) weight with one hand. Samson couldn’t compete.
There were tougher men out there. Stronger men, too. Sandow lost the title 18 months later, but he had struck a chord with the public. Though other Victorian strongmen faded from memory, Sandow remained a household name (and sex symbol) until his death in 1925 from an aortic aneurysm (reportedly a consequence of lifting his car out of a ditch a year or so previously).
What endeared Sandow to the public was his ordinariness. When the curly-haired, blond gent of average height arrived on stage to compete with Samson, people laughed. Only when he removed his coat and waistcoat to reveal his muscular body did they take him seriously. Despite his strength, he looked much like any other man when clothed – and so he offered a glimmer of hope to others that they could become just like him.
“Hundreds of letters reach me daily, asking, ‘Can I become strong?’ Yes, you can all become strong if you have the will and use it in the right direction. But, in the first place, you must learn to exercise your mind.”
Sandow sold them everything they needed to do so. He started with a chain of gyms. Sandow was hot property: among his celebrity fans were Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Shackleton and King George V. He published books, launched a magazine and sold supplements and workout equipment. His branded merchandise included Sandow’s Concentrated Embrocation, a muscle rub, Sandow’s Health and Strength Cocoa, which was a proto-protein shake, and Sandow’s Perfect Figure Corset, “a woman’s good fortune”.
If there was an opportunity to capitalise financially from his A-list eminence, Sandow grabbed it with both hands and raised it effortlessly above his head, arms aloft, moustache twitching. A century before Kayla Itsines (12.8m Instagram followers), Joe Wicks (4m followers), Adriene Mishler (1.1m followers) or Michelle Lewin (13.7m followers), there was Sandow. He was the original fitness influencer.
Joe Wicks may have received an mbe from the queen for delivering online exercise classes to kids during the coronavirus lockdown, but Sandow impressed the monarchy so much he was appointed professor of scientific physical culture to the king. Crossfit, high-intensity interval training, hot yoga and spin classes were all foreshadowed by Sandow’s System of Physical Training just over a century ago.
Sandow’s accessible programme of exercises – which focused on multiple reps with smaller weights – was taken up by hundreds of thousands of people. His world tour drew crowds in South Africa, Japan and Australia. His visit to India may even have helped to transform traditional yoga into the asana or posture-based practice so popular in the West today.
“By the aid of this school and its branches it is hoped that something will be done substantially to aid the physical development of this and succeeding generations.”
Today’s social-media savvy fitness influencers depend on a boom in a new form of media – and so too did the physical-culture movement of which Sandow was a figurehead. Sandow made full use of the latest technologies to advertise himself. After meeting Thomas Edison, who invented an early motion-picture device called the kinetoscope, Sandow starred in a series of short films, among the first in cinematic history. Silent, black-and-white footage showing Sandow flexing his muscles and performing a backflip was played in peep shows across the globe.
Prominent photographers invited Sandow to pose as a Roman soldier, or adorned in a leopard-skin leotard. Postcards of Sandow, posing nude except for a fig leaf, were shared among his fans like viral Instagram posts. Sandow’s bestselling book, “Strength and How to Obtain It”, was filled with such images. Like many modern influencers, Sandow extended his personal brand into a media empire, producing books, magazines and pamphlets. His Magazine of Physical Culture is considered the first bodybuilding periodical: it was a lifestyle magazine as much as an exercise guide.
“Sex sells” has long been a mantra in modern advertising. But by disguising the erotic images as a celebration of the ideal form seen in Greek sculpture, Sandow found a way to appeal to both male and female fans without seeming seedy. His use of classical imagery helped position bodybuilding as an intellectual pursuit; muscles could be for the middle classes, not just labourers. Like today’s exercise gurus, Sandow argued that health and fitness should be aspirational.
Here was a man who knew how to get himself trending. Sandow spun ludicrous tales of his achievements for receptive newspapers. Once he claimed to have fought a muzzled, mittened lion in San Francisco. On another occasion he broke all the strength-testing machines in Amsterdam and lifted a policeman. And then there was the time he tripped on a carpet while carrying a piano – as it was being played – and was sued for damages by the disgruntled musician after sending both flying off stage.
“We are in danger of becoming a race of people whose sole physical exertion will consist in pressing buttons and turning levers.”
Sandow also understood the power of community and nurtured a close relationship with his followers. “Before and after” shots are a mainstay of online fitness communities, and the opening pages of “Strength and How to Obtain It” feature letters from followers announcing their own successes from following his training regime. Sandow ran a mail-order fitness programme for those who could not use his gyms and – like an influencer responding to online comments – thrilled many fans by replying to their letters. According to “The Perfect Man”, a biography of Sandow by David Waller, he developed an elaborate system to categorise questions and employed clerks to reply to all correspondence as if it were personalised guidance from the man himself.
If Sandow teaches us anything, it is that anxious times prompt people to question their relationship with their body. In spring 2020, with millions ordered to stay at home, Adriene Mishler’s soft, soothing voice encouraged people to breathe and stretch; the media anointed Joe Wicks “the patron saint of quarantine”.
It seems appropriate that, at the height of a health crisis, these fitness influencers were hailed as the king and queen of lockdown. The pandemic merely accelerated an existing boom in wellness culture, which itself is a response to the simmering neuroses that blight today’s desk-bound, screen-locked lives. Though yoga and meditation offer an escape from work-induced stress, their ubiquity on social media fuels a competitive drive to sculpt bodies into idealised forms.
Sandow flourished amid similar fears in the late Victorian era. Society was changing fast. The new forms of media he used for self-promotion were provoking much hand-wringing about the state of society. Industrialisation and urbanisation threatened the nation’s health, with polluted air and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. “We are in danger of becoming a race of people whose sole physical exertion will consist in pressing buttons and turning levers,” wrote Sandow in “The Gospel of Strength”.
Gender roles were changing too. As women began to live more freely and dress more comfortably, male insecurities began to simmer. There were fears that working-class men were becoming sickly and weak, and that bourgeois men were increasingly effeminate.
Sandow offered hope. “He was the embodied rebuke to all those who argued that manhood was in decline, the incarnate proof that the tide of degeneration could be reversed,” writes Waller. Like today’s fitness heroes, Sandow was not simply a man of his own making – he was a product of his time.■
Will Coldwell is a freelance writer in London
images: getty, alamy
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世界上第一个健身影响者是维多利亚时代的壮汉
在Instagram之前的一个世纪，Eugen Sandow使用熟悉的技术建立了一个健身帝国。
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2021年3月1日
作者：Will Coldwell
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1897年夏天，当尤金-桑道（图）在伦敦开办他的第一所体育文化学校时，他确保学校的装饰与他的个人品牌相匹配。在抵达圣詹姆斯街32A号时，参观者发现自己面对的是创始人本人的真人大小的雕像。附近的一幅油画将桑道描绘成一个古代角斗士。在这两种情况下，他的雕塑体态唤起了希腊古典主义的精神，桑道在他的全盛时期被视为 "完美的人"，努力体现这种精神。
学校的开办预示着桑道健身帝国的诞生。这是桑道这个来自普鲁士的马戏团强人自1889年抵达英国以来十年名人地位的顶点。这一年，他战胜了法国人查尔斯-萨姆森，赢得了 "地球上最强壮的人 "的称号。在伦敦水族馆举行的二头肌比赛中，参赛者用胸膛撑开铁链，将一个（大概是正常的）人举到手臂的距离。当桑道用一只手举起280磅（127公斤）的重量时，他获得了胜利。萨姆森无法竞争。
那里有更强壮的人。也有更强壮的人。18个月后，桑道失去了冠军头衔，但他在公众中引起了共鸣。尽管其他维多利亚时代的强者逐渐淡出了人们的记忆，但桑道仍然是一个家喻户晓的名字（和性感的象征），直到他在1925年死于主动脉瘤（据说是一年左右前把他的车从沟里抬出来的后果）。
桑道让公众喜爱的地方是他的平凡。当这个卷发的、身高中等的金发男士来到舞台上与参孙竞争时，人们都笑了。只有当他脱下外套和马甲，露出肌肉发达的身体时，人们才认真对待他。尽管他力大无穷，但他穿上衣服后看起来和其他男人很像--因此他为其他人提供了一线希望，即他们可以变得像他一样。
"每天都有数百封来信问我，'我能变得强壮吗？是的，如果你们有意愿，并将其用于正确的方向，你们都可以变得强大。但是，首先，你必须学会锻炼你的头脑。"
桑道向他们出售了这样做所需的一切。他从一个连锁的健身房开始。桑道是热门人物：在他的名人粉丝中，有阿瑟-柯南-道尔、欧内斯特-沙克尔顿和乔治五世。他的品牌商品包括 "山道浓缩防腐剂"（一种肌肉擦剂）、"山道健康和力量可可"（一种原蛋白奶昔）和 "山道完美身材胸衣"（一种女人的好运）。
如果有机会从他的A级地位中获得经济上的好处，桑道用双手抓住它，毫不费力地举过头顶，手臂高举，小胡子抽动。在Kayla Itsines（1280万Instagram粉丝）、Joe Wicks（400万粉丝）、Adriene Mishler（110万粉丝）或Michelle Lewin（1370万粉丝）之前的一个世纪，出现了桑道。他是最初的健身影响者。
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乔-威克斯（Joe Wicks）可能因为在冠状病毒封锁期间向孩子们提供在线运动课程而获得了女王的硕士学位，但桑道给君主留下了深刻的印象，他被任命为国王的科学体育文化教授。一个多世纪前，桑道的《体能训练系统》就已经预示了交叉健身、高强度间歇训练、热瑜伽和旋转课程。
桑道的练习方案通俗易懂--侧重于用较小的重量进行多次训练--被数十万人所接受。他的世界巡演在南非、日本和澳大利亚吸引了大量的观众。他对印度的访问甚至可能有助于将传统瑜伽转变为今天在西方如此流行的体式或基于姿势的练习。
"通过这所学校及其分支机构的帮助，我们希望能做一些实质性的工作来帮助这一代和后一代的身体发展"。
今天精通社交媒体的健身影响者依赖于一种新的媒体形式的繁荣--桑道是其代表的身体文化运动也是如此。桑道充分利用最新技术为自己做广告。在认识了发明了早期动态影像设备 "动态镜 "的托马斯-爱迪生之后，桑道主演了一系列的短片，这是电影史上最早的短片之一。无声的黑白录像展示了桑道弯曲的肌肉和后空翻的动作，并在全球各地的偷拍节目中播放。
知名摄影师邀请桑道摆出罗马士兵的姿势，或穿上豹皮紧身衣。桑道的明信片，除了一片无花果叶外，其他都是裸体，在他的粉丝中分享，就像Instagram上的病毒性帖子。桑道的畅销书《力量和如何获得它》中充满了这样的图片。像许多现代影响者一样，桑道将他的个人品牌扩展为一个媒体帝国，制作书籍、杂志和小册子。他的《体育文化杂志》被认为是第一本健美期刊：它是一本生活方式杂志，也是一本锻炼指南。
"以性为卖点 "长期以来一直是现代广告的一个口号。但通过将色情图片伪装成对希腊雕塑中的理想形态的赞美，桑道找到了一种既能吸引男性和女性粉丝又不显得肮脏的方法。他对古典图像的使用有助于将健美运动定位为一种智力追求；肌肉可以是中产阶级的，而不仅仅是劳动者的。就像今天的运动大师一样，桑道认为健康和健身应该是有追求的。
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这是一个知道如何让自己成为潮流的人。桑道为接受的报纸编造了他的成就的可笑故事。有一次，他声称在旧金山与一只戴着口罩和手套的狮子搏斗。还有一次，他打破了阿姆斯特丹所有的力量测试机器，举起了一名警察。还有一次，他在搬运钢琴时被地毯绊倒--当时钢琴正在演奏--在把两人都摔下舞台后，被心怀不满的音乐家起诉要求赔偿。
"我们正面临着成为一个以按下按钮和转动杠杆为唯一体力消耗的人的危险。
桑道也理解社区的力量，并与他的追随者培养了密切的关系。"训练前和训练后 "的照片是在线健身社区的主要内容，《力量和如何获得力量》一书的开篇就刊登了追随者的来信，宣布他们自己因遵循他的训练制度而获得的成功。桑道为那些不能使用他的健身房的人开办了一个邮购健身计划，并且--就像一个回应在线评论的有影响力的人--通过回复他们的信件使许多粉丝感到兴奋。根据大卫-沃勒（David Waller）撰写的《完美男人》（The Perfect Man）传记，他开发了一个精心设计的系统来对问题进行分类，并雇用文员对所有信件进行回复，就好像是他本人的个性化指导。
如果说桑道教会了我们什么，那就是焦虑的时代促使人们质疑他们与身体的关系。2020年春天，数百万人被命令呆在家里，阿德里安-米什勒柔和舒缓的声音鼓励人们呼吸和伸展；媒体将乔-威克斯称为 "隔离的守护神"。
在健康危机的高峰期，这些有影响力的健身人士被誉为封锁的国王和皇后，这似乎很合适。这场大流行只是加速了现有的健康文化的繁荣，而健康文化本身就是对困扰当今办公桌、屏幕锁定的生活的沸腾的神经症的回应。尽管瑜伽和冥想为人们提供了逃避工作压力的机会，但它们在社交媒体上无处不在，助长了将身体塑造成理想形态的竞争动力。
在维多利亚时代晚期，Sandow在类似的恐惧中蓬勃发展。社会正在快速变化。他用于自我宣传的新媒体形式引起了人们对社会状况的担忧。工业化和城市化威胁着国家的健康，空气被污染，生活方式越来越久。"桑道在《力量的福音》中写道："我们有可能成为一个唯一的体力消耗是按下按钮和转动杠杆的人。
性别角色也在发生变化。随着女性开始更自由地生活和更舒适地穿着，男性的不安全感开始酝酿。人们担心工人阶级的男人正变得病态和虚弱，而资产阶级的男人则越来越娘娘腔。
桑道提供了希望。"沃勒写道："他是对所有认为男子气概正在衰退的人的具体斥责，是退化趋势可以逆转的化身证明。就像今天的健身英雄一样，桑道不仅仅是他自己创造的人--他是他的时代的产物。
威尔-科德维尔是伦敦的一名自由撰稿人。
图片：Getty, Alamy
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