As a Weider student you should be interested to know that the Weider System is the most popular and successful bodybuilding course in the world. Because of my 50 years of involvement in the sport, the Weider System is the basis of all modern bodybuilding and weight-training techniques. Literally everything in bodybuilding has sprung from the Weider System. My system has stood the test of time! The results speak for themselves.
It is not by accident that the Weider System enjoys such popularity. Champions I have helped train hold every important bodybuilding title. Among my famous stars are Arnold Schwarzenegger (seven times Mr. Olympia), Frank Zane (three times Mr. Olympia), Sergio Oliva (three times Mr. Olympia), Larry Scott (twice Mr. Olympia), Franco Columbu (twice Mr Olympia), Chris Dickerson (Mr Olympia), Rachel McLish (Ms. Olympia), Lou Ferrigno (Mr America, Mr. International and twice Mr. Universe), Corinna Everson (American Women’s Bodybuilding Champion and threetime Ms. Olympia) and Lee Haney (American Men’s Bodybuilding Champion, World Bodybuilding Champion and three-time Mr Olympia).
The full importance of their victories is better understood when one realizes that each began bodybuilding with no idea that he or she would some day be a worldwide star
Years ago such amazing physical transformations would have been impossible. In the early days only natural giants of physical power had a chance to excel. Weight training as a science was unknown, and the weights were huge unwieldly masses of iron, unlike our modern streamlined equipment.
There were no progressive methods of training, no way that poundages could be adjusted to the strength of an individual athlete and increased gradually, as is the case in modern-day bodybuilding. If you weren’t big and strong to start with back then, there was no way that you could practice progressive weight training methods, primarily because the so-called experts of the day looked upon weight training as “dangerous.”
As a result, bodybuilding remained a hit-and-miss affair for many years. Champions were weightlifters who had developed their bodies by performing basic strength exercises. Even the greatest bodybuilders of the time, however, failed to approach the measurements and strength levels now common among Weider students who have been training less than three years!
Into the late 1930s and early forties, it was still the weightlifters who held the limelight, and all experimentation in the Iron Game was directed toward improving the lifting technique and strength of these atheltes. Bodybuilders could only dream of better training methods, of specialization programs, of top-grade magazines devoted to their sport and of someone interested enough to show them the way.
Since every champion of that day had a different training philosophy, the entire sport was in chaos. Still, bodybuilding managed to survive. The urge for strength and physical perfection felt by every man and woman today was as strong then as it is now.
It was in such a confused era that I got my start in bodybuilding. I was born and grew up in Montreal. As a boy, I was weak and thin. By the time I turned 13, I had experienced the humiliation of physical inferiority. I knew what it was to be ashamed of having a weak body, knew the frustration of being pushed around. I dreamed of having a strong, healthy, well-developed body.
I was determined to better myself. So I decided to dedicate my entire life to bodybuilding, to the improvement of my own body and the bodies of others.
Looking back now, I feel that my weakness as a boy played a major part in the evolution of the Weider System. For having felt the deep stab of inferiority, rejection and disappointment, I know from actual experience just how much great strength, a well-muscled body and excellent physical fitness means. Eventually, I obtained a set of weights, along with the courses of that era. Using these old-fashioned methods, I made some progress. These gains were the first of my bodybuilding career, and I was quite pleased with them. Weight training is better than any other form of exercise for improving the strength, health and appearance of the human body.
I recognized the logic behind progressive weight training. I could also see that someone had to take the lead. Moreover I realized that much research into resistance-training methods was needed and that, with hard work and study, bodybuilding with weights could provide the answer to the physical problems of millions of men and women.
I worked long and hard. I used my own body for experiments and learned through trial and error. I spent hours each day writing to the champions and weight-training authorities, analyzing their answers to my questions and comparing this information with my own reactions. Gradually a pattern of scientific bodybuilding emerged.
I was not surprised to learn that the exercises and methods of application used by the champions were vastly different from those in the courses sold with weight sets. Through trial and error, the champions also had learned better ways of training.
My biggest job was organizing all this material into a com- prehensive, easily understood training system. From this problem arose the idea of formulating the Weider System, as well as my desire to someday publish the best magazines on bodybuilding the world had ever seen.
I dedicated my life to these two goals.
Weider in a later physique contest
Unable to test all my theories personally, I enlisted the help of my friends, all champion bodybuilders. With our work as a base, I developed certain training methods-supersets, giant sets, rest-pause, etc.
The Mr. Canada contest for 1938 was coming up. I trained for it, using the methods my research indicated were best. I took second place in the contest, losing by only a half-point. A friend of mine, whom I had trained, won the top prize. As a result of our dual success, I was convinced that I had indeed discovered a better way of training, and the Weider System was born.
At that time I stepped out of competitive bodybuilding and weightlifting to dedicate my life to teaching others. Knowing that I had a vital message to bring to the world, I established YOUR PHYSIQUE magazine in 1940. This was soon followed by the periodicals, MUSCLE POWER, AMERICAN MANHOOD, MR. AMERICA and finally MUSCLE BUILDER & POWER-all dedicated to the sport of bodybuilding. Today MUSCLE BUILDER & POWER has evolved intoMUSCLE & FITNESS, the premier bodybuilding and weight-training magazine in the world, recognized by champions, experts and the public alike as the Bodybuilder’s Bible.
With my own magazines behind me, a following of millions of students and the cooperation of the world’s best-built men and women, along with a cadre of dedicated scientists, I was able to compile records on every phase of weight training and body- building. In fact, the research assumed such a tremendous volume that I was forced to set up the Weider Research Group, whose entire function is to develop new and better bodybuilding programs and training equipment.
I had specially qualified writers interview the champions and analyze their training methods. Of course, this took considerable time, money and energy, but I am convinced that it was all well spent.
In the final analysis, the Weider System incorporates every modern training principle. And it shows you how to make muscle gains in a fraction of the time it formerly took.
Every great bodybuilding champion has contributed to some extent to the Weider System. Hundreds of thousands of students have done their part, too. My staff has worked unceasingly to make this, the twelfth reprinting of the Weider System in 45 years, the last word in scientific bodybuilding advice.
Indeed, no other course in the history of bodybuilding has had so many work so hard to produce it. Champions like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu, Lee Haney and Frank Zane have carried on in the tradition of the giants of the past, men like Larry Scott, Reg Park and Clancy Ross. Champions from the field of powerlifting have revealed to me the secrets of their superhuman strength. And the Weider Research Group has put all these ideas to the test, to make certain that they work on everyone.
I urge you not to deviate from these printed instructions in the slightest until you have thoroughly mastered the Weider System, and particularly the Weider Instinctive Training Principle. Each detail of your training as set down here has a purpose, and it’s for your exclusive benefit.
This in no way means you shouldn’t read MUSCLE & FITNESS, SHAPE, FLEX and MEN’S FITNESS. In fact, I urge you to study each issue of these magazines. As soon as anything new is learned or developed in the area of bodybuilding, my magazines will bring it to you. MUSCLE & FITNESS, SHAPE, FLEX and MEN’S FITNESS serve as monthly updating courses for the Weider System.
For the first six months of your Weider System training program, however, you should not follow any of the exercises or training routines that appear in these four magazines. You must stick to this course exactly as outlined for the prescribed length of time. After that, you will have gained the experience and the physique needed to benefit from the instruction that appears in my magazines.
Don’t forget that, as my student, if you need personal assistance at anytime, a letter will receive prompt attention. If you have a question, ask me!
I hope you have enjoyed this brief account of how the Weider System evolved. As you can see, since I was 13, bodybuilding has been my life. My goal is to bring you the latest information on bodybuilding so you can avoid my early mistakes and those of the champions, progressing more quickly and safely toward your goal of having a strong, well-muscled body. If you have the determination and desire, you could even become another Weider superstar. Don’t let us down!
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LOL…when in the middle of reading the self-promoting, PT Barnumesque narratives that filled the York (Hoffman) and Weider magazines and mail-order courses of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, I often forget whether it’s self-styled “Master Blaster” Joe Weider or self-styled “World’s Healthiest Man” Bob Hoffman peddling the exaggerations, half-truths, distortions, proclamations, misrepresentations, and “alternate history”. One sounds like the other.
They were two sides of a coin with identical sides, lol
I usually get laughing aloud about half way through one of their creative accounts. But, I have to give them each credit — their unashamed hubris earned them each a fortune from the muscle industry! And, despite their motives, yes, they each deserve credit for their parts in popularizing weight training and bodybuilding. Although neither of them invented the methods and techniques as they each claimed, they did make knowledge of them available in a wide way for the average person in the pre-internet era.
Such a great comment Joe! What always amazes me is that there was so little push back for so many years against their rhetoric. Peary Rader always played it down the middle and Hardgainer didn’t come about until the 1980s. We all drank the kool-aid for decades!
Well said, Joe! To their credit, both Hoffman and Weider did emphasize that muscular size and strength were to be acquired through heavy resistance training. This is in contrast to many of their predecessors who hawked systems based on 5-pound dumbbells (Attila and Sandow), bodyweight, self-resistance (Charles Atlas) and assorted gimmicks. I have mentioned before on this site that I had occasion to meet and converse with both Hoffman and Weider at events. Both were pleasant and cordial with me. I believe more credit should be given to their predecessors like Alan Calvert, Attila and Hackenschmidt for pioneering modern weight training.
Agreed, regarding Calvert especially. His Milo Barbell Co. and “Strength” (along with the 1898-premiering UK “Health and Strength”) magazine set the North American industry model which Hoffman, then Weider, then Lurie and other lesser-knowns continued and expanded.
I turn 68 this June, 2024. I never met Hoffman nor Weider, but did meeet and casually converse with Ed Jubinville when I was about age 20, mid-1970s.
Jubinville was from the original Santa Monica Muscle Beach era. I attended the free-admission physique shows he ran at Mountain Park in Holyoke, MA; stills from one of his shows appear in the book “Pumping Iron”; and footage from one of his subsequent shows (in which I’m in the crowd getting my life’s fifteen minutes of fame, lol; we spectators saw a camera crew setting up in the aisle between the two banks of wooden seats, and from the stage, Ed nonchalantly explained only that the crew was “filming for a documentary about bodybuilding”) is included in the film “Pumping Iron”.
Ed also ran a business manufacturing and selling equipment, home and commercial grade. Unlike some of the stuff sold by Weider and Hoffman for home gyms, Jubinville’s was actually sturdy. Since I lived about 45 minutes from his small factory, I’d order by phone then enlist a sometime training partner with a pick-up truck, and we’d go get it after Jubinville would phone me my order was ready. During loading, Jubinville would take a few minutes to socialize with us. Jubinville was also quite friendly, with that same obvious love for iron we all have. One point I recall him discussing expressed his extreme conflict with the Weiders and the IFBB, which I’ve later read about also in various Iron game histories and reminisces; which seems to have developed due to his opinion of what he termed “fixed contest judging”.
This link has two photos, one of one of Jubinville’s advertisemtns, and the other of pages in his catalog. That’s Ed himself using the seated cable row unit:
https://zacheven-esh.com/stories-of-vintage-bodybuilding-strength-training-part-i/
If either of you have time Kim Beckwith has a dissertation available online about Calvert which is truly magnificent.
I’ve only ever heard positive things about Ed – he seemed to have so much time for people and I know from some collectors that his equipment is still held in high esteem.
There’s an entire docudrama to be done on ‘fixed context judging’ in the sport!
Calvert is a key name in that line up, especially as Hoffman very much took over from him. Interestingly Calvert seems to have gotten disillusioned from the Iron Game a few decades in whereas Weider and Hoffman continued upwards and onwards (financially anyway).
They’re tricky figures to pin down. Both changed fitness for the better and made it mainstream and accessible. But they also forced so many half truths into the ecosystem that we’ve never recovered. The complexity of man!
It is motivating to reflect on the legacy left by representative figures in the world of fitness. Despite the discrepancies and mistakes they may have made, it is undeniable that their contribution has been fundamental to the development and expansion of this field. Thanks to them, today we have a wide range of tools and knowledge that allow us to handle different approaches and adjust them to our goals. Their collective influence has created a lasting legacy that continues to inspire generations of fitness enthusiasts. It is a humbling reminder that even great leaders have their limitations and failures, but their positive impact endures and offers us the opportunity to continue to move forward and grow today.
Thanks Patricia, I’m really glad you enjoyed this article
It’s impressive to see the list of champions and renowned figures in bodybuilding who have been trained under the Weider System. Their accomplishments, including multiple Mr. Olympia titles and other prestigious awards, speak to the Geometry Dash Meltdown and success of your training methods.
HANDEN TOICH…
Your blog parasitism would have at least been been clever IF it was not a fact that those champions and reknowneds listed used training methods which existed long before Weider appropriated them for his marketing and advertising tactics.
Weider never invented any of those techniques; at most, he merely gave them new names, and then had the dishonesty to claim he’d invented them.
Plenty of champions did pretend they learned the methods from him, but only because they received payments and other kinds of help from Weider for claiming they learned from him.
Weider was one of the primary fitness business people whose efforts to earn profits did popularize bodybuilding, true. He originated the Mr. Olympia contest, true.
But Joe Weider exaggerated, misrepresented, and outright lied concerning the origins and results of the training methods of his self-promoting “Weider System.”
If you were honest yourself concerning bodybuilding history, you’d acknowledge Weider’s dishonesties, not utilize them and the article to serve your own business promotion..
Then again…you and Weider are alike. He took the training methods which the many others for decades before him had been teaching then used them to serve his own business interests without paying those earlier people a cent; you take advantage of someone else’s website and blog to post your business advertising without paying the blog owner, CONOR HEFFERMAN, a cent.
Quit being a blog parasite, HANDEN. If you’re going to advertise on this blog, then at least have the respect to first ask permission from the site owner and the honesty to pay him for using his space.
Thanks Joe. You put it incredibly well and, just as impressively, managed to tie it back to the subject at hand! There’s been such a weird influx lately which keeps getting past the site’s spam servers. AI has likely outpaced the ability to detect it for the time being. I’ve emailed the webteam about catching this as its intolerable