Presents the life of fitness legend Charles Atlas. Includes 4 fun exercises.

Presents the life of fitness legend Charles Atlas. Includes 4 fun exercises.

He could tear phone books in half, bend iron bars into giant Us, and pull a 145,000-pound train with his bare hands. But Charles Atlas wasn't always one of America's most famous strong men. Once upon a time, he was a "97-pound weakling" who was picked on by neighborhood bullies.Using her trademark humor, Meghan McCarthy brings to life the story of Charles Atlas, the man who would become "the World's Most Perfectly Developed Man" and, with his fitness campaign, inspired the entire nation to get in shape, eat right, and take charge of our lives.

Little Friedrich Müller was a puny weakling who longed to be athletic and strong like the ancient Roman gladiators. He exercised and exercised. But he to no avail. As a young man, he found himself under the tutelage of a professional body builder. Friedrich worked and worked. He changed his name to Eugen Sandow and he got bigger and stronger. Everyone wanted to become “as strong as Sandow.” Inspired by his own experiences body-building, Don Tate tells the story of how Eugen Sandow changed the way people think about strength and exercise and made it a part of everyday life. Backmatter includes more information about Sandow, suggestions for exercise, an author’s note, and a bibliography.

The original bodybuilding classic is back! For more than fifty years, Charles Atlas-twice named "The World's Most Perfectly Developed Man"-has helped thousands of 97-pound weaklings bulk up, build muscle, and stop bullies from kicking sand in their faces. Without the use of expensive supplements or equipment, this book utilizes Atlas's groundbreaking theory of "dynamic tension," also known as "isometrics," which can be used at home or in the office, by anyone. Also stressed is a balanced nutritional approach, contradicting the modern health fads and fashionable diets that come and go. Strongly endorsed by fitness luminaries like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jake Steinfeld ("Body by Jake"), after half a century Charles Atlas is still the original master of the body makeover.

A remarkable new work from one of our premier historians In his exciting new book, John F. Kasson examines the signs of crisis in American life a century ago, signs that new forces of modernity were affecting men's sense of who and what they really were. When the Prussian-born Eugene Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder, toured the United States in the 1890s, Florenz Ziegfeld cannily presented him as the "Perfect Man," representing both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity extolling self-development and self-fulfillment. Then, when Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan swung down a vine into the public eye in 1912, the fantasy of a perfect white Anglo-Saxon male was taken further, escaping the confines of civilization but reasserting its values, beating his chest and bellowing his triumph to the world. With Harry Houdini, the dream of escape was literally embodied in spectacular performances in which he triumphed over every kind of threat to masculine integrity -- bondage, imprisonment, insanity, and death. Kasson's liberally illustrated and persuasively argued study analyzes the themes linking these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context. Concern with the white male body -- with exhibiting it and with the perils to it --reached a climax in World War I, he suggests, and continues with us today.

Charles Atlas transformed himself into a powerful Muscular He-man with his method Dynamic Tension. This book is more than bodybuilding, this book is designed to enhance your overall health, strength and lifestyle. Charles Atlas will show you first hand, by training you, motivating you, and teaching you how to increase a magnetic personality. You will increase your muscle size, strength and gain confidence life long. Charles Atlas has inspired millions of young men around the world to be the best they could be.