Lou Schuler has an article at Testosterone Nation on The Ten Most Influential Muscleheads." He took his idea from that Atlantic Monthly piece I blogged about here. It's a pretty good list (maybe not as good as mine, but a lot more focused), and I love the subtitle: "An opinionated look at the men and women whose passion for the iron made the world safe for hypertrophy:"
I found myself growing frustrated as I read it. Once you get past the guys on Mt. Rushmore, it seems like a grab-bag, with an overwhelming 19th-century bias. Were Walt Whitman (#22) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (#33) really more influential than Bill Gates (#54)? Were people in the 1800's so literate that a gay poet and reclusive philosopher changed their lives the way the ubiquity of the personal computer has changed ours?
You'll want to quibble with the list: Charles Atlas isn't on it, for one thing. Nor is Charles Poliquin or Steve Reeves. No Lisa Lyon, no Rachel McLish, no Cory Everson. Vince Gironda and Peary Rader didn't make it, either. And not even that guy who wrote Yoga for Cats is here.
But Jack LaLanne is, and Bob Hoffman, and Arthur Jones, and Pudgy Stockton. Don't know who she is, do you? Check out the list, then. Come on, you already know who Numero Uno on the list is...go see the rest.
Great photo of Eugene Sandow, too. You know you want abs like his. Go read, and give the comments a scan, too -- there are lots of knowledgeable people writing for and participating in T-Nation. Great site. Then go grab some iron of your own...
Posted by Alexandra at December 21, 2006 10:22 PM