Sep 1, 2003 12:00 PM

Deciding on a recipient for Club Industry's first ever Lifetime Achievement Award, was not an easy task. In fact, it was far more difficult than the staff had ever assumed it would be. Perhaps the most daunting task was to decide on what type of person we wanted to bestow the honor. Would it be a club owner? A manufacturer? Someone from an association? In the end, we decided the award this year — while open to all of the above — needed to go to someone who has helped all of the above by promoting the healthy lifestyle on many levels.

After that, the field was now finite, and we set out to find that person. Of course, with such a narrow field, our task was much easier. OK, that is revisionist history. In searching for nominees from our advisory board, industry vets, club owners — just about anyone that would listen — we received so many worthy candidates from all walks of the fitness industry that we knew our decision was going to be even harder. That is until we noticed one name that kept popping up over and over. That's not to say that this person was the only one coming up multiple times. It is just when looking at this man's influence on bringing bodybuilding, fitness, nutrition and healthy living to the forefront of the public's mind — and building a sound business behind it — it is easy to say that his hard work helped to raise the profile of the entire fitness industry.

Club Industry is proud to award its first Lifetime Achievement Award to Joe Weider, a true pioneer in his efforts to bring strength and fitness to the public's consciousness.

Since 1936, Weider has been paving the way for strength training and fitness. His training principles have influenced athletes, coaches and sports scientists to alter their training. He has prompted the medical community to embrace strength training and fitness as preventive “treatment” for illnesses and a factor against aging. He has also helped show psychologists that exercise is a powerful tool in mental health. He has brought the sport of bodybuilding out from the shadows and turned its competitors into stars and role models.

But ask Weider which accomplishment he is most proud of and like a proud father he'll tell you he loves them all.

“I'm proud of everything that I did over the years,” says Weider. “Everything that I did was for the love of it.”

Born in 1922, Weider grew up in a tough neighborhood in Montreal, Canada during the Great Depression. He left school at age 12 to work as a delivery boy for a fruit and groceries market, pulling a wagon for 10 hours a day. A slight boy, standing 5 feet 5 inches and weighing a mere 115 pounds, Weider became easy prey for local thugs.

“I lived in a neighborhood where kids used to fight. They used fists in those days; today they use bullets,” Weider says. “I was small and decided I had to do something to change.”

Weider tried joining the wrestling team at the Montreal YMCA, which he says turned him down for fear he'd hurt himself training with boys that were much heavier and stronger than he. But that would change.

“In Montreal in those days they had shops that sold copies of old books and magazines, and I bought two copies of Strength Magazine. I took them home and read them all night,” he recalls. “I decided that strength training was the way to go if I wanted to get bigger and stronger and defend myself. I started lifting weights at age 13 or so.”

By the age of 15, neighborhood bullies no longer bothered him, except to ask for advice about getting bigger and stronger. Just two years later, Weider competed in his first amateur contest, the Montreal Senior Meet, where he lifted 70 pounds more than competitors in his weight class.

His dream through all this was to bring accurate, complete training advice and routines to the masses, not just the guys in his neighborhood. So, with $7 in his pocket, he began to work on what would become the first issue of Your Physique — the precursor to the Weider publishing empire — to be published in 1940. The orders poured in and within 18 months he had made $10,000 in profits. In 1942, Weider started the mail order Weider Barbell Co.; his magazine now offered weight sets and other equipment, as well as some rudimentary vitamin and mineral supplements.

“Fitness was like a religion to me, and I wanted to bring the message to the people,” says Weider. “I wanted to do nothing more than bring bodybuilding to the world.”

But Weider knew he wasn't in it alone when educating people.