World's most famous FITNESS ICONS
Francois Henri LaLanne (/ləˈleɪn/;[1] September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011) was an American fitness and nutrition guru and motivational speaker. He described himself as being a "sugarholic" and a "junk food junkie" until he was aged 15. He also had behavioral problems, but "turned his life around" after listening to a public lecture about the benefits of good nutrition by health food pioneer Paul Bragg. During his career, he came to believe that the country's overall health depended on the health of its population, and referred to physical culture and nutrition as "the salvation of America."[2]
Decades before health and fitness began being promoted by celebrities like Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons, LaLanne was already widely recognized for publicly preaching the health benefits of regular exercise and a good diet.[3] He published numerous books on fitness and hosted the fitness television program The Jack LaLanne Show from 1951 to 1985. As early as 1936, at the age of 21, he opened one of the nation's first fitness gyms in Oakland, California,[2] which became a prototype for dozens of similar gyms bearing his name.[4] One of his 1950s television exercise programs was aimed toward women, whom he also encouraged to join his health clubs.[2][5] He invented a number of exercise machines, including the pulley and leg extension devices and the Smith machine. Besides producing his own series of videos, he coached the elderly and disabled not to forgo exercise, believing it would enable them to enhance their strength.[2][5]
LaLanne also gained recognition for his success as a bodybuilder, as well as for his prodigious feats of strength. Arnold Schwarzenegger once exclaimed "That Jack LaLanne's an animal!" after a 54-year-old LaLanne beat then 21-year-old Schwarzenegger in an informal contest.[citation needed] On the occasion of LaLanne's death, Schwarzenegger credited LaLanne for being "an apostle for fitness" by inspiring "billions all over the world to live healthier lives,"[6] and, as governor of California, had earlier placed him on his Governor's Council on Physical Fitness. Steve Reeves credited LaLanne as his inspiration to build his muscular physique while keeping a slim waist.
LaLanne was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[7
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Arnold Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. As of 2022, he is the most recent Republican governor of California. Time magazine named Schwarzenegger one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and 2007.[1][2]
Schwarzenegger began lifting weights at the age of 15 and went on to win the Mr. Universe title at age 20 and subsequently won the Mr. Olympia title seven times. He is widely regarded as either the greatest[3] or one of the two greatest bodybuilders of all time along with Ronnie Coleman,[4] and has written many books and articles about bodybuilding.[5] The Arnold Sports Festival, considered the second-most important bodybuilding event after Mr. Olympia, is named after him.[6] He appeared in the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron (1977). Schwarzenegger retired from bodybuilding and gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action star, with his breakthrough in the sword and sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian (1982), a box-office hit with a sequel in 1984.[7] After playing the title character in the science fiction film The Terminator (1984), he starred in the sequels Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). His other successful action films included Commando (1985), The Running Man (1987), Predator (1987), Red Heat (1988), Total Recall (1990), and True Lies (1994), in addition to comedy films such as Twins (1988), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994), and Jingle All the Way (1996).[8] He is the founder of the film production company Oak Productions.[9]
As a Republican candidate, Schwarzenegger was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. He received 48.6% of the vote, 17 points ahead of Democrat runner-up Cruz Bustamante. He was sworn in on November 17 to serve the remainder of Davis' term, and was re-elected in the 2006 California gubernatorial election with an increased vote share of 55.9% to serve a full term as governor.[10] In 2011, he reached his term limit as governor and returned to acting.
Schwarzenegger was nicknamed the "Austrian Oak" in his bodybuilding days, "Arnie" or "Schwarzy" during his acting career,[11] and "the Governator" (a portmanteau of "Governor" and "Terminator") during his political career. He married Maria Shriver, a niece of President John F. Kennedy, in 1986. They separated in 2011 after he admitted to having fathered a child with their housemaid in 1997; their divorce was finalized in 2021.[12]
DORIAN YATES
Dorian Andrew Mientjez Yates was born on 19 April 1962 In Solihull then in Warwickshire, England, and grew up on a farm in Hurley, rural Warwickshire. Yates' father died of a heart attack when he was 13. He, his mother and his sister then moved to Walmley in Sutton Coldfield. As a professional bodybuilder, Yates lived in the Ladywood and Castle Vale areas of Birmingham.
When Yates was 18, he and his friends (part of a “skinhead” gang) were arrested while crossing Birmingham to get to a party. One day after the 1981 Birmingham city centre riots, they claimed to have come across a partially broken shop window, when one of Yate’s friends attempted to steal a hat off of a mannequin, it had fallen, smashing the rest of the shop window in the process. Each of them received 6 months at Whatton Youth Detention Centre, where Yates would take up weight training.
Yates started working out in 1983 at Martin's Gym, the original bodybuilding gym located in Temple Row, Birmingham. During this time he won the 1984 Mr. Birmingham as a novice and in 1986 became the British Champion at Heavyweight for the first time.
His professional record consists of 15 major contest wins and two second-place finishes; from 1992 to his retirement in 1997 he won every single contest he entered. His career ended in large part due to chronic acute injuries, including torn biceps and triceps, the latter just three weeks prior to his final contest, the 1997 Mr. Olympia, which he won in spite of the injury; his win generated controversy among fellow athletes, critics, and amateurs, who thought the runner-up Nasser El Sonbaty deserved to win.[citation needed]
Yates was a proponent of Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer's high-intensity training (HIT) style of bodybuilding, which poses that maximum muscle stimulation can be reached through short and intense workout sessions instead of long and slow ones.[4][5] He earned the nickname "The Shadow" coined by Peter McGough for his tendency to unexpectedly appear at major bodybuilding contests and steal the win, having neither confirmed nor denied whether he would compete beforehand, and for spending most of his time between contests avoiding the public eye.
Yates is considered to be the first of the "mass monsters" in bodybuilding. He combined his enormous muscle mass along with peak conditioning, quoted as being "granite hardness". He believes that his injuries are due to his habit of maintaining an extreme level of training intensity all year long, even when approaching contests, while being on a severely restricted "cutting" diet which weakens the body overall.[6] Regarding the use of PEDs, he referenced the documentary Super Size Me and stated that eating three McDonald's meals a day is more harmful for the metabolism than his 12 years of regular steroid use.
CHRIS BUMSTEAD
Christopher Adam Bumstead, born February 2, 1995, is a Canadian IFBB professional bodybuilder. Chris first stepped on stage in 2014 and had fell in love with it since the very beginning and knew this was what he wanted to do. He later earned his pro card in 2016. Bumstead is the reigning Mr. Olympia Classic Physique winner, having won the competition in 2019, 2020 and 2021. He was also the runner-up in 2017 and 2018. Often referred to by his nickname, "CBum". Growing up, he played multiple sports, which got him started training in the gym and kickstarted his love for bodybuilding. He had developed a solid physique upon meeting professional bodybuilder Iain Valliere, who was dating his sister Melissa and really helped Chris jumpstart his career. Bumstead maintains a large online presence with content focusing on his lifestyle and bodybuilding.[2][3] Chris' mainly uses Youtube and Instagram to connect with his fans, where he has accumulated over 2.3 Million subscribers and 10.7 Million Instagram followers. Many people look up to him and see him as the most influential figure in the bodybuilding community.
Growing up, bodybuilding was only a hobby for Bumstead. It was never an end in itself for the Canadian.[5] Playing sports really developed Chris' love for the gym at first, as he got into weightlifting his freshman year of high school, around age 14. Chris played many sports growing up, ranging from soccer to baseball, basketball, and ice hockey, the most popular sport in Canada. When Chris met his sisters boyfriend, Iain Valliere, he quickly saw the potential Chris held and helped him capitalize on it. Lain helped develop Chris and got him ready to compete and on stage by 2014. After bodybuilding goals began to stack up, "all of a sudden, I was coming second at the Olympia,” he has stated. Bumstead's first bodybuilding show was a regional level show in Ontario which he participated in with his sister, Melissa Valliere. They both won the overall, Bumstead winning as a junior. Chris found himself in love with the sport of bodybuilding after his first show, he knew this was his calling and that he had what it takes to compete at the highest level. He started to work with Lain first hand, and devoted his life to the sport.
Bumstead made his competitive debut aged 19 in 2014 and obtained his IFBB pro card aged 21 after claiming the 2016 IFBB North American Bodybuilding Championship.[6] After multiple shows, Bumstead was the runner-up of the 2017in the Classic Physique division, being edged out by Breon Ansley.[7][8] Chris impressed the crowd and the judges in his very first Olympia back in 2017 and took the second place in the Classic Physique category. The results were the same for Bumstead in the 2018 Olympia competition, except he was a bit off compared to the previous year. His conditioning wasn’t that sharp. This is because Chris was hospitalized 4 weeks out from the competition due to severe water retention in his body. Chris spent three nights in the emergency room waiting for the result. He was given a very strong diuretic to flash out potassium since the doctors realized it was the problem with his kidneys. Eventually, Chris got released and could continue to train, but this was a huge setback for him..[9]
Bumstead rose to international fame as he reached the top of the podium in 2019, 2020 and 2021, this makes him the current reigning champion in Men's Classic Physique.[10] Growing a huge online following where he has used his platform to help inspire many people in the community. Chris uses his online platform to help people in many ways, including his workouts, what he eats in a day, supplementation advice, etc. This makes him the current reigning champion in Men's Classic Physique.
DWAYNE JOHNSON
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock,[3] is an American-Canadian actor, producer, businessman, former football player, and former professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time,[6][7] he was integral to the development and success of the WWE during the Attitude Era, an industry boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Johnson wrestled for WWF/E for eight years prior to pursuing an acting career. His films have grossed over $3.5 billion in North America and over $10.5 billion worldwide,[8] making him one of the world's highest-grossing and highest-paid actors.[9][10]
Prior to his emergence as a top-grossing actor beginning in the 2010s, Johnson was an athlete. At Freedom High School in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley, he ultimately emerged as a standout on the school's football and wrestling teams, which competed in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, a conference known for producing top professional and Olympic athletes. He credits his high school football coach with helping inspire transformational changes in his life, which before entering sports in 11th grade had been characterized by fights and petty crimes as a high-school teenager. His football capabilities at Freedom High School led him to be ranked as one of the top ten defensive tackle high-school prospects in the nation, drawing the attention of several NCAA Division I college football programs.
Johnson accepted an athletic scholarship to play at the University of Miami, one of the country's top college football programs. As a college freshman, he was a member of the University of Miami's 1991 national championship team but largely spent his four college football years at the University of Miami in backup roles behind elite players, including future NFL star and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Warren Sapp.[11] Johnson aspired to play professional football but went undrafted in the 1995 NFL Draft. Following his graduation from the University of Miami that year, he signed with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League but was cut from the team in his first season.[12]
In 1996, Johnson's father Rocky, a longtime professional wrestler, assisted in helping him secure a contract with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE).[2] Johnson quickly rose to global prominence, aided by a gimmick he employed as a charismatic trash-talker. The role ushered in the Attitude Era in professional wrestling, which contributed to the industry's boom period in the late 1990s and early 2000s.[13] Johnson left WWE in 2004 and returned in 2011 as a part-time performer until 2013, making sporadic appearances until retiring in 2019.[14] A 10-time world champion, including the promotion's first of African-American descent,[15] he is also a two-time Intercontinental Champion, a five-time Tag Team Champion, the 2000 Royal Rumble winner, and WWE's sixth Triple Crown champion. Johnson headlined the most-bought professional wrestling pay-per-view (WrestleMania XXVIII) and was featured among the most watched episodes of WWE's flagship television series (Raw and SmackDown).[16][17]
Johnson's first film appearance was in The Mummy Returns (2001). The following year he played his first leading role as the titular character in the sword and sorcery film The Scorpion King (2002). He has since starred in family films The Game Plan (2007), Race to Witch Mountain (2009), Tooth Fairy (2010), and Jungle Cruise (2021), as well as the action adventure films Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), Hercules (2014), Skyscraper (2018), San Andreas (2015) and Rampage (2018). He also starred in the action comedy films Get Smart (2008), Central Intelligence (2016), Baywatch (2017), and Red Notice (2021). In 2016 he voiced Maui in the Disney animated film Moana (2016). His role as Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious films, beginning with Fast Five (2011), helped the franchise become one of the highest-grossing in film. He subsequently starred in the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (2019).[18] Johnson also stars in the Jumanji films, appearing in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019), and voices Bark Kent / Krypto / Superdog, Anubis, and Teth-Adam / Black Adam in the animated film DC League of Super-Pets (2022), before starring as the latter in the live-action superhero film Black Adam (2022).
Johnson produced and starred in the HBO comedy-drama series Ballers (2015–2019)[19] and stars and produces the autobiographical sitcom Young Rock (2021). In 2000, Johnson released his autobiography The Rock Says, which was a New York Times bestseller.[20][21] In 2012, he co-founded the entertainment production company Seven Bucks Productions[22] and is co-owner of the XFL, a professional American football league.[23][24] In 2016 and 2019, Johnson was named by Time one of the world's most influential people
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