Who Is Joe Weider?

Josef E. "Joe" Weider was born on November 29, 1922 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the Canadian co-founder of the International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB) together with his brother Ben Weider. Joe Weider also created Mr. Olympia and Ms. Olympia. What few people know is that Joe Weider started his empire with just $7 at the tender age of 17. He built barbells out of car axles and wheels. Later he became a manufacturer of gym exercise equipment and one of the first people ever to focus on nutrition as a part of bodybuilding. His line of nutritional supplements is one of the most recognized across the world.

Joe Weider introduced the mental approach to working out. He never claimed to be an innovator. He always said he took different elements from different sources and synthesized them into bodybuilding. To sum it up, Weider is one of the first that put together and introduced a series of training principles that successful bodybuilders use today:

1. Pre-Exhaustion Training
2. Pyramiding
3. Super sets
4. Muscle Priority Training
5. Set System Training
6. Instinctive Training
7. Giant Sets
8. Tri-Sets
9. Staggered Sets
10. Compound Sets

We have a lot to thank Weider. Without him bodybuilding would not have been the way we know it today!