Bernarr Macfadden (1868–1955) was born Bernard Adolphus McFadden in Mill Spring, Missouri. He was a skinny, weak, and sickly child. After being orphaned at the age of eleven, he was placed with a farmer, and as the boy settled into a routine of heavy farm labor, his weakness and maladies disappeared. When he moved to Saint Louis in 1881 and worked as an office boy in his uncle’s grocery store, his illnesses returned. McFadden bought a dumbbell and began a daily exercise routine that included walking up to six miles a day, and his health soon improved. He began reading books on physical culture and was particularly impressed with William Blaikie’s How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1879). McFadden began an extensive bodybuilding program, engaging in weightlifting, wrestling, and other sports. He also began coaching and teaching others. During this period he changed his name to Bernarr Macfadden, which he believed sounded much stronger than his given name.
