Joe Weider

Joe Weider was a Canadian bodybuilder and entrepreneur who co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) alongside his brother Ben Weider. He was also the creator of the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest. Joe Weider was the publisher of several bodybuilding and fitness-related magazines, most notably Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Men's Fitness and Shape, and the manufacturer of a line of fitness equipment and fitness supplements. Weider was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His parents were Louis and Anna Weider, Polish Jewish emigrants from the town of Kurów, Poland. Joe published the first issue of Your Physique magazine in 1940, and built a set of barbells out of car wheels and axles the same year out of the family garage on Coloniale Street in Montreal. He designed numerous training courses beginning in the 1950s, including the Weider System of Bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger credited Weider with inspiring him to enter bodybuilding and to come to the United States. Weider died of heart failure on March 23, 2013 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California at the age of 93.