''Strength & Health'' was a bodybuilding/fitness/

Olympic weightlifting Weightlifting (often known as Olympic weightlifting) is a competitive strength athletics, strength sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with the aim of successfully lifting t ...

magazine, one of the earliest magazines devoted to fitness and

bodybuilding Bodybuilding is the practice of Resistance training, progressive resistance exercise to build, control, and develop one's skeletal muscle, muscles via muscle hypertrophy, hypertrophy. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to a ...

. Until the late 1960s, it was the most popular weightlifting magazine in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

History

The magazine was published between 1932 and 1986 in 54 Volumes, a volume a year in 6 parts, published every 2–3 months. It was published by York Barbell Company, which was established by Bob Hoffman. In the 1940s, several early gay physique photographers, including

Bob Mizer Robert Henry Mizer (March 27, 1922 – May 12, 1992) was an American photographer and filmmaker, known for pushing boundaries of depicting male homoerotic content with his work in the mid 20th century. Biography Bob Mizer's earliest photograph ...

, contributed photos to the magazine and advertised homoerotic (sometimes nude) photographs in its back pages. This eventually gave rise to

physique magazines Physique magazines or beefcake magazines were magazines devoted to physique photography—that is, photographs of muscular " beefcake" men—typically young and attractive—in athletic poses, usually in revealing, minimal clothing. During thei ...

designed for gay audiences, starting with Mizer's ''

Physique Pictorial ''Physique Pictorial'' is an American magazine, one of the leading beefcake magazines of the mid-20th century. During its run from 1951 to 1990 as a quarterly publication, it exemplified the use of bodybuilding culture and classical art figure p ...

'' in 1951. In an article titled "Let Me Tell You a Fairy Tale", the editors of ''Strength & Health'' decried the emergence of "homosexual magazines", warning of their corrupting influence on youth.

Editors

Its first editor was Lithuanian-born weightlifter Walter Zagurski. Managing editors during the magazine's history included: George F. Jowett, Gord Venables, Jim Murray, Ray Van Cleef, Harry Paschall, Bob Hasse,

John Grimek John Carroll Grimek (June 17, 1910 – November 20, 1998) was an American bodybuilder and weightlifter active in the 1930s and 1940s. Grimek was Mr. America in 1940 and 1941, and Mr. Universe in 1948. In 1949, he won his last contest, t ...

, Terry Todd, Tommy Suggs, and Jan Dellinger.

References

External links

Strength and Health - Cover Page Collection
Physical culture Fitness magazines Bodybuilding magazines Defunct magazines published in the United States Magazines disestablished in 1986 Magazines established in 1932 Sports magazines published in the United States Magazines published in Pennsylvania {{sport-mag-stub