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PhysicallyFIT Left: A young Bob... back then they called it "Physical Culture" Below: Bob and Arnold circa 1974 by Charles Peeples Kudos From The Great White North The MUSCLEMAG “Encyclopedia of BodyBuilding,” all 792 pages of it, arrived unsolicited at Jami’s office recently, a gift, inscribed by the author “To the magnificent Jami, a supreme publisher, and amazing fitness example. In appreciation for all you do for fitness! Regards Always, Bob Kennedy.” “I’m so totally blown away,” Jami told me, “do you think you could explain to our readers who this man is and maybe find out why he’s been so thoughtful to me over the past few years” ing look” is passe, that only functional fitness matters, and because they can spout clinical gobbledygook, they’re the only ones qualified to train clients. Uh, ok --- are those other 99% of folks jamming all the health clubs really in pursuit of “functional” fitness too What a waste of mirrors! Okay, Jami: he’s an ornery old goat, always surrounded in Hefneresque fashion by a stable of spectacular fitness beauties and cartoon-like muscle-studs, his Canada-based enterprise churning out fitness books and magazines like some vending-machine run amok. And of course he’d be interested in you because along with your brains and great accomplishments, you’re a sexy, very fit blonde, and like any normal guy… Alright, the truth is that Bob is married to a fit, brainy blonde of his own, Tosca Reno, author of The Eat Clean Diet series (NY Times bestseller) and between them they have five children. But those who aren’t into bodybuilding, fitness --- or for that matter, caring how they look --- probably couldn’t care less about publishing magnate Robert Kennedy. Or, if they do know about him, they resent him as a matter of principle. Among the latter are likely a few of those inevitable pencil-necks with a bunch of Cs and Ss after their names, whose nostrils flare at the word “bodybuilding,” and who console themselves about their own unremarkable appearance by touting their high-school 40-yard dash stats and insisting, somewhat noisily, that the “bodybuild- 38 I PhillyFIT A helluva lot of people do know who Robert Kennedy is: heir-apparent in his way to whatever’s left of the media side of Joe Weider-style muscle imperialism. That includes several top international physique magazines (MUSCLE- MAG INTERNATIONAL, OXYGEN, REPS, MAXIMUM FITNESS, and CLEAN EATING), a website (emusclemag.com), fitness product-lines (one of which, a top-selling supplement brand, he coyly disavows) and more books on muscle-building and nutrition than anyone can count. Add to that the sculpted eye-candy of both genders who jam his magazines and booths at the Arnold and Olympia weekends (many, like WWF diva Trish Stratus, owe much of their media glory to his “discovery”), and you’ve got a hugely successful man whom a lot of losers will take shots at. I’ve taken my own shots at Sir Robert: I tease him about his screamingly gaudy neckties. I do a reckless pastiche of his British accent. I take him to task for overindulging in T&A in his photo layouts at the expense of more physicallydeveloped women. I might even teasingly refer to the “Weider Pre-Exhaust Principle,” knowing that Bob claims to have introduced this training technique March/April I 215-396-0268 I www.phillyfit.com
in 1968. But I feel entitled to this liberty, having known him personally for the better part of two decades; Robert Kennedy’s the one who gave me my first break in writing when no one else would. And even as I lambasted him and other dignitaries in my articles, he was unfailingly encouraging, even leaving phone messages at my home waxing rhapsodic over pieces I’d done for him: “Chawwwles, you are indeed a wrrritah.” His praise carries freight, as he doesn’t dispense it easily. In the manner of many Brits, he can be outright blunt. But rarely. Of course I’m a fan of Robert Kennedy… why wouldn’t I be And I’m in good company, because his admirer list’s been a Who’s-Who of bodybuilding, going back to legends like John Grimek, Steve Reeves, that big Austrian guy(whom Bob had known since 1967 and touted as Presidential material a decade before the Governator took over the Left Coast) and nearly anyone else who ever appeared in a bodybuilding or fitness magazine. He’s lived the life he espouses, having missed no more than a handful of workouts in the past 55 years. A serious scholar of “Iron Game” history he’s assembled what amounts to a museum devoted to feats of strength and physical accomplishment. It hasn’t always been an easy ride either; born in Europe and living in England until he was 27, Bob started MUSCLEMAG INTER- NATIONAL in 1974, hocking most of his possessions (including his prized Jaguar) to get the first issues out. And this was at a time when bodybuilding (and Arnold) hadn’t yet registered on the public mind; as the book PUMPING IRON noted, muscles were cheaper than dirt --- you couldn’t give them away. Out of nothing, Bob created something. Much like bodybuilding itself, which to many has no tangible justification compared to the pragmatic drills of strength-training for football or track, his whole enterprise depended on his being a conjurer of sorts, expanding that imagination and excitement which comes of seeing and being something beyond mind-blowing, drawing in no small way on the sensation Arnold created. The acolytes of bodybuilding may be dismissed as living in a quasi-comic-book world, a perpetual, self-indulgent adolescence replete with its own virtues and extremes (who could ever take those hysterically disingenuous supplement ads seriously), but in harming no one, enjoying their version of the “runner’s high” (aka “the pump”), and generally setting an admirable example of nutrition and exercise-discipline, who’s qualified to fault them kin0309 Close Spaces • Straighten Crooked Teeth Bond Chipped Teeth • Whiten Teeth KING of PRUSSIA DENTAL ASSOCIATES Brad G. Jacobson, D.D.S., P.C. 491 Allendale Rd., Suite 306 Call for FREE CONSULTATION - 610.337.2989 or 610.265.4142 March/April I 215-396-0268 I www.phillyfit.com PhillyFIT I 39
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