The Rogue Legends Series showcases historic outlier’s who have demonstrated feats of strength most humans could never replicate. This documentary series starts with one of the most iconic strongman, Eugen Sandow, who pioneered the concept of training the body to achieve a specific look. The series continues with episodes about Louis “Apollon” Uni, George Hackenschmidt, Katie Sandwina, and Arthur Saxon. This is an ongoing series, with additional influential figures to come.
Eugen Sandow was a German strongman, circus performer and strength athlete considered by historians to be the “father of modern bodybuilding.” Sandow’s physique was known around the world as he pioneered the concept of training the body to achieve a specific look. More importantly, Sandow made popular the notion of exercising for good health. In the first installment of the Rogue Legends series, we travel to England, Belgium, France and Austin, TX to uncover Sandow’s legacy.
Apollon, born Louis Uni in Marsillargues in 1862, was a massively influential French strongman and performer. Cutting a large figure from a young age, Apollon ran away from home at the age of 14 to join the circus as a strongman. Apollon was noted for his grip strength but his brute strength was notable as well — the frenchman could clean and jerk 341 lbs. and famously hoisted two train wheels, weighing 366 lbs., overhead. This is where the familiar strongman implement “Apollon’s Wheels” gets its name.” In our second Legend’s series installment, we visit Apollon’s hometown as well as some notable locations from the strongman’s life.
In the golden age of professional wrestling, he was the most famous wrestler of them all. But George Hackenschmidt (1877-1968), aka “The Russian Lion,” was much more than that. A body builder, weightlifting champion, nutritionist, philosopher, and writer, he has been described by Terry Todd as “the outlier’s outlier,” and his story makes a worthy entry as Chapter 3 of the Rogue Legends Series.
As the daughter of German circus performers, Katie Sandwina (born Kathi Brumbach in 1884) was raised in a world uniquely encouraging of female athleticism and physicality. At a young age, she could routinely defeat her male counterparts in various strength challenges, and by the 1910s, she was arguably America’s first true celebrity strongwoman; known as “Lady Hercules” and “The Great Sandwina.” The latter nickname was likely adapted from “Sandow,” in reference to the great German bodybuilder Eugen Sandow, whom Katie had supposedly once outperformed in a weightlifting exhibition. Across a 50-year career under the Big Top, Sandwina’s combination of grace, beauty, and power (she could famously lift her own husband over her head with one arm) amazed audiences, opened minds, and helped set the stage for the redefinition of female strength—and strength in general—in the 20th century. The documentary film Sandwina is the fourth chapter in the Rogue Legends Series.
While he never achieved the iconic status of fellow Strongman pioneers Eugene Sandow or Louis Apollon, the German weightlifter Arthur Saxon (born Arthur Hennig in 1878) often ranks above them all in the eyes of true Iron Game enthusiasts. Whether performing in a British concert hall or an American circus tent; as a solo act or alongside his brothers in the “Saxon Trio,” Arthur regularly achieved feats of true skill that few others would even attempt. His record-setting “Bent Press,” for example—which he once used to best Sandow himself— remains the gold standard nearly a century after his death.
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