John Grimek

17 June 1910 – 20 November 1998 · Perth Amboy, New Jersey → York, Pennsylvania

John Carroll Grimek was the outstanding crossover figure between American weightlifting and bodybuilding in the mid-twentieth century. He lifted for the United States at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, won the Mr. America title in 1940 and 1941, Mr. Universe in 1948 and Mr. USA in 1949, and retired from physique competition undefeated. He was the central physique figure of Bob Hoffman's York Barbell circle.

At a glance

• Height: about 5 ft 8½ in (174 cm).
• Weight: about 195 lb (88 kg) in his physique-contest years.
• Nicknames: "the Monarch of Muscledom" and "the Glow".

Origins

Grimek was born on 17 June 1910 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of George and Maria Grimek, Slovak immigrants from the village of Ústie nad Oravou in northern Slovakia. He took up weight training as a young man and in 1935 moved to York, Pennsylvania, to join Hoffman's York Barbell Company. He lived in York for the rest of his life.

The work

Grimek represented the United States in weightlifting at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, finishing ninth in the heavyweight class. His greater fame came from physique contests: he won the AAU Mr. America in 1940 and again in 1941, after which the AAU barred previous winners from re-entering, and he remains the only man to have won the title twice. In 1948 he won the Mr. Universe contest in London, where George Hackenschmidt was among the judges, and in 1949 he won his last contest, the AAU Mr. USA, against a field including Steve Reeves, Clarence Ross, George Eiferman and Armand Tanny.

Through the York years he appeared constantly in Strength & Health, and he later edited York Barbell's Muscular Development magazine. He died in York on 20 November 1998, aged eighty-eight.

Notable feats

• U.S. Olympic weightlifting team, Berlin 1936: ninth, heavyweight.
• Mr. America 1940 and 1941 — the only two-time winner.
• Mr. Universe, London, 1948.
• AAU Mr. USA 1949; retired from physique competition undefeated.
• Bent-pressing one of Louis Cyr's old globe dumbbells at York, loaded to about 269 lb, by Strength & Health's account.
• Squats with over 400 lb for repetitions in his late sixties.

Specific figures for his best competition lifts vary between later accounts and are not given here.

Method

Like most physique men of his era, Grimek trained the whole body in each session rather than using split routines. He is described as training three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and as an early proponent of three sets of ten repetitions, with short rests of under a minute between sets and slow, controlled repetitions. He combined this with the Olympic lifts and heavy squatting of the York school, and was noted for his flexibility and posing.

Legacy

Grimek demonstrated in person that weightlifting and bodybuilding had not yet split decisively in the 1930s and 1940s, and he was one of the few figures respected on both sides of the later division. He was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 1999, and he appears on a mural in York, completed in 2000. The April 1999 issue of Iron Game History was largely devoted to him.

Disputed and unresolved

Grimek's physique measurements, like everyone's, varied with measuring conventions and were reported by an interested employer's magazine; they should be read in that light. Figures for his best lifts circulate in many versions and are best checked against contemporary contest reports.