Sigmund Klein

10 April 1902 – 16 December 1987 · Mannheim, Germany → New York City

Sigmund Klein was the proprietor of Klein's Gym, on West 49th Street in Manhattan, from 1924 until 1973. The gym was, for half a century, the place in New York where serious lifters trained. Klein was also a meticulous lifter, a competent strongman in the older European style, and one of the most prolific and reliable correspondents that strength culture has produced.

Origins

Klein was born in Mannheim in April 1902 and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1903, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. He took up weightlifting in his early teens after seeing a Sandow stage performance, and corresponded with both Alan Calvert and Professor Attila as a teenager. Through that correspondence he was introduced, in 1923, to Attila's daughter Grace Attila, who ran what remained of Attila's New York gymnasium after her father's death. Klein moved to New York, married Grace in 1924, and inherited Attila's clientele.

The work

Klein's Gym, at 717 Seventh Avenue and later at 7 West 48th Street, was the senior gymnasium of the city through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Its membership at various times included John Grimek, Steve Stanko, John Davis, Sigmund's pupil Roland Essmaker — the first Mr. America in 1939 — and a broad cross-section of the New York theatre and entertainment world. The gym kept old-fashioned wooden floors, north light, and the discipline of a small classical studio rather than a fitness centre. Klein himself trained, taught, wrote, and corresponded daily. He sold mail-order courses to a long list of subscribers across the United States and Europe.

He competed in lifting through the late 1920s and 1930s, primarily in the bent press and the one-arm Olympic lifts. He retired from active stage performance in the late 1930s but continued to give private exhibitions through the 1940s.

"There is no perfection at the gymnasium. There is the day's work, and there is the next day's work, and the work that the man does between them is what makes the difference."

Notable feats

Klein's competitive figures, recorded in Strength magazine and the Klein's Bell club newsletter, include:

• Right-hand bent press of 229 lb (104 kg) at a bodyweight of 154 lb (70 kg).
• Two-hands clean and jerk of 263 lb (119 kg).
• One-arm snatch of 165 lb (75 kg).
• Several documented exhibitions of "muscle control," posing, and isolation work, of which Klein was an unusually careful exponent.

He never approached the absolute records of his contemporaries; his interest was in proportional strength at a moderate bodyweight. He held a number of light-heavyweight American records in the bent press and the one-arm lifts in the late 1920s.

Method

Klein's training was exact, calendar-based, and conservative. He worked the Olympic lifts and the bent press as the central exercises, supplemented with single-joint work for the smaller muscles, and was an early American advocate of structured deload weeks. His written instruction — articles in Strength, Strength & Health, and Iron Man over four decades — is among the most reliable training writing of the period. He resisted both the gimmickry of the early mail-order schools and the steroid-driven physique writing of the 1960s.

Legacy

Klein's Gym is the legacy. As a physical place, it was the through-line that connected the music-hall strongmen — by way of Attila, who had taught Sandow — to the post-war American lifting world. As a cultural institution, it was the place where journalists, dancers, actors, and serious amateur lifters trained alongside the professionals. Klein also kept records, photographs, and correspondence with extraordinary discipline; a great deal of what is known about American lifting in the 1925–1965 period comes from his archive, much of it now in the Stark Center.

Klein wrote on physical culture into his eighties. His series in Iron Man magazine, "Klein's Corner," ran for over thirty years and is among the longest-running columns in the history of the genre.

Disputed and unresolved

Few of Klein's claims are disputed. He was a careful witness about himself, and his lifting figures were performed under amateur federation rules with reliable judging. Where he is sometimes overstated is in the claim that he succeeded Attila directly: Attila died in 1924, the gym had been kept by his widow and daughter for some years before, and Klein took over by way of his marriage rather than by direct succession. The continuity is real but commercial rather than dynastic.