Al Treloar

Al Treloar (May 11, 1873 – February 28, 1960) was an American bodybuilder, athletic trainer, artist's model and author. He won the first international bodybuilding contest in 1904, toured the United States as a vaudeville performer, and appeared in early silent films. He was physical director at the Los Angeles Athletic Club from 1907 to 1949.

Biography Treloar was born Alfred Toof Jennings, His father was a lawyer and educator, who served as superintendent of schools for Allegan until 1874. Treloar attended high school in Manistee, Michigan, Twenty-year-old bodybuilder Treloar was hired to be one of Sandow's onstage assistants. The production opened on August 1, 1893, and consisted of a series of athletic acts—acrobats, cyclists, trapeze artists—interspersed with musical interludes (during which food and drink were served). His first year, Treloar rowed on both the varsity and freshmen crew teams. "His rowing was crude, but he was a man of remarkable physique."

He met his future wife while at Harvard. Georgia Edna Knowlton (1875–1946) was two years younger, originally from Maine, and also a fitness enthusiast. They were married in Boston on October 5, 1895. she was his onstage assistant in their vaudeville act, and she contributed a chapter to his book on muscular development.

Treloar graduated from Harvard in 1896 with a special degree in physical education, and remained in Cambridge for a year to coach the freshman crew team. The contest was "international" in that it included bodybuilders from both the United States and England, but all the contestants were among the 100,000 readers of Physical Culture.

One of the most remarkable and unique expositions ever given in this country will be the First Physical Culture Exhibition, which will be held at the Madison Square Garden, New York City, during the week beginning December 28 and ending January 2. The Exhibition is being given for the purpose of calling attention of the public to the vast value of physical culture. The magnificent specimens of manhood and womanhood that have entered the contests for the two $1,000 prizes will tend, in themselves, to prove what can be done by persistent attention to the great laws of health. Every physical culturalist who has good reason for believing that he is especially strong, or that he is especially well developed, should enter into some of these contests. The prizes offered for both men and women are attractive and liberal.

The New York Times listed demonstrations of "almost every form of competitive exercises," including "fencing by women, racing and jumping contests by girls and women; wrestling, … running and jumping races by boys, … and a number of Amateur Athletic Union events." The culmination of the six-day athletic extravaganza came on January 2, when Hugh Jennings (Treloar) (Treloar's registration in the exhibition under the name "Hugh" Jennings is unexplained.) He was already working in vaudeville under the name "Treloar."

On January 16, 1904, Edison Studios filmed Treloar and Beatrice Marshall (3rd-place winner among the women) Treloar appeared on the March 1904 cover of Physical Culture wearing his leopard-print trunks and Roman sandals.

Treloar was the author of a major book on bodybuilding: Treloar's Science of Muscular Development: A Textbook of Physical Training (1904), to which his wife (as Edna Tempest) contributed a chapter for women. Macfadden published the book, and illustrated it with photographs of Treloar and Tempest demonstrating the exercises.

Treloar flexed and posed in a May 3, 1905 silent short, Al Treloar in Muscle Exercises, filmed by American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. A poster of Treloar "wearing a pair of sandals and a leopard's skin as a breech-cloth" was deemed "obscene" by Anthony Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Police raided the offices of Physical Culture magazine and arrested Macfadden in October 1905, but he was acquitted. Treloar, billed as an "Ex-Harvard Varsity Oarsman and Champion Athlete, and Exponent of Modern Physical Culture," put on an act that was neat and interesting from start to finish. He was assisted by Edna Tempest, and began with several poses shown in a large frame, in which his really superb muscular development was shown to great advantage. Later on he used his assistant in showing his lifting powers, and the plan was a welcome change from the clumsy, cumbersome weights generally used by strong men. In 1906, they added a stunt as memorable as Sandow's "human barbell" from 1893. Variety wrote: "Treloar and Edna Tempest, act much changed and improved." From 1903 to 1907, I devoted my entire time to vaudeville engagements, appearing in every first-class vaudeville theatre in the United States, including the Keith theatres. My stunt consisted of posturing and feats of strength, and I was billed under the stage name of Al Treloar.

Al. G. Treloar, physical instructor, has been trained by many years of practical work and almost can see at a glance what his many pupils require in the line of physical training. He was born in Allegan, Michigan, in 1873, and graduated from the Manistee high school at an early age. He then entered Harvard university, where he took up the normal course in physical training, and after graduating from the university acted as coach for the Harvard freshman rowing crew for one year. He then accepted the position of physical instructor of the St. Paul Athletic club. Later he taught privately, and for ten years he traveled all over the country, giving private lessons to a host of pupils who had heard of his system of teaching. In January, 1907, the directors of the Los Angeles Athletic club learned of his success and lost no time in employing him. The veteran coach of Stanford university, "Dad" Moulton, since has termed him "one of the finest instructors in the country." In addition to teaching wrestling and coaching the four-oar crews of the club, Treloar is an expert on the flying rings, traveling rings, horizontal bars, parallel bars, vaulting horse and buck, pulley weights, both upper and lower back, wrist machine, finger machine, vertical bars and punching bags, in all of which he gives daily instruction to large classes of members.

Personal

Treloar began posing for life classes at the Art Students League of Los Angeles in March 1907.

Al J. and Georgia K. Treloar were living in Los Angeles at the time of the 1940 U.S. Census.

Treloar held the position of physical director at the Los Angeles Athletic Club for 42 years, from 1907 to his retirement at age 76 in 1949. He coached hundreds of men.

The Ernest Edward Coffin Collection at the National Museum of American History holds a collection of Treloar's papers.