ROSLYN, N.Y., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Bodybuilding pioneer Dan Lurie has died of unspecified causes in Roslyn, N.Y., his family said. He was 90.
Lurie -- who died Wednesday -- was known in the bodybuilding world as a tireless promoter of the sport and a walking billboard for strength who once knocked out 1,665 pushups in 90 minutes, The New York Times said Saturday.
Although not as well-known as among mainstream audiences as contemporaries like Charles Atlas, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joe Wieder had, Lurie was considered a celebrity among the muscle crowd and a key figure in the growth of bodybuilding, the newspaper said.
Lurie was born in Brooklyn with a heart defect that kept him out of World War II and the Golden Gloves boxing tournament.
He turned to weightlifting as a means of building himself up and also worked as a furniture mover for his father.
"To further build my muscles I would carry a piece of furniture up two or three flights of stairs and then exercise on the way down," he once wrote. "I had put together several routines that called for certain exercises to be done at certain times. For instance, one routine would require 25 push-ups on the landing of the stairs before I returned to the truck for more furniture."
Lurie owned a chain of gyms in New York in the 1940s, a barbell company and a bodybuilding magazine.
