Max Sick

Max Sick, who performed as Maxick, was a German strongman and gymnast, born in Bregenz in Austria on 28 June 1882 to Swiss parents, who died on 10 May 1961. With Monte Saldo he developed the Maxalding system of bodybuilding through muscle control. A sickly child with lung problems, rickets and dropsy who only learned to walk at the age of six, he made his own weights at ten and began a series of muscle control exercises after his parents destroyed them. At 14 he was invited to join the local athletics club, and at 23 he left work as a mechanic and moved to Munich, where he joined a gymnasium and found work as an artist's model before appearing in German music halls. He later became a naturalized German citizen.