Joe Weider's death matters more to me than the death of my own grandfather. I know how that sounds. But between the two of them, Joe was the one who changed my life.

Not directly, of course. But it was Joe who led to Lou Ferrigno, and to the muscle magazines I saw in grocery stores as a boy, and I would not be a bodybuilder or a muscle fur today without the inspirational story of Lou's rise to bigness and the dreamy pictures of muscle champions proudly displayed in slick full color glory on Flex and Muscle and Fitness - both magazines that Joe founded.

Bodybuilding is still an unsung sport in many ways. We do not get the prime time television coverage or the full color photos in the daily newspaper. We don't even get Olympic medals. Our greatest moments of triumph and toughest battles are private affairs between us and the iron, with only a select few others who truly understand what it means to say that we've achieved our dream weight in muscle (in my case 5'9 and 200 pounds as of March).

But bodybuilding is no longer the stigmatized weirdo's activity that it was back when Arnold began training in his Austrian hometown, largely due to Joe's efforts. Joe helped to systematize what had, until he came along, been a mishmash of word-of-mouth advice and hearsay and raw dumb luck. Before Joe, bodybuilding was a curiosity. After Joe, it was a sport.

All serious bodybuilders alive today should consider Joe to be something of a grandfather figure. A sensei of muscle. A guiding light along the path of self-betterment through weight training. Joe gave men like me - who grew up in a single parent household with no father figure or older brother there as a guide - a chance to discover for ourselves what it meant to be a man. The methods, contests and magazines he pioneered allow us all to fulfill the ancient words of Socrates who said:

"No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training...what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

The next workout session I do at my gym will be my memorial service to Joe. To all my fellow muscle furs - the next time you train, do one more rep on each of your sets in his honor.

He left this world a buffer place.