‘DOING WHAT HE LOVED’

Celebrity Trainer, 48, Dies Suddenly at Gym

His wife shared his unfinished plans via a post to his followers on Instagram as tributes poured in from celebrity clients.

An international champion bodybuilder and celebrity workout trainer in Mexico has suffered a sudden heart attack and died after a workout.

At only 48 years old, Einar Méndez was pronounced dead after the emergency on September 4 at a gym in Mexico City. Although the bodybuilder collapsed, an official cause of death hasn’t been released.

The father of three was planning to go see the Miami Dolphins and visit New York for the first time, according to Monday’s Instagram update from his wife, Yan Méndez. “We are all still in shock. He left suddenly… doing what he loved most: working out,” his widow said in a video.

The Méndez couple had just celebrated 30 years together. He leaves behind three adult daughters—Fanny, Frida, and María Regina, according to a national Mexican newspaper.

Méndez’s Instagram account had almost 47,000 followers, and his clientele included popular Nicaraguan broadcast host Martha Debayle on W Radio, who also posted about her late trainer.

“I know there won’t be a single day I train that I don’t think of you,” Debayle said. “I’ll remember our talks. Your scoldings. Your messages reminding me that we were training that day. The laughter while you stretched me and I swore. The way you pushed me when I swore I couldn’t go on.”

Play Video

Yan said her husband was “dedicated to his work” in her tribute to him, detailing that the bodybuilder wanted to start a foundation to “help many people who didn’t have the means to learn training technique.”

“Everyone who knew him knows exactly who Einar Méndez was,” Yan concluded to his followers in Spanish. “He was strong, resilient, kind. … We’re in deep pain with a void that will never, ever be filled.”