Arnold - Steroids Source Talk

eazy · #1 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:52 AM

His blend of mass, symmetry, and definition was absolutely perfect. His arms were thick, his already legendary biceps fully peaked. Even Ferrigno, at 6'5", couldn’t outmuscle him.

At the same time, Arnold hadn’t sacrificed any of the definition he’d shown the year before. When he hit his chest poses, lines etched across his pecs as if being chiseled in right before your eyes. His abs and thighs, though never his strong suit, were sharp and fully formed.

He had no weak points. He was the best bodybuilder in the world.

eazy · #2 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:52 AM

Arnold began training at age 15. While his focus was always on bodybuilding, he wanted his muscles to be not only aesthetic but also bursting with power. Heavy training in the form of Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting were part of his routines almost from the beginning. Understanding that the traps and spinal erectors developed best with heavy clean and deadlift movements, Arnold worked up to sets of only five, three, and, from time to time, one single rep. “By forcing myself to go to the limit,” he wrote in his 1985 book The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, “I counterbalanced the lighter-weight, higher-rep training that made up the majority of my workouts.”

eazy · #3 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:53 AM

After less than a year of training, Arnold made his first contest appearance ever, in a weightlifting competition held in a beer hall (!) by the Athletic Union in Graz, his hometown. He cleaned and pressed 150 pounds. “The crowd gave a big cheer,” he wrote in his 2012 autobiography Total Recall. “The applause had an effect like I’d never imagined.” Buoyed by the audience, Arnold pressed 185 on his next attempt—“35 pounds more than I ever had before... I discovered that I performed much, much better in front of others.”

eazy · #4 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:53 AM

Later, Arnold had other victories in strength competitions, including the International Powerlifting Championships and the 1967 annual Munich stone-lifting contest, in which he hoisted a 560-pound stone—with no warmup. By the end of the 1960s, Arnold weighed 250 pounds, had a 520-pound bench press, and carried a physique that was rough and lacking definition, but undeniably Herculean.

eazy · #5 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:53 AM

Of course, Arnold’s flirtation with powerlifting led to his friendship with future Mr. Olympia Franco Columbu, whom Arnold in turn encouraged to take up bodybuilding. As Arnold wrote in his Encyclopedia, “Franco and I started out as weightlifters, which gave us a muscle density that bodybuilders who have not done power training lack.”

eazy · #6 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:53 AM

As Arnold’s film career took off in the late 1970s, his training shifted to suit whatever role he had to embody. As he told Men’s Fitness in 2012, “When I did Stay Hungry, [director] Bob Rafelson made me lose 30 pounds. So two-thirds of my training was cardio and one-third was weight training.” In contrast, when Arnold made Conan The Barbarian, “they wanted me to look like a powerful guy who had gotten his body through fighting and hard work. I had to be big and strong but not as defined, so I did heavier weight training.”

eazy · #7 (**permalink**) 05-23-2016, 05:54 AM

In general, throughout Arnold’s prime filmmaking years, he used lighter training loads and incorporated more circuit work, sometimes doing a set each of up to six exercises in a row without rest. The intense pace kept his heart rate up, allowing him to burn more calories and stay lean while keeping every muscle group pumped. It also allowed him to accomplish workouts in well under an hour, which made his travel and shooting schedules more manageable.