C3bodybuilding said:
First off, Arnold did not need 5 months to get into shape for 75 Olympia. He didn't even think he would enter that show, until Gaines flew down to the set of the movie Arnold was shooting, where he had gotten down to 210lbs. The director requested this. So now he told them he would do Pumping Iron and the 75 O. He now had just about THREE months to get ready for it. Three months to go from 210, to a hard 232 (he states in many interviews on video and in mags that he never got back to 240 for that show.), is not that bad in my opinion.
You know what I meant. To get into the shape he displayed onstage, he *did* need months (3, 5--whatever; Mentzer said it was longer than Arnold publicized, and that Arnold never got up to 232) to regain some of that muscle.
It's not terrible, mind you, but is it very efficient? Not especially. He should've been able to gain all his mass back in a month if all that "extra work" was really of that great a benefit.
His thighs may not have been huge, but back then it was all about a huge upper body, huge calf's and 'athletic' thighs. Just like today it's all about the huge thighs. It was the way it was back then.
I agree...and I like the look back then more, myself. His hammies might've been a tad weak at the '80 Olympia, but at his peak in '74, his thighs looked great to me--just not as big as many of the guys' today.
Still, I think you missed my point: Arnold
still trained his legs with a volume equal to that of chest, delts, arms, or back. By his logic, he should've gotten huge thighs in addition to his incredible biceps and pecs. I mean, if it's the
number of sets that does the trick, as he says (in so many words...we can qualify that but we'll be here all day...and I'm already writing another tome
), then his thighs should've been Platzian.
We can tell that the genetics in his legs weren't deficient, as I've never met a guy that had huge calves that simply could
not get big quads if he wanted them bad enough.
Obviously drugs aren't the culprit, since his pecs and arms were so freaky. His diet was adequate to build those big pecs too.
The only variable left out is training. And I think we can say that Arnold was doing plenty of work, so the only way he could've gone is in the other direction.
That is, of course, all to
optimize is training, to make it better. No one can argue that he did have great results...I think some of us are just wondering, could he have gotten even bigger, or that huge a little faster?
As for Arnold being 'stuck', he wasn't stuck anywhere. He said himself many times he felt he had perfected everything, and did not need to add anything, or decrease. He reached his level of perfection, and thats where he stayed. Shawn Ray is like this as well, is he stuck? No, he just knows what works for him. Thats better than becoming a Flex Wheeler who kept gaining, and looked the worse for it.
I agree about Flex, but any bodybuilder who says he already thinks he is perfect is lying. I've never met one that actually believed that. At least 99.99999% want to be bigger, even the giants like Coleman, Yates, Ruhl, El Sonbaty, etc.
Shawn has actually tried going heavier before, and he was just smoother. He's awesome, but he's not perfect. He's said that he'd like Ronnie's lats, Levrone's delts, and Cutler's calves, for instance; he even commented that he changed his training somewhat to make those improvements to his physique.
But this was years ago, and he still looks the same. He thinks by changing exercises a little he'll experience some dramatic change, but what he should do is focus on what the sport's big boys have done: get as huge and strong as possible, then get ripped come contest time. That's not to say he should get sloppy fat or anything, just that he needs to think outside of the box he's lived in for over 13 years.
If Shawn was worried about his proportions, he could simply focus on bodyparts that need improvement and let whatever's already "perfect" on the back burner, training it as he normally did.
I actually think this is part of the problem with Flex. His training hasn't changed that much since he turned pro; the only difference in his appearance is that he's simply not dieting off as much muscle, or as much fat, when he comes in at 235-240. He stopped trying to get stronger, which is not a direct corrolary of greater size IMO, but it's a decent way to go about getting bigger.
In fact, that is the problem with most bodybuilders who just vary their contest weights a little. Kevin Levrone, for instance, can tell you how much he incline presses in his chest workout, 495 for reps (or so he says...I know he can get at least one with that weight, however, which is pretty friggin' awesome!).
Well, Kevin's strong as hell, but every time you read something about him, he's doing the same weights. If he's not doing more and more reps all the time, how does he expect to improve? Greater size wouldn't hurt him. And I imagine he could continue to eek out gains here and there, even if they're slow because he's already so close to his limits.
I think he just decided at some point, like many pros did and do, that once they reach a certain level, they're not going to push it any harder. They become complacent. And they stay pretty much the same year after year...they might come in a bit bigger, but they're almost always fatter or holding a lot more water at those weights. Usually, like Flex, we say somebody looks like crap when they're bigger because they simply can't build enough muscle in their offseason to warrant that weight increase.
Contrast that to Ronnie Coleman. Ronnie's training involves a ton of volume, always has...but the difference between him and Levrone from 10 years ago is that Ronnie has improved pretty much nonstop since then. Coleman says when he was in college, he couldn't even
dream of deadlifting over 800 lbs. He just worked and worked to get it, and now, in spite of a gH gut, he's pretty incredible--huge and extremely strong. Without the gut at around 250 (like at the '01 Arnold, his best shape ever), he is night and day compared to where he was 10 years ago at maybe 220. He looks twice as big and he's in even better condition.
Do I think Arnolds training is ideal? No. I think it would bury just about anyone. But did it work for that elite group back then? Yes.
Pretty well, indeed. I think it could've worked better for them if they'd tweaked things, but only a fool would deny that they were some incredible bodybuilders...still, in many ways, the very best in terms of aesthetics.
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