How can anyone do arnold 'suggested' routines>????

[Grizzly]

Is it over training...yes...but by who's standards. Modern Day fitness and bodybuilding.

I have done PTraining...and when I first saw the program, I said that is overtraining. Guess what folks it works. Look at Arnold, I think he knows a thing or 2 about training.

That's what I say, too, bro! I was thinking about making a new thread of this subject. Maybe I still will. But, here's my thoughts on the matter. For years and years and years people trained with high volume. It has produced many, many champions and great physiques. So, how could it be that bad? Maybe lower volume is what it takes to look like today's pros(in conjuction w/ the drugs) but if you're looking to look like Arnold and the boys, then it seems to me that their type of training is what you would want to do.

 

[Blood&Iron]

While I doubt Arnold wrote much of the Encyclopedia, I do think the routines represent what he did. Will it work for normal people? A few, namely those with superior recuperative abilities. Is it ideal? I very much doubt it. At some point, just for fun, I plan on giving Arnold's competition routines a shot. I'll probably shrivel up to the size of Woody Allen, but I'm curious. I HAVE trained twice a day, though I used a different system. I trained each muscle group once a week, but did a low-rep version of each workout in the morning and the same workout with high reps in the evening. I was also dieting at the time at about 1500cal a day at a bodyweight of 200lbs or so. Suprisingly, my strength remained fairly constant. But after about two weeks my body would just give out and I'd switch back to just the low-rep version of the workouts in the morning and skip the higher-rep evening workout. I was actually fairly happy with the results. But I've gotten as good or better results with a far lower volume. Plus doing squats for low reps in the morning to failure and coming back for high reps squats to failure in the evening just plain sucks in ways words cannot describe.

 

[Abbaddon]

While I doubt Arnold wrote much of the Encyclopedia, I do think the routines represent what he did. Will it work for normal people? A few, namely those with superior recuperative abilities. Is it ideal? I very much doubt it. At some point, just for fun, I plan on giving Arnold's competition routines a shot. I'll probably shrivel up to the size of Woody Allen, but I'm curious. I HAVE trained twice a day, though I used a different system. I trained each muscle group once a week, but did a low-rep version of each workout in the morning and the same workout with high reps in the evening. I was also dieting at the time at about 1500cal a day at a bodyweight of 200lbs or so. Suprisingly, my strength remained fairly constant. But after about two weeks my body would just give out and I'd switch back to just the low-rep version of the workouts in the morning and skip the higher-rep evening workout. I was actually fairly happy with the results. But I've gotten as good or better results with a far lower volume. Plus doing squats for low reps in the morning to failure and coming back for high reps squats to failure in the evening just plain sucks in ways words cannot describe.

Ok if you were only taking in 1500 cals a day at 200 pounds that would make you taking in only 375g or protein and carbs combined and that is you having absolutely no fat in your diet. After two weeks doing that you wouldve given out doing any kind of split simply because you werent taking in enough.

A lot of people take a week off when they hit a platue. I do the opposite. As it is now I take in around 3000 cals a day and that is staying lean for me. When I hit a platue I up my cal intake as high as I can get it around 4000 to 4500 cal a day and do two a days for a few weeks. I make sure I take an extra nap to add on to my 8-10 hrs of sleep in a day, and I hit each bodypart twice a week with full blown workouts as far apart from each other as possible and I never work a muscle while it is still sore from the last workout. This is how I have pushed past many platue's over the years, both in bodyweight and in strength. I am what they call natural. I use creatine and have used prohormones before(I gave it up as I feel they are a waste) so I dont really care if I am called natural or not I just say I am a non gear user. Anyway a person can do two a days as a natural and get good gains you just need to be very very carefull about your rest and nutrition. I do not do this type of split for too long though as I feel it may be bad on the joints for an extended period of time. Also I cut out all cardio while doing this kind of split.

 

[Grizzly]

I'm just curious as to why everyone thinks that Arnold didn't write any of his books. Why does everyone think he's stupid? I guess it's because you can't possibly be a monstrous bodybuilder and still be smart. Think about it. The guy is obviously intelligent. He's, more or less, self-taught in the English language. He's a good investor and businessman. Watching Pumping Iron it becomes quite apparent that the guy is fairly articulate. So, why then, can he not possibly have written the books? There's a certain swagger and bravado in all of his writing that can only have come from the man himself. Watch Pumping Iron and you'll see that the ol' boy had a healthy ego. That comes through clear as day in the books, if you ask me.

 

[Blood&Iron]

Certainly my calorie intake played a large part in the overtraining I experienced while training twice a day. I certainly wouldn't recommend someone of my size ever going down to 1500cal a day, and doing so while training 2x a day is fairly idiotic. In the past I have been guilty of getting carried away with things. This was one instance of this occuring. I had already been dieting for some time, gradually decreasing my calories by 300-500 a week, having started at around 3000cal. I was eating about 200g protein, 100g carbs, and 40g of fat FYI. I still think training 2x a day is a bad idea for the vast majority of trainees. I am fairly HIT-like in my approach to lifting. But, as I wrote previously, I will give Arnold's routines a shot, just out of curiousity. I'll make sure to have a much higher calorie intake, however.

 

[SSAlexSS]

That's what I say, too, bro! I was thinking about making a new thread of this subject. Maybe I still will. But, here's my thoughts on the matter. For years and years and years people trained with high volume. It has produced many, many champions and great physiques. So, how could it be that bad? Maybe lower volume is what it takes to look like today's pros(in conjuction w/ the drugs) but if you're looking to look like Arnold and the boys, then it seems to me that their type of training is what you would want to do.

The higher volume routiens all appeared IN 1960s!!! Guess what, steroids appeared then too.... Coincidence? before 1960, bodybuildersd mostly trained 3x weekly and some of them could knock out arnold with 1/10 of the juice that he has used....

 

[SSAlexSS]

I'm just curious as to why everyone thinks that Arnold didn't write any of his books. Why does everyone think he's stupid? I guess it's because you can't possibly be a monstrous bodybuilder and still be smart. Think about it. The guy is obviously intelligent. He's, more or less, self-taught in the English language. He's a good investor and businessman. Watching Pumping Iron it becomes quite apparent that the guy is fairly articulate. So, why then, can he not possibly have written the books? There's a certain swagger and bravado in all of his writing that can only have come from the man himself. Watch Pumping Iron and you'll see that the ol' boy had a healthy ego. That comes through clear as day in the books, if you ask me.

The reason I, and many other people think that Arnolds routines were ghost written because they are too dumb for someone as smart as Arnold!!! Seriously EVEN TODAY very few bodybuilders EVEN COME CLOSE to the volume suggested. And these bodybuilders take even more drugs....

It is dumb how Arnold talks about steroids being bad and evil, yet his routines would even overtrain anyone but juice monsters....

About ego.... he had quite an ego.... He puts down bodybuilders of the past because the lacked "total refinment that bodybuilders today have" because "... they didn't train enough...".... Well ho, ahnold, bodybuilders of 50s and 40s didnt have access to juice...soo.... that explains the entire difference...

 

[Blood&Iron]

I'm just curious as to why everyone thinks that Arnold didn't write any of his books. Why does everyone think he's stupid? I guess it's because you can't possibly be a monstrous bodybuilder and still be smart. Think about it. The guy is obviously intelligent. He's, more or less, self-taught in the English language. He's a good investor and businessman. Watching Pumping Iron it becomes quite apparent that the guy is fairly articulate. So, why then, can he not possibly have written the books? There's a certain swagger and bravado in all of his writing that can only have come from the man himself. Watch Pumping Iron and you'll see that the ol' boy had a healthy ego. That comes through clear as day in the books, if you ask me.

Yes, Arnold is articulate and intelligent. He is also a celebrity, and was even at the time he "wrote" the Encyclopedia. Given that 99.99% of all books by celebrities are ghost-written it stands to reason that his were as well. This is almost certainly the case for "The Education of a Bodybuilder" and probably the Encyclopedia. Any book that lists a celebrity as author, and has under their name "With so and so" is almost certainly, for the most part, written by "so and so." The Encyclopedia might have been written in part by Arnold as there really isn't that much text(It's mostly pictures) and since it required no real narrative, Arnold could certainly been capable of writing it. But given that he is/was busy with myriad other things including acting, real-estate, etc. Bill Dobbins probably ended up writing most of it. And as for Arnold having a healthy ego, I would say he was simply a narcissist, though a charming one.

 

[HighIntensity]

BOTTOM LINE

done right Arnolds programs can be effective and productive...
they are not dated, IMOP

 

[Blood&Iron]

you know is a very interesting theory.

kevin levrone in his own words in the year before at the mister OLYPIA said he used this style.

he stumbled on too it by accident, and could not believe the gains he got from it.

how did you discover it?

and how did the program look?

It was simply the result of some theorizing by myself and a friend at the gym. As I was mulling over giving it a shot, I read an article about performing a 2nd evening workout as a "recovery workout" with sets in the evening workout only being performed for pump to clear out waste products. Being me I couldn't imagine this and did the sets in my 2nd workout to failure but with higher reps. My routine looked somthing like:

Monday: Chest/Shoulders
Tuesday: Back/Traps
Wednesday: off
Thursday: Biceps/Triceps/Forearms
Friday: Legs
Sat: off
Sun: off

Technically, Wed. and Sat. were supposed to be cardio days, but I was so exhausted that I gave up on that idea. I also typically dozed off for an hour or two every day in addition to getting 9-10hrs of sleep a night. Since I was eating far below maintenance calories I didn't gain any size, but it seemed to work quite well for weight loss and I pretty much maintained my strength. My friend gave it a try a bit later. He wasn't dieting and made decent strength gains, but they weren't that much better than what he achieved training once a day. Levrone was probably on ton of gear, which makes his situation completely different.