Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Bodybuilding has been the tool that single-handedly taught a little black boy from the projects to use his mind to achieve success. it taught me to see things for what they can be. I had 17-inch arms; I imagined them to be 24 inches. The power of my mind allowed me to achieve what I imagined.
For me I'm natural not because somebody else believes I'm natural, I'm natural because I don't use steroids, I don't use growth hormone, I don't use any of those enhancers. I'm natural in my own right because I don't do that and not because other people accept the fact that I'm natural or not.
The treatment from the Arnold Classic to the Olympia is, of course, a little bit different, but overall the quality of the shows and the way they are put on... I think they are the same. It's just that the Olympia has been around for so long, and it is considered the Super Bowl of bodybuilding.
I'm always positive when it comes to professional bodybuilding, hell I'm Mr. Olympia for God's sake. If I'm number one in our sport and I have a negative attitude then our sport don't need me and I don't need our sport. There are problems and controversy in all sports. That's really unavoidable.
The lion in the jungle makes every other animal sit up and take notice as soon as he lets out a roar. He didn't get that way through artificial paraphernalia or through springs and wires and trick dumbells. He became the king of the jungle through constant natural use of every muscle in his body.
The bodybuilding world has lost one of its greatest legends. I had a chance to speak with Steve Michalik a year ago at The Upper State Bodybuilding competition. We laughed and shared our personal opinions about bodybuilding [today's scene and how it was in the past]. Steve, we'll miss you. R.I.P.
I spend so much money on food, just getting the food for me is a tremendous expense, so there's no way I could even think about paying for supplements. I think of all supplements as food derivative anyway, so If I can only choose between getting the food or the supplements I'd rather opt for the food.
I always go heavy and I always go to failure. Even when I tell myself I'm gonna go easy, once I get to the gym and start working, I never end up going easy. I hate leaving the floor feeling like I could have done more weight or more reps. I just love working out and going further than I ever did before.
I think your posing and your onstage presentation is yet another piece of the craft. So anytime you get onstage to show the muscles and show the finished work, that should be looked at with the same kind of respect and appreciation. I'm glad everybody else appreciates it, but I still want to get better.
It is fortunate that I am quite a secure person and my training flew in the face of what everybody else was doing as they were all just copying what the American bodybuilders did, as reported in the magazines. But it didn't take long before people were listening to me: it happens when you are Mr. Olympia.
Because the Arnold Classic is such a big show, a guy who hasn't been getting a lot of recognition all of a sudden does that show and arrives in good condition and is able to take out some of the top guys, it then puts him up there in the running for the Olympia title. So he can get more recognition that way.
One set at extreme intensity does the muscle-building job. It must be stressed that the one final, all-out set I do takes me to the very limit of my capabilities. If you feel you can attempt a second set, then you couldn’t have been pulling out all the stops during the first set. It's not pretty, but it works.
The mind is everything. If you don’t believe you can do something then you can’t. If you believe that your upbringing was substandard and therefore you have to walk around as a refugee from that crisis situation for the rest of your life, forever bearing the burden of that experience then that will be YOUR life.
Constant tension should be applied to the last five reps of every working set, meaning, do the first 5-6 reps normal tempo, and the last few reps should be held for at least two seconds at the peak of the contraction. This allows your muscles to have more time under tension, and you work different muscle fibers.
I still believe one of the most important choices is how we treat others. What good does it do you to build a huge muscular, impressive body if you are small and underdeveloped on the inside? I’ve always felt that success begins on the inside and reaching our true potential gets blocked when we are small-spirited.
When I played basketball, I spent hours On the court practicing. When i became a body-builder, I was in the gym all the time. Like most beginners, I didn't really know what I was doing, but the more I did it, the more I loved it. I guess you could say I was a gym rat. Seeing my body change made me come back for more.
I was only 24 years old when I won my first Olympia. To be that young and the world champion was a lot of pressure. When I won the 8th one, I had the record. I was on top: that was the absolute best that I ever looked onstage, the best training and prep that I had done, and I had no regrets. I knew it was time to walk away.
When I was 10, I asked my parents for a set of weights. I had my Charles Atlas book to go along with that. Every time we went to the grocery store, I'd rush to the magazine area and read the ones with Arnold Schwarzenegger and all those guys on the covers: 'Pumping Iron,' 'Muscle and Fitness,' 'Muscle Builder by Joe Weider.'
Everybody that wants to work out wants to feel good and look better, but I think one of the biggest problems people have is they don't want to work out with a personal trainer, someone like myself, or even a couple of buddies, because they think, 'Gosh, if I work out too hard, I'm not going to be able to get up the next day!'
Partial repetitions is another technique that I used -- sparingly. I was always a fan of doing full repetitions on every set. However, at the very end of a set where you cannot do any more, and especially if you don't have a training partner, the partial repetitions are good for eking out a little bit more out of the exercise.
I think if you think of our lives as musicians, it's craftsmanship. We're not artists, we're more artisans. You know, I don't think we view ourselves as musical geniuses who can just make some sort of wonderfully beautiful record out of nothing. It's something that we work at. And if we keep working, hopefully we'll keep improving.
Professional bodybuilding is a sport of total dedication. You must dedicate every aspect of every day to the attainment of your goals if you want to succeed. It is not enough to merely go to the gym to "work out." You must put all of your concentration and focus on each rep, on each set, on each exercise to have a successful workout.
You can convert amino acids into glucose so your body can turn protein into energy and this could result with excessive protein intake. But it is an expensive way to increase your energy as well as an inefficient energy source. And your body has to eliminate it as well so it will put further stress on your system. At best it's unnecessary.
Mostly, I was into powerlifting when I was in high school. And I just continued to train the same way I was taught - to powerlift. Once I started doing bodybuilding, there were no real differences, just different exercises. A different way of training with more repetitions, but it was still the same lifting of very heavy weights to get stronger.
If you look good, are in good health, and feel good about yourself, then you'll be more productive at work, you will be happier in your relationships with your friends and your family, and consequently, you will be a more productive, contributing member of society, making the world a better place for all. And, it all starts by working on yourself.
I refuse to believe today will be just another day in my life. All that I am. All that I will become will be written through my thoughts and my actions. I've conditioned my mind. Trained my body. Sacrificed my soul. There will be obstacles. Doubters. Mistakes. But nothing comes to those who wait. Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.
I think it's good to, especially when you start to get to achieve certain levels of success and start doing a lot of interviews and having a lot of reviews, it would be quite easy to get pretty full of yourself. I think it's an important thing to try and keep yourself in check and just be aware that popularity doesn't necessarily run in parallel to quality.
That last rep where you're trying as hard as you can and you barely make it! That is what turns on the growth mechanism in your body. That last almost impossible rep where you're bearing your teeth, you're shaking all over, you need assistance! That rep is very special, that rep is very different. There's something special going on inside your body when that happens.
Presently, my understanding of the fundamental principles of the theory of high-intensity training is thorough and complete - not two plus two equals three-and-a-half, but two plus two equals four! Heretofore, I would only occasionally have clients gain 10 to 20 pounds in a month or 30 to 40 pounds in three to four months. Now such is no longer the exception , but the rule!
One thing you can't beat in this world is time. I learnt that the hard way. You can't play basketball forever. You can't play football forever. You can't bodybuild forever. I mean you CAN do it, but not at a high level against younger guys who have more time and have not reached their peaks yet. There's only so much the body can do and once you're done, you can't go back in time.
The achievement of great things though comes from the ability to manage yourselfvery, very, very well. Or at least well enough where you almost become compulsive about getting certain things done. You have to set a standard for yourself that's.very, very, very high and you have to manage your thoughts to where they need to be allow yourself to be successful, at what your trying to do.
In those days, I did what was necessary for me to win. This included training with heavy weights: a precursor for injury. So if I could do it over again I’d train with lighter weights, higher reps, no sets below 10 reps, with negatives slower than positives, and avoid injury. If I had done that, my physique wouldn’t have been quite as bulky, but with more definition and with less pain.
The old time strongmen used to lift huge weights just enough to clear a sheet of paperit is in this tradition that Sri Chinmoy's lifts should be seen. His real goal is to bring attention to the spiritual life , which is the real source of his power. For someone who is approaching 70 years of age, training every day with such ponderous weights to inspire humanity is the real world record.
To stimulate optimal size and strength increases, it's imperative that you regularly attempt the momentarily impossible. For example, if you can curl 100 pounds for a maximum of 10 reps, but never attempt the 11th, your body has no reason to enlarge upon its existing capacity. It is only by regularly attempting to go beyond your existing capacity that inroads are made into your body's reserves.
I'm not content. What I've accomplished already was good, and it was needed at the time in order for me to move on, but I'm so hungry I can't even tell you what was, I'm concentrating on what is to be. Once I knock that down, I'll go on to the next accomplishment until I can finally say, "that was the greatest." I can only say what it is when I'm done; and I'm not done, I have a lot of work to do.
If you accuse me of being on drugs because I'm very focused on what I do, because I'm very serious, because I'm very hungry, because I can squat 800 lbs, because I can bench 500 lbs, because I can press 315 behind my neck, and if these things don't fit under what you consider to be natural, then I don't want to be a natural. I don't want to be what you depict as a natural. I want to define myself for me.
It’s therapy. It’s just something to do so you’re not lost in your own not-so-nice thoughts, and it’s an opportunity to think about something a lot nicer and to do something that’s with more purpose. So you do it, and you take your passion and you put a lot into it, and at some point you get recognized for it. But that recognition doesn’t mean the man is without his own demons or without his own struggles.
My understanding about nutrition is not what I'd like it to be, so for a long time my dieting strategy was very crude. It's only very recently that I started to accept different ideas like using vegetables and natural seasonings that don't compromise the sodium and caloric value of the food while at the same time giving it some flavor. I'm still evolving; everybody is or at least should be in bodybuilding.
Some people like to live without too much risk. They're satisfied leading a safe existence. This attitude of caution infiltrates into their goals. Every successful athlete - or businessperson - enjoys taking calculated risks. You have to. Especially in the gym when you're squatting 500 for reps and you can't get one more but grunt out ten. Your nose starts bleeding, you fall into the rack and that's set one.
The truth I've discovered is that you don't have to lift enormous weights to grow muscle. By using stricter form, slower negatives, and stretching between sets you can get an incredible pump in all your workouts. Numbers are an abstraction, especially to muscles. Your body doesn't know the absolute weight of what you lift, it only recognizes how heavy it feels. The secret is to make lighter weights feel heavier.
I'd like to get to a point where I am not considered natural by myself. When I say that I mean that I don't want to fit within the guidelines of what other people feel it is to be natural. If people feel that natural bodybuilders usually are the ones who lack legs or have poor body parts or don't train very hard or aren't very strong or aren't very intense, if that's your perception of what a natural bodybuilder is, then that's not what I want to be.
A really humbling experience that we've had was touring on Post-Nothing, was having people come up to us and tell that story about Post-Nothing. Especially as the tour went on, people saying, "I listened to your album when it first came out and I listened to it every day for the summer of 2009. That was my album for that summer; that was my album for this time in my life." When somebody tells you that, it's a pretty amazing feeling, and very humbling.
If I wanted to get my arms as big as I could possibly get them, I would probably do around 20 sets of 4 exercises and 5 sets each for the triceps and 20 sets for the biceps per workout 3 times a week. That would be around 60 sets of triceps and 60 sets of biceps work per week. I would keep the reps between 6 and 8 and I would do all basic movements where I'd handle as heavy a weight as possible. I'd consume nutritious food that had calories in and just flat out eat!
Some people's joints articulate in a manner that allows them to benefit greatly from squats; others may not benefit at all. If you're not too tall and have short limbs, it may be the best exercise for you, but if you're tall with long legs, it might be both ineffective and dangerous.I was stubbornly faithful to squats for years until I finally realized they were not well-suited for my body structure. After I switched tomore muscle-intensive movements, my gains in leg size were astounding.
What am I doing with my life am I living it or am I just going to some hum drum job that I don't really wanna be at doing some miniscule task being paid to be a mindless drone or am I living my life on my terms - the way I want to live doing thing that I want to do - make no mistake as hard as this is- this is what I want to do! Some people can make fun of it, they can crack jokes they can analyze and criticize and make all the fun they want but I'm living my life. I'm doing it! What are you?
I don't have a favorite body part nor do I have a favorite exercise. Everyone who is honest prefers machines over free-weights, because machines are more convenient and cause less muscle pain and require less concentration and are generally less dangerous. BUT, if you like to have real gains you have to train hard and heavy, and you have to chose always the LEAST favorite exercises which actually give you the best possible results. So go for the least favorite exercises, the free weights... and go for the muscle pain!
Set realistic goals short and long term. 2. Plan an orderly and thorough routine to train the entire body. 3. Make a commitment to stick to your routine for four to six weeks to realize the changes and benefits, develop perseverance and create a habit. 4. Establish enthusiasm for your training, the driving force to perform successfully. 5. Ease into an appropriate training program with a wholesome, thoughtful nutritional plan: proper foods, amounts and order of consumption. 6. Be confident from the beginning that the application of these sound principles will produce the desired results.