ARNOLD: THE EDUCATION OF A BODYBUILDER by Arnold Schwarzenegger

• On some days your goals are just clearer. On the bad days you need someone to help get you going.
• From the beginning, I was a believer in the basic movements, because that was Reg Park’s preference.
• The basic exercises were creating for me a rugged foundation, a core of muscle I could later build upon for a winning body.
• Nobody seemed to understand what was involved in bodybuilding. You do look at your body in a mirror, not because you are narcissistic, but because you are trying to check your progress. It has nothing to do with being in love with yourself.
• I know that if you can change your diet and exercise program to give yourself a different body, you can apply the same principles to anything else.
• The secret is contained in a three-part formula I learned in the gym: self-confidence, a positive mental attitude, and honest hard work. Many people are aware of these principles, but very few can put them into practice.
• I was always honest about my weak points. This helped me grow. I think it’s the key to success in everything: be honest; know where you’re weak; admit it.
• Discipline was not a new thing to me—you can’t do bodybuilding successfully without it.
• I remember turning around slowly, looking at it all and saying to myself, “There’s no way back now, Arnold.”
• That’s my style. As soon as I grasp something, I take control.
• Good early training shows up in the muscles around the spine.
• Back at the gym, I trained almost totally according to Reg Park’s principles and system: keep the exercises simple.
• There are certain things you can win and still not be sure you are the best. So if it’s important for you to be the best and not just the winner, and it was for me, then you go on.
• Motions mean nothing. You have to realize what is happening to you. You have to want results.
• Concentrate while you’re training. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your mind.
• Mentally it’s possible to break records. Once you understand that, you can do it.
• Positive thinking can be contagious. Being surrounded by winners helps you develop into a winner.
• I think the most important things I developed through bodybuilding were my personality, confidence and character.
• I believe you overcome a lot of frustrations in the gymnasium, things you’re not even aware of.
• One thing is that people listen much more to bigger guys; the bigger you are and the more impressive you look physically, the more people listen and the better you can sell yourself or anything else.
• For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
• The only activity that can build the entire body evenly and uniformly is progressive weight resistance training.
• Weight resistance training develops every muscle in your body.
• One very good reason to train is that the body doesn’t get enough physical activity to keep it tuned and responsive.
• Most people are aware only of muscles that they use in everyday work. But when you do unusual movements or use your body in unusual ways, you feel muscles you never knew existed.
• Most people prefer to let their muscles remain anonymous. They take it for granted that the body just moves. Then they are baffled when something goes wrong.
• The mind is incredible. Once you’ve gained mastery over it, channeling its powers positively for your purposes, you can do anything. I mean anything. The secret is to make your mind work for you—not against you. This means constantly being positive, constantly setting up challenges you can meet—either today, next week, or next month. “I can’t. . .” should be permanently stricken from your vocabulary, especially the vocabulary of your thoughts. You must see yourself always growing and improving.
• Honesty is the key to how much you can improve.
• You must know why you are training in order to give it your best and be productive.
• The Ectomorph: A thin person with a light bone structure and long tenuous muscles. The ectomorph has a tough time gaining weight and building strength.
• The Endomorph: A stocky person with thick bones and a general tendency to be round and stout. The endomorph will gain fast and be able to handle heavy training. His body is more likely to remain blocky and muscular without showing great cuts or definition.
• The Mesomorph: Anatomically, the ideal body for weight resistance training. The mesomorph has a large frame and the capacity for becoming muscular fast.
• You can improve your body. All that you should look for in training with weights is that you should achieve 100% of your potential.
• The power of the mind is astonishing.
• If you exercise faithfully, with a strict adherence to form, you should notice an increase in strength and coordination within a very short time.
• There is no age limit on improving your body and no body that cannot be improved by regular exercise.
• Every person who takes up bodybuilding should have a basic understanding of nutrition.
• The very words body building imply that we are undertaking something constructive. An exercise program is not enough. Exercise merely tones and develops existing muscles. In order to build muscles we must have the nutrients that promote growth.
• There are three primary nutritional elements—proteins, carbohydrates and fats. They are all necessary to the well-balanced diet.
• Protein is the most important element to the bodybuilder. Protein is for growth, maintenance and repair of muscle tissue. The amount of protein needed by the average person is 1 gram for each 2 pounds of body weight. The bodybuilder needs more—approximately 1 gram of protein to each pound of body weight.
• One thing every bodybuilder (or individual concerned with the ultimate welfare of his body) ought to do is to cut super-refined foods and food products from his diet.
• The secret of rapid weight gain is a high-protein, high-calorie diet.
• You will use three general types of exercises in developing your body: 1. Upper-body exercises—to build up the arms, chest, shoulders and back muscles. 2. Lower-body exercises—to build up the thighs and calves and strengthen the legs and hips. 3. Abdominal exercises—to tighten, tone and muscularize the waist and improve the posture.
• It’s very important that you expose your weaknesses, that you constantly point them up to yourself.
• Breathing properly is essential to your health.
• Remember that one rule: as soon as there is any strain on your body you should breathe out.
• Do not let your ego get in the way of your progress.
• The important thing is to do the exercise correctly; that counts for everything.
• The reason some bodybuilders develop short pectorals, short biceps, short triceps is that they don’t do full movements.
• I’m going to repeat that idea over and over throughout this book: Doing exercises correctly, perfectly, doing full movements, is the most important thing in bodybuilding.
• Unfortunately, the calves are difficult to develop. They are made of dense muscle fibers that must really be bombed to be altered.
• Add more resistance as you get stronger, but never at the expense of good exercise form.
• Maintain a positive mental attitude at all times.
• Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well.
• I have found that the best way to get great workouts is to have an enthusiastic training partner.
• There are no “secret” exercises in bodybuilding. The secret is not what exercises to do but how to do them.
• This [bench press] is the number-one exercise for increasing the mass of the upper body, especially the pectoral muscles.
• I believe in basic moves, and the standing barbell curl couldn’t be more basic for building the biceps.
• As with all exercises, start with a weight that becomes progressively more difficult to lift after about the fifth rep.
• I do leg curls on the leg curl machine. No exercise works more directly on the backs of the thighs, the leg biceps.
• Because the calf is a difficult muscle, you should do five sets of 15 reps.
• When you exercise you should be totally aware of the muscle you are working on.
• The worst mistake the average aspiring bodybuilder makes is attempting to do too much.
• The name of the game is to do as much for each muscle as possible, and to develop the entire body uniformly.
• Stretching is important while you’re exercising.
• Stretching the muscles, making them long and limber, is one of the things that sets off the champion from the guy who is as big as the champion but who doesn’t look as good.
• So remember this: It isn’t how much weight you handle but rather how much weight you handle in the correct form that will give you the best body.
• The more attention I paid to strict form, the closer I brought myself to the perfect body I wanted.
• The problem with training alone is that you sometimes don’t feel strong.
• The squat can be done in different ways, depending upon your need and purpose.
• Weight is not as important as form.
• The calf is different from any other muscle. It is stubborn and slow to respond. You should be just as stubborn. Don’t do only 8 or 10 repetitions—do at least five sets of 15 repetitions.
• Sharply defined abdominals are a must for maximum impressiveness.
• Lateral raises work specifically on the side and rear deltoid.
• The single most dramatic feature of a great physique is a well-developed back. The back balances out the body by tying together the major muscle groups and giving the whole thing a symmetrical look.
• The back is a big important area of muscles and it should be trained really hard.
• To some people the biceps are the symbol of strength. Everybody can relate to arms. Arms are one of the most impressive parts of the body, the part everybody wants to see.
• A lot of attention should be put into arms so they look good.
• For your abdominals workout you should alternate one set of leg raises with bent legs with one set of twists with the broomstick in a bent-over position. You combine them in order to save time.
• After you have trained long enough to discover your weak points, write them down and analyze them.
• People have a tendency to overdo things at first and then sluff off.
• No area in bodybuilding is more neglected than the legs.
• The squat is the best thigh-building exercise I know.
• It should be automatic by now for you to go to the bench for wrist curls at the end of each day. Remember this exercise not only develops the forearm, it also increases gripping power and wrist strength.
• After your back work is completed you need to do a lot of stretching, a lot of flexing to avoid stiffness.
• The way to the top in competitive bodybuilding is not merely to have muscles but to be able to control your muscles and to show them. Remember that most of the points in a physique competition are achieved through posing.
• The inclined press with a barbell builds the upper pectoral, concentrating on the area where that muscle ties into the front deltoid. Although the bench press reaches a little into the upper pectoral muscle, the inclined press attacks it directly. It gives that “armor-plated” look to the upper chest and helps fill in hollow spaces around the clavicle (collarbone).
• The bent-over lateral raises are strictly for the rear deltoids.
• The rear deltoid is usually neglected, but it can be reached when you are in a bent-over position.
• The entire workout in the accelerated program should not take longer than an hour and a half. If you spend more time than that on any of the routines I’ve outlined, you’re doing something wrong.
• There is no reason not to superset if you’re in good shape. You can do more exercises in a shorter period of time, and you can get into opposite movements—pushing and pulling. You will train faster and become more accomplished. You will train muscles that are logically connected with each other or muscles on opposite sides of your body—such as the front thigh and the back thigh.
• Supersetting is a tough program, but in a month or so you will adjust to it.
• You must approach all of your training with a positive mental attitude and the firm conviction that you will succeed. This is especially true of the superset program. Visualize the body you want and then train relentlessly until you get it. Be explicit. See yourself with that body, cut up and toned to an ideal state. Tell yourself it’s possible. Then work to make it happen.
• Mentally, supersetting puts an additional strain on you.
• Seeing tremendous growth and change in yourself can open new worlds for you.