Arnold

by Arnold Schwarzenegger

  We started pumping up and getting ready. I kept watching Sergio, comparing our bodies in the mirrors. I was not wiped out, as I had been the year before. Sergio looked good. He had the kind of body that from the waist up seems as though it will never quit getting bigger. But I was cut, just really perfect. Everything was really in—separation, definition, everything—and I felt confident. I went onstage with the host and was met with tremendous applause. I didn’t know where it was coming from. It was a total surprise. Ohio? Nobody thinks of Ohio as a fan’s state. But the applause continued and any apprehension I had fled.

  I felt the pressure so deeply the prejudging and the show seemed to blend in my mind. It became all one fantastic push forward. I felt taller, bigger, more muscular, more graceful. I got high from the force of the pump. I felt as though I stepped out of my body to watch. I never felt the flame of competition more strongly. I was glad for the year of savage workouts Franco and I had put in; otherwise I could not have withstood the intensity I created during the final pose-off. The audience itself seemed miles away. I limited my scope to the microcosm of the stage—Arnold and Sergio.

  The announcer cleared his throat and rustled a pile of papers. “In third place,” he said, “Dave Draper.”

  The audience grew silent. “Second place,” the announcer said, pausing . . . “Sergio Oliva.” Beside me, I heard Sergio say, “Oh, shit!”

  There it was, then, that cry again: “Arnold! Arnold!” I had won. In a single second, I had taken the final step. I had conquered every great bodybuilder in the world.

  With Franco Columbu at the 1970 Mr. World contest, Columbus, Ohio

  I hated Sergio’s attitude. It’s tough to lose, but that’s no reason to be a poor loser. I watched him, thinking, “Last year you beat me, Sergio. I got you tonight and I’ll get you again in two weeks.” That gave me even more momentum to go to New York.

  This contest, the Mr. Olympia, was billed as the bodybuilding battle of the century. I had won Mr. World in Ohio, but that had been so close that two weeks in the gym could change the outcome. In New York the camps were split. It was a competition solely between Sergio and me.

  I was never quite so aware of what fanatics there are in the bodybuilding audience as I was then. They seemed to cling to me. I couldn’t go anyplace without people clustering around to touch me. The closer it got to contest time, the more frantic they became. It was a madness. First it was autographs; then clothing. The requests got more bizarre. Word reached me that someone was offering a hundred dollars for a lock of my hair, five hundred for my posing trunks.

  In the dressing room, Sergio was already pumping up. I didn’t take my eyes off him. But I didn’t even make a move to change. I just watched him. I followed each move he made with my eyes. He’d pause and look around at me, to see if I’d started to strip down. I knew it was getting to him. Finally, with two minutes to go, I slipped into my trunks and oiled up.

  Police were having to keep the fans from the stage. They had gone berserk. Some were screaming, “Sergio!” But “Arnold!” cut through and put them down. All the sheer madness of a stampede came out in those fans. They were holding up photographs, waving banners, trying to get to the stage only to be pushed back and threatened by ushers and cops.

  The moment the announcer gave me the title and the girl handed me the trophy and I clutched the cold silver bowl against my stomach I knew I had gone as far as I could in bodybuilding as a competitor. From then on I would only be defending my title, and that put things in a whole different light. I had cleaned house. That was it. It’s what I call the golden triangle. I went boom, boom, boom in three cities in two weeks. I beat everybody, every formidable contender who ever existed in bodybuilding. I was King Kong. The Mr. Olympia contest is the Super Bowl of bodybuilding. I had reached the point where I wanted to be. I no longer needed the ego satisfaction of winning, winning, winning. But I was excited too. This was what I was actually looking forward to more than anything anyway. Because I’d begun to look at bodybuilding as a kind of vehicle. It feels good being the best-built man in the world, of course, but the question always comes up: Okay, how can you use that to make money? I had been increasingly more involved in business since the year I bought the gym. I no longer had to prove I was the greatest bodybuilder of all time. Now I had to reach out to the general public, to people who knew nothing about bodybuilding, and educate them to the benefits of weight training.

  Winning Mr. Olympia, 1970—from left: Ricky Wayne, Dave Draper, Joe Weider, myself, Mike Katz, and Franco Columbu in front

  I’d always loved the excitement of winning, but I loved it especially when there was a contest. It seemed to me that I had made my mark in bodybuilding. I knew there were other contests, other worlds to conquer. I was already into business, and I was working and studying to get into acting. My acting classes opened up an entire new space for me: myself. One thing I learned was to look back and analyze who I was and what I’d done.

  Working in the same way I had to build my body, I wanted to create an empire. Because of my business education and the practical aspects of business I learned from Joe Weider, I felt I was equipped to go ahead with my own enterprises. I established a series of mail-order training courses which enabled me to help educate thousands of bodybuilders all over the world. I sold photo albums, tee shirts, posing trunks, personalized programs. I worked out seminars all over the world—Japan, Australia, South Africa, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Finland, Spain, Canada, Mexico and the United States. I began promoting bodybuilding competitions in America. In order to keep up my name and make it grow, I continued to defend my titles. Eventually, I wanted every single person who touched a weight to equate the feeling of the barbell with my name. The moment he got a hold of it I wanted him to think, “Arnold.”

  I think the most important things I developed through bodybuilding were my personality, confidence and character. When you have a well-developed body and you’re confident, you see people bending your way, wanting to be on your side, wanting to do things for you. When I was young I suffered from the same insecurity every kid has. But as I transformed myself into something strong and unique, discovering I could do one thing well, confidence came to me naturally. And that gave me a great deal of security.

  I believe you overcome a lot of frustrations in the gymnasium, things you’re not even aware of. I found that the more I worked out, the less violent I became. It trimmed away tensions and taught me how to relax: When I put in a good workout I felt a sense of accomplishment. I felt like a newborn person. I had the strength to go on and conquer in other areas and feel confident about doing it. It left me in kind of a low-key frame of mind, not always desperate or anxious. Every day, I see people running around, all excited, wanting to do things, feeling pent up and unable to find any release. I’d probably be that way if I didn’t work off my frustrations in the gym. I’ve come to realize that almost anything difficult, any challenge, takes time, patience and hard work, like building up for a 300-pound bench press. Learning that gave me plenty of positive energy to use later on.

  I taught myself discipline, the strictest kind of discipline. How to be totally in control of my body, how to control each individual muscle. I could apply that discipline to everyday life. I used it in acting, in going to school. Whenever I didn’t want to study I would just think back and remember what it took to be Mr. Universe—the sacrifice, the hard work—and I would plunge myself into studying.

  Bodybuilding changed me entirely. I think I would be a different person now if I’d never trained, if I’d just worked somewhere. It gave me confidence and pride and an unlimited positive attitude. I can apply my success to everything. 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. In business school I saw a study of how many big companies in America hire salesmen above a certain height and weight. Because it has
been proved that big people are more impressive salespeople. They’re more convincing. It’s true. I found it out myself, that I can persuade people easier than a small person can.

  I’ve had no problem making it work. I just looked back at how I did it in bodybuilding and then applied it to other things. With acting, now, I am determined to work as hard on removing my accent as I was on improving my poor calves. The same with business. I’m so determined to make millions of dollars that I cannot fail. In my mind I’ve already made the millions; now it’s just a matter of going through the motions.

  Not the least reward of a fit body is continuous good health. As a very small child I was constantly sick. Even later on I spent a part of every year in bed with a heavy cold. Since I began bodybuilding, in the last fourteen years, I have only been sick two or three times, and then it was only a minor cold. I have developed a perfect communication between my body and my mind; I have total control over my body. My body responds better; I fight off things easier. My body has become like a clock, a special clock that is tuned so well it only goes wrong one second in five years. That’s how I feel about my body. It is so perfect that everything works. And I very rarely see other bodybuilders getting sick. There are fewer heart attacks among bodybuilders because blood is being pumped through the veins so hard it keeps the veins open; and when you pump up the muscles it pumps blood through them and trains the heart every time you train. My own circulation is fantastic.

  During all the years I was into heavy competition I avoided any kind of binding relationship, although I saw a lot of women. Then in 1969 I met a girl who changed my thinking. Her name was Barbara; she was a waitress in Zuckie’s in Santa Monica, working there during the summer to help pay for schooling at San Diego State. I asked her out and was impressed immediately by something I felt about her, something that was different from most of the girls I had been dating. I could describe it as an inner warmth, the wholesomeness one associates with a hometown girl. Our dating was different, too, from any I’d ever done. She took me to meet her parents. This also impressed me. There was a healthy atmosphere in their home. They seemed to have communication. They felt love and respect for each other and expressed it.

  Barbara liked me as a human being, not as a bodybuilder, as Mr. Universe. In fact, she knew nothing about the sport and didn’t find out that I had any titles until weeks after we met. I was just Arnold, we were going out, and she was helping me with my English. She genuinely cared about me. I felt love coming from her.

  We dated until the end of August, when she went back to San Diego and I left for Europe. While I was gone, the one person I thought about was Barbara. I talked about her and even wrote to her, which was unheard of for me. My friends started kidding me: “Arnold’s in love.” I was surprised that other people could see that in me.

  I returned to America in October, but I remained in New York City until mid-December. I caught myself talking about Barbara, wanting her. I called her from New York and made plans to meet her as soon as I got back to California.

  With my parents in Munich

  All the way back on the plane I had these mixed emotions—what was wrong with me? Why did I continue to talk of this girl? All I knew was that with her I had allowed something to happen that I had guarded against for years. There was something else there besides a diversion, a release. I actually wanted to be with her.

  It was an unusual experience for me. I began to explore my feelings, to see why this was happening. I would pull away and watch myself. I had taught myself always to pull back and look at whatever I was doing and make a judgment about it. I always tried to be honest. It baffled me now to see that I was enjoying something more than a physical relationship with someone. I liked it. And I was happy. I had found someone who loved me, who really cared for me.

  Two years later, when she had finished school and could come to Santa Monica permanently, we decided to move in together. It was her suggestion, but I was instantly agreeable. Again I saw new changes in myself. I was enjoying the experience of putting together an apartment—a place for living, not just some pad where I could sleep, hang out.

  Gradually a conflict grew up in our relationship. Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. She had thought I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and level off. But that’s a concept that has no place in my thinking. 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. When she saw me moving away from bodybuilding into another challenging field, acting, I think she realized we could not go on together. When I went to Alabama to begin the filming of Stay Hungry, she moved to her own apartment.

  That was a tough time for me. I was torn between two things. I felt that a part of me had been ripped right out of my body. I had lost something good, something that had helped hold me together. Barbara had taught me how to appreciate a woman. Emotionally, I wanted to stay with her. Intellectually, I knew it would never work. I wanted to grow, to go on; the life she wanted wouldn’t permit that. I had learned how a relationship can be beautiful, how it can add to the meaning of your life and feed your soul.

  I’ve retired from bodybuilding but I haven’t quit. I have only stopped competing. I would describe myself as sort of the leader of the bodybuilders. Many times I feel like I’m their mother. They come to me with all their problems. They write me about their problems. Every year before competitions they ask me where they should compete and at what body weight, what posing trunks to wear, what oil to use, and how to pose. They want advice about contract negotiations and the stories they want to write for muscle magazines.

  I become very emotionally attached to them every summer, during the time of training, when I work out with them. Whoever you are training with, the two of you become like one unit—it’s like being married for three months—and you do almost everything together: you go out to eat together, you train together, you lie in the sun together, you spend free time together talking, trying to inspire each other. You become attached to each other.

  I’m always the leader, because I’m the more outgoing personality, I’m a domineering person. And I’m also the most experienced bodybuilder, the one who has had the most success. I’ve traveled all over the world, I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of exhibitions. I’ve only lost three competitions—and each time it was second place. So they look up to me.

  For many of them I’m the hero, and that’s why I’ve become a caretaker. Especially now that I am out of competition and into promoting competitions. It’s a whole different ballgame, because I think bodybuilders see me as a person who loves bodybuilding and is really trying to help it as a sport. I am trying to do this by running the top shows, the Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe competitions. I want to bring more money into bodybuilding and see that the competitors get a greater share of it.

  Whatever else I do, I want to always be a kind of ambassador, a preacher for bodybuilding.

  Part Two

  Muscles

  Chapter One: Introduction

  There is nothing as good as bodybuilding to get your body tuned up and totally in shape. It doesn’t matter whether you want speed or brute strength, whether you want to run or develop endurance power. The only activity that can build the entire body evenly and uniformly is progressive weight resistance training.

  Twenty years ago there was a widespread negative attitude toward bodybuilding. A lot of coaches and other people connected with the various sports claimed it was not the right kind of training for athletes, that it was just to look big and massive and muscular. They equated size and muscularity with awkwardness. All bodybuilders were said to be musclebound. It has now been proved that bodybuilding and weight resistance training are valuable for every purpose. Today we find weight rooms in high schools and universities. These are used by all kinds of athletes fro
m runners to baseball players. In fact, in the last ten years, professional football teams all across the United States have made incredible advances through pre-season programs in weight training. Recently, I asked Brian Oldfield what advantages weight lifting had given him, and he said his ability to put the shot farther and with more accuracy was directly connected to the increase in pounds of weight he lifted while training in the gym. Karl Schranz, a skier with a body weight of only 160 pounds, went on television and demonstrated the 400-pound squats he did for his legs. O. J. Simpson was able to win the Superstar games with the extra points he won from weight lifting. It works for the guy who builds his body to be Mr. Universe, for someone who simply wants to trim down his stomach and broaden his shoulders a little bit, or for someone who needs to improve his circulation. Weight training is being used more and more for physical therapy following orthopedic operations. Its benefits go far beyond physical fitness. Bobby Fischer lifted weights to help him feel more confident before the world championships in chess.

  Weight resistance training develops every muscle in your body. Which is not something you can say for any other sport. Take tennis, for example. After you’ve played for some time, your legs will develop; but nothing significant happens to your shoulders, back, chest, or abdominal muscles. I discovered a similar thing when I was skiing. I built up incredible endurance in my legs, but my arms and upper body stayed weak. In other words, in almost every sport there are some muscles, some areas of the body, that are neglected. But I can promise you one thing about progressive resistance weight training: if you are doing your workouts properly, after a short time you will notice that you not only feel and look better, but that your tennis, golf, skiing, swimming or whatever will be greatly improved. You’ll have better stamina, agility, coordination and resilience.