This month I'm going to give you a couple stories about what it used to be like to party with me. I'm also going to give you what I really think about on today's "conditioning problem" in bodybuilding. I'll give you what I think needs to be done to fix this problem within our sport today. So let's get to it!
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The time was August, 1980. The place was Chicago, Illinois. The event was the annual AAU Central USA Bodybuilding Championships. This regional level contest was famous for attracting the biggest names in bodybuilding in the Midwest because the Mr. America contest was only weeks away and many of the top national contenders from the area would be using this show as a warm-up for the Big One.
The popularity of bodybuilding as a hobby or “sport”, if you will, has grown considerably since Arnold made it cool to be big. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see large guys walking around that take bodybuilding very seriously, and the level of muscle we see at the top of the competitive heap truly is amazing! Still, as a whole, bodybuilding is tiny compared to the NFL or MLB or even Soccer in the U.S. (in Europe; it’s huge), BUT there are still tons of adoring fans, groupies and also what I like to call, ”the other fans”.
QUESTION: After watching a few of the old "Battle for the Olympia" tapes I noticed you were one of the only competitors who had natural looking calves in the mid to late 90's. They were very vascular and shredded with a natural look to them compared to most of the other competitors. Did this phenomenon have anything to do with synthol/site enhancement oils and how rampant was that back in your heyday?
QUESTION: A lot of people knocked you for your back development earlier in your career. How did you bring it up and how could someone use it to increase his or her own back width and thickness.
ANSWER: Good question! In the beginning I lived in Palm Springs and had ok development for that scene. After I came to L.A. I noticed I had a small back. It was wide but not thick. Charles Glass said I had a baby back! So I started getting deep tissue work done on it and it made a big difference. To improve any body part you have to understand it. If I need to train lats, I train lats. If it's the lower back, its lower back
