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c
H A p T E R
5
Getting Started
~
A DEDICATED
bodybuilder,the time spent training in the gymis the
high point of his day. He's always thinking about his next workout, plan-
ning what he is going to do. As soon as he finishes one training session he
is immediately looking forward to the next. So while I am a great believer
in learning all you can about bodybuilding programs and technique, at a
certain point you just have to get into the gym and get started. As the fa-
mous ad slogan says, "Just do it."
If you are just getting started in bodybuilding, remember the old say-
ing, "The longest journey begins with a single step." The more you know
the better, but you don't have to master every bit of information in this en-
cyclopedia before you begin your own workouts. VVhatcounts most when
you're getting started is energy and enthusiasm. A student in medical
school is not expected to perform open-heart surgery on her first day and
a beginning pilot is not required to
fly
combat missions in an F -14 Tomcat
like an experienced "Top Gun." When you climb Mount Everest you start
at the bottom, not the top. Life is a process that involves continual learn-
ing and bodybuilding is no exception.
Most young bodybuilders have no trouble motivating themselves to
start. They are like I was-so anxious to get going that they'll stand out-
side the door almost before the sun comes up waiting for the gym to open.
But being enthusiastic doesn't mean you begin training without a plan.
The thing to do right at the start is to set a clear goal for yourself. Why do
you want to train with weights? When I was a beginner, the only reason
anyone worked out in the gym was for bodybuilding, powerlifting, or
Olympic weightlifting. These are still important reasons to pump iron, but
nowadays people train for all sorts of other reasons as well:
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93
.
to become stronger for physically demanding jobs;
.
to help gain or lose weight;
.
to create a harder, more attractive body;
.
to follow a physical rehabilitation program.
Setting these kinds of goals helps to determine where you should
train, how often and how hard, what kind of training partner to have, and
what famous bodybuilders to use as models. Remember, you can always
alter your training goals later on. Many champion bodybuilders began
working out with weights without any intention of becoming physique
stars-to gain size and strength for sports like football, for example, or be-
cause they got out of school, were no longer playing sports, and just
wanted a way to stay in good shape.
I recommend that before you begin, have photographs taken that
show your physique from all four sides. Write down all your important
measurements-neck, chest, biceps, forearms, wrists, waist, thighs, and
calves-as well as your weight. This way you can always check back to find
out what kind of progress you have made. Incidentally, if you are embar-
rassed to have body photos taken because you don't like your body very
much, that is all the more indication of how much bodybuilding can do for
you. We all want to look good on the beach, to stand naked in front of a
mirror and be pleased with what we see-and, of course, have others be
pleased with what they see when they look at us! Why not look good out of
clothes as well as in them? You certainly don't want to take off your clothes
and, as my friends "Hans and Franz" would say, set off a "flabberlanch."
As we discussed, you need to find a place to train that suits your goals.
Additionally, you have to master the basic bodybuilding exercises in this
book. Keep in mind that your first task is to create a solid, quality muscle
structure. Advanced bodybuilders are concerned with improving muscle
shape, achieving separation, and tying in various muscle groups-none
of
which need concern the beginner.
When I was starting out, I found it very important to find somebody
on whom to model myself. A businessman training for fitness would be
wasting his time trying to create a physique to rival Shawn Ray's; a serious
bodybuilder with a frame and proportions like Dorian Yates's shouldn't
spend his time studying physique photos of Flex Wheeler, and a body-
builder six feet tall or more should probably not use a shorter competitor
like Lee Priest as a role model. And if you are training to create a lean,
muscular physique of the type you see so often nowadays with young ac-
~rs or male fashion models, it wouldn't be very appropriate to tape a
photo of a "no-neck" super-heavyweight powerlifter to your refrigerator
door, would it?
.
to improve their ability at a variety of sports;
.
to better overall health and fitness;
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In my case, it was Reg Park, with his great size and muscularity. I
would put up photos of Reg all over the walls, then study them endlessly,
picturing in my mind how that kind of development would look on my own
frame. So much of bodybuilding is mental that you have to have a clear
idea of what you want to be and where you are going if you want to achieve
extraordinary results.
Too many young bodybuilders try to run before they learn to walk.
They copy my routine or pattern their workout on some other champion's
example, and end up doing exercises that are inappropriate to their stage
of development. However, if after six months or so of training the idea of
competing begins to appeal to you, start to work toward that goal: Learn
your body, what makes it grow, its strengths and weaknesses; create a pic-
ture in your mind of what you eventually want to look like.
When I talk about sticking to the fundamentals, I don't mean doing
anything less than a real bodybuilding program-whether you are training
for competition or not. Remember, the exercise programs in this book are
for
every body.
I only mean that you should limit your training to those ex-
ercises and methods that build the most mass in the shortest time, and
then go on later, after you have achieved a certain degree of basic devel-
opment, to carefully sculpt and shape that mass into championship qual-
ity. Again, even if you have no intention of becoming a competition
bodybuilder, if you are only training for health and fitness, there is never
any reason to waste time by training in any but the most effective and ef-
ficient way possible.
You build a basic structure, learn how to train correctly, acquire a
knowledge of diet and nutrition, and then just give the body time to grow.
In a year, maybe a little less or a little more, you will begin to see radical
changes in your physique and will have enough experience to begin to de-
velop an individualized training program based on your own instincts of
what is right or wrong for your particular body.
And just as you write down your physical measurements and keep
track of your development with photos, I would recommend that you keep
a
training diary.
Write out a training program that is appropriate to your
goals, noting how many sets of each movement you do and with how much
weight, so that anytime in the future you can check back to find out how
much you have really done and compare that with the actual progress you
have made.
You should also learn to keep track of your eating habits, how many
protein drinks you had during any given week, how long you dieted, and
what kind of diet you followed. All of this will allowyou, perhaps five years
down the line, when memory no longer recalls these facts, to be certain ex-
actly what you did or did not do in pursuing your bodybuilding develop-
ment.
'II!!!'
95
FAST AND SLOW DEVELOPERS
,.
Some people believe that developing muscle happens slowly but surely
over time, so the longer you train, the bigger you get. That's why they will
frequently ask a bodybuilder, "How long have you been training?" Or,
"How long will it take me to get that big?" The way they see it, one body-
builder is bigger than another simply because he or she has been training
longer. But the reality is that not everybody gains muscle at the same rate
and not everyone has the talent to create the same level of development.
Your individual genetics have a lot to do with how your body will re-
spond to training. For example, I started training at fifteen, and photos
taken after only a year reveal the beginnings of the physique that won me
Me at sixteen
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seven Mr. Olympia titles. Every month or two I gained ~ inch on my arms,
so people told me right away,"Youshould be a bodybuilder." Casey Viator
turned from powerlifting to bodybuilding at an early age and at nineteen
became the first and only teenage Mr. America. Look at photos of Mr.
Olympia Lee Haney at nineteen or twenty years of age and he already had
a mature physique. Texas police officer and bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman
won the World Amateur Bodybuilding Championships title only two years
after he began serious physique training.
But not all successful bodybuilders were early bloomers. Frank Zane
was good enough to win his share of victories in the sixties, but it wasn't
until the seventies that he achieved the perfection of development that al-
lowed him to be victorious in three Mr. Olympia competitions. Female
bodybuilder Yolanda Hughes broke through and won her first pro show-
the Ms. International that I promote every year in Columbus-after
twelve years of amateur and pro competition. The problem for slow de-
velopers like this is that they don't get the immediate success, the positive
feedback, that helps so much to keep you motivated. But bodybuilding is
like the race between the hare and the tortoise: Ultimately, determination
and endurance over a long period of time can win out over a quick start
and headlong sprint for the finish line.
You should also be careful about being discouraged by comparing
yourself to somebody who is a so-called overnight success. Nowadays,
when you see a great young bodybuilder of, say, twenty-four or twenty-
five, it is quite probable that he has been training since the age of tweke
or thirteen, and if he started entering contests as a teenager could be the
veteran of eight or nine years of competition. In golf, when Tiger Woods
broke through and won the Masters tournament in his early twenties, a lot
of people talked about how quickly he became a champion, forgetting that
he had been practicing golf since he was a preschooler, and by the time he
became a teenager had already hit hundreds of thousands of practice
shots.
But I also remember seeing Tiger Woods
lose
a play-off to a golfer
who was a late bloomer and had never won a pro tournament until his thir-
ties. Winning that event was a matter of who shot the lowest score, not
which golfer was the youngest or had had the earliest success. Victory was
a matter of who put the ball in the hole with the fewest strokes, not who
was the most famous or had the biggest reputation.
Remember, it is not how quickly you develop that will finallymake the
difference, but
how far you are able to go.
The judges don't look at com-
petitors onstage and say,"That contestant has been training for eight years
but the other one is better because he's only been training for three!" No,
all that counts is how good you get, and you can't make your body develop
any faster than your own biological makeup will allow.
But it is possible to develop
more slowly
than your biology would allow,
simply by not believing that rapid gains are possible and not training to
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