Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder
by Arnold Schwartzenegger
Arnold Schwartzenegger knew at an early age that he would become a bodybuilder.
Self-knowledge and goalsetting came first before the proving ground of the weightroom.
---Goals were regulative in nature.
He “loved” bodybuilding. Follow your bliss.
“Seeing new changes in my body, feeling them, turned me on. It was the first
time I'd ever felt every one of my muscles. It was the first time
those sensations had registered in my mind, the first time my
mind knew my thighs, calves and forearms were more than just
limbs. I felt the muscles in my triceps aching, and I knew why
they were called triceps—because there are three muscles in
there. They were all registered in my mind, written there with
sharp little jabs of pain. I learned that this pain meant progress.
Each time my muscles were sore from a workout, I knew they
were growing.”
Somatic awareness was intoxicating.
He blocked out the negative thoughts other people tried to put in his mind.
He always wanted to go to America and be in movies even as a teenager.
Being prodded and challenged by training partners was crucial.
Competition was invigorating for him.
“Girls became sex objects. I saw the other bodybuilders using
them in this way and I thought it was all right. We talked about
the pitfalls of romantic situations, serious ones, how it could take
away from your training. Naturally, I agreed with them. They
were my idols.”
He blocked out connections with women as they might divert attention away from his training.
He found his edge, his “genius” and he never turned his back on it for fleeting pleasures.
He was protective of his emotions while chasing his goals.
He “closed the door” on involvements.
“I started this practice early in my career and continued it for as
long as it served to help me maintain a clear focus and drive
myself toward a fixed point.”
Drive and focus were the most important things for Arnold.
“Whatever I thought might hold me back, I avoided. I crossed
girls off my list—except as tools for my sexual needs. I eliminated
my parents too. It seemed they always wanted to see me,
then when I was around they had nothing to say.”
Charge them to the game.
“The secret [to success] is contained in a three-part formula I learned in the
gym: self-confidence, a positive mental attitude, and honest hard
work.”
Reg Park----idealization of a model.
Goalsetting: become Reg Park.
“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.”
Honesty is key. Focus on the reality of your situation.
No comforting delusions. No naivete.
No excuses.
If your focused is scattered you are leaking effort all over the place.
Find your goals.
Structure your life around those goals.
Focus will follow naturally.
Find your focus.
“Managing a health club was an entirely new experience. I was
supposed to be a trainer, to show people how to exercise, to
devise programs which would make them lose fat and rebuild
their bodies. At first, confronted with these people who'd come
to me for guidance, I felt helpless. I thought I still needed someone
giving me advice on my workouts. But I realized I had to do
it in order to survive.
I had to live a split life, acting as an instructor to the health
club clients on the one hand, and trying to train myself for the
Mr. Universe title on the other. It was frustrating. People who
would never benefit from what I told them kept taking my time.
They paid and came to the gym. But it was a disgusting, superficial
effort on their part. They merely went through the motions,
doing sissy workouts, pampering themselves. And there was so
much I wanted to do with those wasted hours.”
He disdained unfocused effort in himself, and so this projected outwards.
Disdain the lazy. Disdain the weak. Disdain the stupid.
“Working with Reg Park for that short time helped more than
anything to clear up the little confusions I had about the principles
of other champions. I learned that you can't really say, "You
must do this to get such and such a result." You have to try out
certain things and find out what is best for your own body. I
collected advice from Reg the whole time. I wrote it all down to
take back to Munich and use as it seemed to serve me best. In
the end, he promised he would invite me to South Africa the
next year to do an exhibition with him. But he said it was contingent
upon my winning Mr. Universe the coming year. He
thought I would win for sure—if I worked hard.”
Take advice from other people and adjust it to your situation. Finetune it. Find what works for you and do it.
Not only hard work, but theater and showmanship took him over the top.
He took ballet classes to learn how to pose; find alternate forms of knowledge and expertise that can give you a legup in your CENTRAL pursuit.
“Arnold,” I asked myself over and over, "What can you do to be
special and different?"
Find your edge in the world and live on it.
communication with the muscles, always feeling what was happening
to my muscles the day after a workout. The most important
thing is that my mind was always in touch with my body; I
felt my muscles continuously; I always took an inventory before
working out. I flexed my muscles and got in touch. That not only
helped me train; it was like meditating. I locked my mind into
my muscle during training, as if I'd transplanted my mind into
the tissue itself. By just thinking about it, I could actually send
blood into a muscle.
What did I get out of this press behind the neck, doing ten repetitions
instead of five repetitions? How are my triceps? It doesn't
do any good to go through training like a blind man, to just go
through the motions. Motions mean nothing. You have to realize
what is happening to you. You have to want results.
of muscles. But I watched them fall away with absolutely no
results except exhaustion. They weren't mentally prepared for
intensive championship training; they weren't thinking about it.
I knew the secret: Concentrate while you're training. Do not
allow other thoughts to enter your mind.
what I was going to use, how I was going to pull my muscles,
and how I would feel it. I programmed myself. I saw myself
doing it; I imagined how I would feel it. I was thoroughly, totally
into it mentally. I did not waver at all.
I was about to play. In the dressing room I would start
thinking about training, about every body part, what I was going
to do, how I was going to pump up. I would concentrate on
procedure and results until my everyday problems went floating
away. I knew that if I went in there concerned about bills or girls
and let myself think about those things while doing bench
presses, I'd make only marginal progress. I'd seen guys reading
the newspaper between sets day after day, and they always
looked bad. Some of them had been going through the motions
of training for years, and you couldn't tell that they had ever
picked up a weight. It had been nothing more than some heartless
pantomime.
FOCUSED PRACTICE.
PASSIONATE PRACTICE.
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.
ONE TALENT, ONE FORM OF GENIUS BLEEDS TO OTHER AREAS.
ACCOMPLISHMENT BREEDS CONFIDENCE.
ACCOMPLISHMENT IS THE BEST THING FOR CONFIDENCE.
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.
BODYBUILDING IS ABOUT CONTROL.
SOMATIC CONTROL.
THEN MIND CONTROL.
AND SELF-DISCLIPLINE.
The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
INDIVIDUATION
ONE EDGE. ONE ABILITY. IS ALL YOU NEED.
MY EDGE: INTELLIGENCE. AN IQ of 150, BITCH.
Part II: Muscles
You must consider that in the beginning you are training the
mind as well as the body. The mind, after all, makes you want to
train; it turns on the body. Because the mind motivates you to
train the body, you have to train the mind first. If the mind
doesn't want to lift weights, the body won't lift them.
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.
You should strive to improve your body a little bit at a time.
Don't push the mind too much either; let the mind stay hungry
for more, tease the mind a little bit. This is why I suggest you
start small, with a fairly easy program. Let the body say to the
mind, "I feel good, this isn't too hard. I'm ready for more!" Give
it more, give it a little bit more. Then, slowly, as the mind is
ready for it, you can increase the amount of weight you use and
the number of repetitions you do of an exercise.
***
A Reason
You should know why you are going to start training. This is
one of the most important steps in initiating a successful bodybuilding
program. You should not go to the gym because somebody
says, "Hey, you're a slob. You ought to do some weight
training and get in shape." That isn't a good reason, because you
would be trying to satisfy someone else's wishes, not your own.
You should have a very good reason why you want to get into
weight resistance training. The best thing to do is to sit down
and say to yourself, "What do I want to get out of it? What is my
goal?"
Be honest. Honesty is the key to how much you can improve.
Your reason could be that you want to be a bodybuilder, a competitive
bodybuilder. That will certainly get you started training.
But even if you only want to lose a few inches around the waist,
you should be very explicit and spell it out for yourself. "The
reason I want to do this weight training is that I want to lose this
waist. I look in the mirror, it looks horrible." Or, "I'm a doctor
and when my patients look at me I know they're thinking, 'What
kind of example is he setting?' " Whatever your reason is, write
it down and put it where you'll see it in the months to come.
Next you have to decide what you want to look like. Again, be
explicit. My own image was Reg Park. I built it so clearly in my
mind I could actually see myself standing in Reg Park's body.
This second step, forming an image in the mind, creates what I
call the want power. You have an image of what you want to look
like, which in turn creates the willpower to go into the gym and
work out. Now you have a goal. Without it you'd be like a ship
without a destination. You must know why you are training in
order to give it your best and be productive.
p. 149
SO TAKEAWAY.
Step 1. Set a goal for your body. An image. A model.
Step 2. Be honest about your weaknesses.
Step 3. Schedule a routine.
Step 4. Do what you need to in order to clear your mind and focus during workouts. Cut out all distractions.
Step 5. Do it.
-Note: applicable to all things, not just bodybuilding.
by Arnold Schwartzenegger
Arnold Schwartzenegger knew at an early age that he would become a bodybuilder.
Self-knowledge and goalsetting came first before the proving ground of the weightroom.
---Goals were regulative in nature.
He “loved” bodybuilding. Follow your bliss.
“Seeing new changes in my body, feeling them, turned me on. It was the first
time I'd ever felt every one of my muscles. It was the first time
those sensations had registered in my mind, the first time my
mind knew my thighs, calves and forearms were more than just
limbs. I felt the muscles in my triceps aching, and I knew why
they were called triceps—because there are three muscles in
there. They were all registered in my mind, written there with
sharp little jabs of pain. I learned that this pain meant progress.
Each time my muscles were sore from a workout, I knew they
were growing.”
Somatic awareness was intoxicating.
He blocked out the negative thoughts other people tried to put in his mind.
He always wanted to go to America and be in movies even as a teenager.
Being prodded and challenged by training partners was crucial.
Competition was invigorating for him.
“Girls became sex objects. I saw the other bodybuilders using
them in this way and I thought it was all right. We talked about
the pitfalls of romantic situations, serious ones, how it could take
away from your training. Naturally, I agreed with them. They
were my idols.”
He blocked out connections with women as they might divert attention away from his training.
He found his edge, his “genius” and he never turned his back on it for fleeting pleasures.
He was protective of his emotions while chasing his goals.
He “closed the door” on involvements.
“I started this practice early in my career and continued it for as
long as it served to help me maintain a clear focus and drive
myself toward a fixed point.”
Drive and focus were the most important things for Arnold.
“Whatever I thought might hold me back, I avoided. I crossed
girls off my list—except as tools for my sexual needs. I eliminated
my parents too. It seemed they always wanted to see me,
then when I was around they had nothing to say.”
Charge them to the game.
“The secret [to success] is contained in a three-part formula I learned in the
gym: self-confidence, a positive mental attitude, and honest hard
work.”
Reg Park----idealization of a model.
Goalsetting: become Reg Park.
“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.”
Honesty is key. Focus on the reality of your situation.
No comforting delusions. No naivete.
No excuses.
If your focused is scattered you are leaking effort all over the place.
Find your goals.
Structure your life around those goals.
Focus will follow naturally.
Find your focus.
“Managing a health club was an entirely new experience. I was
supposed to be a trainer, to show people how to exercise, to
devise programs which would make them lose fat and rebuild
their bodies. At first, confronted with these people who'd come
to me for guidance, I felt helpless. I thought I still needed someone
giving me advice on my workouts. But I realized I had to do
it in order to survive.
I had to live a split life, acting as an instructor to the health
club clients on the one hand, and trying to train myself for the
Mr. Universe title on the other. It was frustrating. People who
would never benefit from what I told them kept taking my time.
They paid and came to the gym. But it was a disgusting, superficial
effort on their part. They merely went through the motions,
doing sissy workouts, pampering themselves. And there was so
much I wanted to do with those wasted hours.”
He disdained unfocused effort in himself, and so this projected outwards.
Disdain the lazy. Disdain the weak. Disdain the stupid.
“Working with Reg Park for that short time helped more than
anything to clear up the little confusions I had about the principles
of other champions. I learned that you can't really say, "You
must do this to get such and such a result." You have to try out
certain things and find out what is best for your own body. I
collected advice from Reg the whole time. I wrote it all down to
take back to Munich and use as it seemed to serve me best. In
the end, he promised he would invite me to South Africa the
next year to do an exhibition with him. But he said it was contingent
upon my winning Mr. Universe the coming year. He
thought I would win for sure—if I worked hard.”
Take advice from other people and adjust it to your situation. Finetune it. Find what works for you and do it.
Not only hard work, but theater and showmanship took him over the top.
He took ballet classes to learn how to pose; find alternate forms of knowledge and expertise that can give you a legup in your CENTRAL pursuit.
“Arnold,” I asked myself over and over, "What can you do to be
special and different?"
Find your edge in the world and live on it.
The point is, I was learning more and more about the mind,
about the power it has over the body. It meant having completecommunication with the muscles, always feeling what was happening
to my muscles the day after a workout. The most important
thing is that my mind was always in touch with my body; I
felt my muscles continuously; I always took an inventory before
working out. I flexed my muscles and got in touch. That not only
helped me train; it was like meditating. I locked my mind into
my muscle during training, as if I'd transplanted my mind into
the tissue itself. By just thinking about it, I could actually send
blood into a muscle.
I formalized it by regularly making an inventory. How does my
body feel now? I would ask myself. How does my chest feel?What did I get out of this press behind the neck, doing ten repetitions
instead of five repetitions? How are my triceps? It doesn't
do any good to go through training like a blind man, to just go
through the motions. Motions mean nothing. You have to realize
what is happening to you. You have to want results.
Bodybuilders hung on to me like fleas, because they thought if
they did the same exercises I did they would get the same kindof muscles. But I watched them fall away with absolutely no
results except exhaustion. They weren't mentally prepared for
intensive championship training; they weren't thinking about it.
I knew the secret: Concentrate while you're training. Do not
allow other thoughts to enter your mind.
It became part of my routine that year to start out every day
with total concentration. The way I did it was to play out exactlywhat I was going to use, how I was going to pull my muscles,
and how I would feel it. I programmed myself. I saw myself
doing it; I imagined how I would feel it. I was thoroughly, totally
into it mentally. I did not waver at all.
When I went to the gym I got rid of every alien thought in my
mind. I tuned in to my body as though it were a musical instrumentI was about to play. In the dressing room I would start
thinking about training, about every body part, what I was going
to do, how I was going to pump up. I would concentrate on
procedure and results until my everyday problems went floating
away. I knew that if I went in there concerned about bills or girls
and let myself think about those things while doing bench
presses, I'd make only marginal progress. I'd seen guys reading
the newspaper between sets day after day, and they always
looked bad. Some of them had been going through the motions
of training for years, and you couldn't tell that they had ever
picked up a weight. It had been nothing more than some heartless
pantomime.
FOCUSED PRACTICE.
PASSIONATE PRACTICE.
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.
ONE TALENT, ONE FORM OF GENIUS BLEEDS TO OTHER AREAS.
ACCOMPLISHMENT BREEDS CONFIDENCE.
ACCOMPLISHMENT IS THE BEST THING FOR CONFIDENCE.
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.
BODYBUILDING IS ABOUT CONTROL.
SOMATIC CONTROL.
THEN MIND CONTROL.
AND SELF-DISCLIPLINE.
The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
INDIVIDUATION
ONE EDGE. ONE ABILITY. IS ALL YOU NEED.
MY EDGE: INTELLIGENCE. AN IQ of 150, BITCH.
Part II: Muscles
You must consider that in the beginning you are training the
mind as well as the body. The mind, after all, makes you want to
train; it turns on the body. Because the mind motivates you to
train the body, you have to train the mind first. If the mind
doesn't want to lift weights, the body won't lift them.
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.
You should strive to improve your body a little bit at a time.
Don't push the mind too much either; let the mind stay hungry
for more, tease the mind a little bit. This is why I suggest you
start small, with a fairly easy program. Let the body say to the
mind, "I feel good, this isn't too hard. I'm ready for more!" Give
it more, give it a little bit more. Then, slowly, as the mind is
ready for it, you can increase the amount of weight you use and
the number of repetitions you do of an exercise.
***
A Reason
You should know why you are going to start training. This is
one of the most important steps in initiating a successful bodybuilding
program. You should not go to the gym because somebody
says, "Hey, you're a slob. You ought to do some weight
training and get in shape." That isn't a good reason, because you
would be trying to satisfy someone else's wishes, not your own.
You should have a very good reason why you want to get into
weight resistance training. The best thing to do is to sit down
and say to yourself, "What do I want to get out of it? What is my
goal?"
Be honest. Honesty is the key to how much you can improve.
Your reason could be that you want to be a bodybuilder, a competitive
bodybuilder. That will certainly get you started training.
But even if you only want to lose a few inches around the waist,
you should be very explicit and spell it out for yourself. "The
reason I want to do this weight training is that I want to lose this
waist. I look in the mirror, it looks horrible." Or, "I'm a doctor
and when my patients look at me I know they're thinking, 'What
kind of example is he setting?' " Whatever your reason is, write
it down and put it where you'll see it in the months to come.
Next you have to decide what you want to look like. Again, be
explicit. My own image was Reg Park. I built it so clearly in my
mind I could actually see myself standing in Reg Park's body.
This second step, forming an image in the mind, creates what I
call the want power. You have an image of what you want to look
like, which in turn creates the willpower to go into the gym and
work out. Now you have a goal. Without it you'd be like a ship
without a destination. You must know why you are training in
order to give it your best and be productive.
p. 149
SO TAKEAWAY.
Step 1. Set a goal for your body. An image. A model.
Step 2. Be honest about your weaknesses.
Step 3. Schedule a routine.
Step 4. Do what you need to in order to clear your mind and focus during workouts. Cut out all distractions.
Step 5. Do it.
-Note: applicable to all things, not just bodybuilding.
