For every sport, there is that one athlete they call ‘GOAT’ or the greatest of all time. In bodybuilding, it is no less than the Austrian Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who took the sport by storm from 1960 to 1980, winning seven consecutive Mr. Olympia titles.
In case you want to build a great physique like the Terminator star, take note of these five principles in bodybuilding used by Schwarzenegger himself that can still be applied in the modern day.
Prepare your favourite men’s workout stringer and train like Arnold Schwarzenegger!
Helpful Ideologies
1. Train Your Mind
The Austrian Oak believes that what your mind conceive, your body achieves. For this, he is aware of the importance of training the mind as it can take your workout to a different level. He spends plenty of time working his brain as much as he works on his muscles. He stressed, “The mind always fails first, not the body. The secret is to make the mind work for you, not against you.”
He enhances his mental aspect by doing visualization technique to push his body beyond its usual limit. Bodybuilding may be more physical, but keeping your mental skills sharp will improve your confidence and concentration.
2. Vary Your Training to Shock Muscles
Growth is our muscles’ reaction to the training process. As you continue to do workouts, muscle tissues also keep its growth around body and fat tissues. But sometimes, due to repetitive training partners, they stop growing. This is the main reason why you need variations in your training to shock muscles and allow them to continue their growth. Schwarzenegger used the same technique in his illustrious bodybuilding career, where he shifted to heavy powerlifting and weightlifting and vice versa.
3. Get Big By Eating Big
Schwarzenegger was not a fan of spending months to get bulk. His technique to get bigger is by eating more calories to gain lesser fats. By getting rid of these fats, he managed to appear incredibly on stage with his unmatched athleticism.
No Pain, No Gain
4. Muscle Pump for Muscle Growth
It could be remembered that the Austrian Oak once stressed, “If there is no muscle pump, there is no muscle growth.” Science can attest to that as pumping up muscles will result in the accumulation of blood, nutrients and lactic acid. This will bring an increase in the size of muscle cells in that particular region. To achieve this, you can perform certain exercises such as reps to failure, while employing a strong connection between the mind and the muscles.
5. Work Doubly Hard on Your Weak Points
Every person has their strong and weak points. Working on our strong body part is just a walk in the park. The real challenge lies in developing the weak points. As for Schwarzenegger, he also had his weak body part before he became the greatest bodybuilder of all-time. He had weak calves, but he managed to train them rigorously to become proportion to the rest of his body. He would usually wear shorts to be reminded of these weak calves. For your weak parts, it is best to prioritise them in training and give them more frequency and more volume.