Every day, the schedules of famous bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Heath are downloaded. Here you can read why that’s not exactly smart.
Changing Schedules
I often get asked if I can help someone with the nutrition or training schedule of a specific bodybuilder. Usually, these are the big names like Schwarzenegger and Phil Heath. Both from older names and contemporary bodybuilders. Bodybuilding DVDs and books also sell well among fans hoping to unravel the secrets of the success of these big names.
In some bios I wrote about bodybuilders, I also added a schedule that I found from them. This could be online or from books or articles written by them in magazines. However, this is just a snapshot. For progression, variation in your training is important as we have often indicated here. You can expect that the pros understand this as well. So, if you find a schedule somewhere, it’s only the schedule that bodybuilder used at a certain moment, if it’s actually his schedule at all.
There is no “best method”
“No problem for me because I have Dorian Yates’ schedules and he documented all his training throughout his entire career,” you might say as a clever one.
Although Dorian did indeed document all his workouts and meals, I am not aware that these were ever published. But even if they were, this does not necessarily mean that the methods of this 6-time Mr. Olympia are “the best methods” for you. Dorian, for example, was a proponent of the HIT principle (heavy weight, low volume) like Mike Mentzer before him. I have written about the latter in the context of the discussions he had with Arnold about “the best” training methods. Both trained in very different ways and both achieved good results.
For example, you could say that HIT offers a higher chance of injury, but it will also increase your strength more. For me personally, HIT is not the ideal training method because I have rather injury-prone attachments and strength has a lower priority than muscle mass.
You are not Arnold
Arnold’s methods may not work for you simply because you are not Arnold. Just yesterday I described how little he knew for a long time about things like “cutting” (it wasn’t until he lost to Frank Zane, for example, that he began to delve into low carb diets and American steroid use). Despite the fact that he only ate to get bigger, he remained relatively lean. Many others would have ended up with a big belly with his eating habits at the time and would look more like strongmen or powerlifters than a bodybuilder.
For example, my nutrition calculator takes into account your body type. If you naturally gain fat quickly, a different amount of calories is suggested than if you are naturally very lean.
Oftentimes, only the training schedule is used, but not the nutrition schedule. In almost all cases, you also don’t know what is being used “under the table”. Downloading a schedule from Phil Heath is nice, but his training schedule is based on a nutrition plan where he consumes about 9,000 kcal per day alongside the necessary amounts of steroids, growth hormone, and insulin. So, if you take over his training schedule with your 3,000-4,000 kcal per day and without chemical aids, don’t be surprised if you develop injuries within a few weeks and see your progress stall due to overtraining.
Simply downloading a schedule from a successful bodybuilder offers as much guarantee of success as wearing Usain Bolt’s shoes while not even knowing if you have the same shoe size.
Times change
If you only look at bodybuilders from “the golden age”: Bodybuilding doesn’t stand still. We know more and more about nutrition, training, supplements, and yes, also about things like steroids and growth hormone. A “nice” example of this is the rather derogatory way in which Sergio Oliva Jr. spoke about his father “the myth”. In the interview below (from 2:54 onwards), he was asked if he ever asks his (now deceased) father for tips. Junior answers negatively. His father’s knowledge would be so outdated that it couldn’t teach him anything. He is even so negative about his father that the reporter has to tell him that the name Oliva indeed has a positive connotation and not a negative one as his son would suggest.
His comments were not appreciated by fans of his father, judging by the reactions on YouTube. I initially had trouble with it too. In the sense of “who the hell are you and what have you achieved, compared to your father?”. But the answer is, of course, that it’s his son who, burdened by a “Jordi Cruyff syndrome”, can’t hide his irritation at the fact that he will always be in the shadow of his father. Moreover, there seems to be personal resentment apparent when he says that he gets more from his mother and fiancée “who support him”. However rude, disrespectful, or based on personal grudges it may seem, he is right in substance!
Even if you feel you don’t need to be as big as today’s top bodybuilders and would rather look like Arnold or Sergio, it’s still wise to use contemporary knowledge. If you have the predisposition, dedication, and discipline that Sergio and Arnold had, chances are you can achieve their results faster with today’s knowledge. But yes, that predisposition, dedication, and discipline are the real secrets of successful bodybuilders.
Inspire and Motivate, But Don’t Copy
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy reading Arnold’s books and I enjoy watching videos of famous bodybuilders just as much. I just don’t sit ready with a notepad to record all their workouts and meals. However, I must admit there was a time when I also went looking for grits and bottles of pasteurized protein because I happened to see a DVD of Ronnie Coleman. But how much grits and how much of the proteins I then ate was determined by my personal needs.
The greatest added value of bodybuilding DVDs and books etc. is the motivational effect, not the informative one. Let yourself be motivated and inspired by the big men, but don’t make the mistake of simply copying what they do.
Misleading Industry
Finally, I must say that today’s fitness industry also has a tendency to make it seem like one person’s success can be yours too. Anyone with a decent physique can rise up as a specialist. People see a photo and think, “He/she knows what he/she is talking about.” In some cases, that may be true, in other cases it’s luck.
For example, I can post a photo on Facebook with the text: “personal guidance for a six-pack” and wait for people to sign up for a few tens of dollars every month, only to then receive one schedule and one Skype conversation (sounds familiar?). However, the fact is that I already had that six-pack at the age of five and it has never disappeared, regardless of what I eat or do. I have literally never in my entire life left out a single calorie because mass is my challenge. My knowledge of “cutting” is therefore completely based on scientific research, other literature, and the results of people I have coached. If it were about experience, you would benefit much more from someone who may be less lean but started with a lot of overweight and has successfully reduced it.
