“In weeks that followed, I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the Mr. Universe title; I was going to break records in power lifting; I was going to Hollywood; I was going to be like Reg Park. The vision became so clear in my mind that I felt like it had to happen. There was no alternative; it was this or nothing. My mother noticed right away that something was different. I was coming home with a big smile. I told her that I was training, and she could see I found joy in becoming stronger.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way. I hope it never will.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“He had a voice you couldn't miss: strong and penetrating with strange vowels that sounded different from the accents of other English speakers even to me. I later discovered that he was Canadian.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“My definition of living is to have excitement always; that’s the difference between living and existing.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I always believed in shooting for the top, and to become an American is like becoming a member of the winning team.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Always keep in mind that training stimulates growth, but that actual growth takes place while you are resting.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“If you don’t find the time, if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Being busy helping customers meant that I had no time to train the way I was used to, with an intense four-or five-hour workout each day. So I adopted the idea of training twice a day, two hours before work and two hours from seven to nine in the evening, when business slacked off and only the serious lifters were left. Split workouts seemed like an annoyance at first, but I realized I was onto something when I saw the results: I was concentrating better and recovering faster while grinding out longer and harder sets. On many days I would add a third training session at lunchtime. I'd isolate a body part that I thought was weak and give it thirty or forty minutes of my full attention, blasting twenty sets of calf raises, say, or one hundred triceps extensions. I did the same thing some nights after dinner, coming back to train for an hour at eleven o'clock. As I went to sleep in my snug little room, I'd often feel one or another muscle that I'd traumatized that day jumping and twitching-just a side effect of a successful workout and every pleasing, because I knew those fibers would now recover and grow.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Mass is vital to a bodybuilder’s physique. But it is the shape and the quality of this mass that win contests.”
―
Arnold Schwarzenegger
