“Of course, now I had to show I was worthy, but I didn’t feel at all concerned. I would do whatever it took to get there. I didn’t share my feelings of pride with anybody. My style was to keep moving and not reflect too much. But it felt great.”
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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.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I didn't mind basic training. It taught me that something that seems impossible at the start can be achieved.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“He was also a terrific baseball player. That’s what had helped him refine his waist: tens of thousands of reps twisting to swing a bat.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“If you don’t find the time, if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Kurt Marnul can win Mr. Austria," I thought, "and he's already told me that I could too if I train hard, so that's what I'm going to do." This thought made the hours of lifting tons of steel and iron actually a joy. Every painful set, every extra rep, was a step toward my goal of winning Mr. Austria and entering the Mr. Europe competition.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“The competition physique should be as much pure lean mass as possible, with any excess body fat stripped away. As the saying goes, “You can’t flex fat.” But fat on your body makes you feel bigger than you actually are, and this sense of being bigger is psychologically satisfying to most bodybuilders.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“You must have a sincere and burning desire to achieve what you dream, dedicate yourself to making progress, and take control of your circumstances to change your body.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
“When the boys come, instead of buying Barbie dolls, all of a sudden you’re into trucks and remote controls, cars and tanks. You buy building blocks and build castles and locomotives. You get into knives and later take them shooting with pistols, shotguns, and rifles. All of which made me very happy.”
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
