Arnold Speaks Out!

It’s Time to Terminate Big Guts and Bad Posing, and Restore Glory to Bodybuilding

Exclusive Interview by Ron Harris

Oftentimes, the masses can grumble in discontent about a state of affairs they are unhappy with for decades, yet nothing gets done until someone takes a stand and speaks out about changes that need to be made. For a very long time, bodybuilding fans have been disenchanted with the direction the sport and the top physiques have taken. Physique champions were once revered and admired for their mass, shape, proportion and graceful posing presentation. As we know, as years went by, it began to be more about who was the biggest and most ripped, with other attributes trailing far behind in importance. Beauty and aesthetics were lost in the shuffle. Many fans simply lost interest in the sport altogether, while others remained, disgruntled with the current standards.

Enter Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold is not only the most famous bodybuilder who has ever lived; he has also been a smashing success in the motion picture industry, government and event promotion. Needless to say, when Arnold talks, and especially when he talks about bodybuilding, people listen. A few years ago, Arnold challenged judges to stop rewarding ugly bodies and return to seeking out the most perfect physiques. Arnold felt just as strongly that skilled posing presentation had become a lost art, and more recently was able to have the posing round reinstated as a judging round at his events, counting for a full one-third of the final score for each athlete.

This interview with Arnold was one I have been waiting my entire career as a bodybuilding journalist to conduct, and it took place at the eleventh hour before this issue’s final deadline, as Arnold was fully invested in wrapping up his first season as the Boss on “The Celebrity Apprentice” just before the 2016 Arnold Sports Festival took place in Columbus. As it turned out, it really wasn’t so much an interview as it was listening to Arnold’s passionate discourses about what needs to change in our sport, and how those changes will ultimately restore it to the glory days it once enjoyed. For anyone who doubts that Arnold really cares about bodybuilding after nearly 40 years away from the stage and his epic careers in film and politics, simply read on. It will become obvious very soon that Mr. Schwarzenegger not only still cares, but also cares deeply enough to be the man to help bring the needed changes about.

Last year, the day after the Arnold Classic at your victory seminar, you delivered one of the most significant messages to the IFBB officials ever made in the history of the sport, when you challenged them to stop rewarding bloated stomachs and ugly bodies. Obviously, physiques have been showing those characteristics for quite a few years now. How long had you been thinking about making such a direct statement about it in a public forum?

To be honest with you, I’ve been so occupied with the growth of the sport and with trying to figure out ways of bringing bodybuilding together with other sports, so that people really see bodybuilding as a sport. That’s why we’re so keen on presenting the sport with archery, Strongman, weightlifting, boxing, judo, karate and all these different sports. It’s so we get conditioned to see bodybuilding as one of many sports. That will also help to eventually get Olympia recognition. We’re now in the Pan American Games, the Asian Games and the European Games. So I’ve been occupied with that vision. I didn’t pay much attention to the judging of the bodybuilding competitions. I always felt like this is an IFBB thing or an NPC thing, a Jim Manion thing and so on. I didn’t pay all that much attention to who was judging and what the criteria were, none of that. I was just enjoying watching the contests. But eventually it became clear to me that, wait a minute, we’re getting more and more away from the ideal physique, from that V-shape body that we’ve always been idolizing. You know, wide shoulders, small waist, big thighs, big calves … kind of like the Greek ideal. I always talked about making an X across the body. The deltoids would be the top of the X, the calves are the bottom and the smallest part in the middle is the abs. That was always the ideal. When you saw a champion bodybuilder from far away on the beach, you should see his deltoids and his calves popping out, and a skinny waist. That Steve Reeves, Frank Zane, Bob Paris ideal … I thought we were going away from that. The bodybuilders now appear much blockier onstage. I started looking into it more. I started talking to the judges and asking, what are you looking for? They told me that the way the judging procedure and the rules are set up lends itself to us looking for the biggest guy. We’re only judging muscles.

You didn’t speak out at that time about the reforms you feel need to be made with the posing round. Were you already passionate about making changes and having it included again in the judging process?

Yes, of course. Again, when I was speaking with judges about what they were looking for, one said, “Remember that we have gotten rid of the posing category many years ago.” I said, “Wait a minute, why did we get rid of the posing?” and he replied, “Well, the bodybuilders didn’t like it.” I said, “Why do I give a fuck about what the bodybuilders like? It’s like going to a gymnastics event and saying, hey, do you gymnasts like the rings? If you don’t, we’ll cut it out. How stupid is that?” So then I had meetings with Jim Manion, Jim Lorimer, Rafael Santonja and I talked to a lot of judges. It became clear that there was a huge mistake made many years ago, when they took the discipline of posing out of the judging procedure. I don’t know how that slipped by me. I take partial blame for that, because it shouldn’t have. But like I said, I was so occupied with the promotion of the sport and making the sport and the events bigger, that I didn’t pay attention to the judging. And I never did, really, because I always felt uncomfortable with that. As a promoter, I was always concerned that getting involved with the judging would be a conflict of interest. But I got involved, and I said, we have to put an end to that. The way to do it was to speak out, and I had to be the one to do it. I’m sure no one was there to speak out against Jim Manion, Rafael, Jim or Bob Lorimer, or any of those high-level people. I felt like if I spoke out about it, then other people would say, I agree with him, and let’s do something about it. That did create a kind of momentum. That’s exactly what happened that day when I talked about it. I wanted to be as eloquent as I could be without putting anyone down who was onstage. I just said, there were certain people like X, Y and Z who I thought could have done better under normal judging procedures. But you guys have taken out the posing, and therefore these guys couldn’t do better, because they’re not being judged on their posing. They’re being judged on their muscle size and mass. So now we want to start moving back to the old traditional way again.

When did you see the sport shift toward rewarding the man with the biggest muscles, and how did the art of posing lose its significance?

I thought Lee Haney was the last of the ideal bodies, though of course you still have men like Dexter Jackson with ideal bodies today. But sometimes you see guys who win and you feel like, how did this guy win with his stomach sticking out? How can anyone win without being able to do a vacuum? How can anyone win without the right proportions? Yes, he had the most muscle mass, but he was shaking when he was posing. He didn’t even hold the poses so that as an expert, I could judge him accurately. If I were a judge, I would say, hold each pose until I say thank you. Now I see the guys being asked to do a side chest pose, and all of a sudden we see them moving around and shifting because their stomach immediately starts sticking out. They can’t even do a vacuum to show their rib cage like in the old days. So I said, how can this guy be a champion when he can’t even hold a pose? How can he be a champion when he can’t even do a good routine? Yes, he has the best body, the most muscular body, but he hasn’t been able to really display it. I mean, you can have the best painting in the world, but if you don’t have right frame, and you don’t have the right lighting on it, you’re not going to have a great show. In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In bodybuilding, it’s presentation, presentation, presentation. You have to show what you have in a very interesting and dynamic way.

In the history of bodybuilding, bodybuilders have never had to walk around and continuously urge the people, the fans, the fanatics, to give them some applause. Some applause! Not even a lot, just some. A lot of them have these 22-, 23-inch arms, they’re hitting the shots and no one is clapping. Why not? If you have to beg the audience to clap, how can you be a champion? Muhammad Ali never had to ask anyone to clap for him, and neither did Sergio or Franco. It was always a standing ovation with those guys. So why are they having this problem today that they can’t get applause? Because there is no drama. We don’t have any of the excitement anymore onstage, because it’s the same fucking routine. Every guy comes out and does his double biceps, the lat spread, side chest, triceps, the back shots, all clumsily from one to the next. And they can’t even hold it. I don’t want to knock anybody. The idea is that we will be able to get better performances, more drama onstage and better bodies, when we force the guys to practice a lot more by giving points for posing.

The outside observer to our sport would assume that training is the toughest part of what we do, and posing is fun and easy in comparison.

That’s completely backward. I remember when we used to practice our routines after working out, we were sweating much more when we did that than we did during training. It was so strenuous. It is so difficult to be able to simultaneously flex your calves, your thighs, your legs, your buttocks, your lower back, your whole back, your deltoids, your biceps, your triceps, your forearms and then have a smile on your face at the same time. And to stand there like a statue, no shaking. Then slowly, gracefully, move into the next pose. That’s very difficult to do, very challenging, and that’s why they hate it. That’s why they don’t want to have it as one of the rounds, because God forbid they should have to work for their money. This is what I’m objecting to, and why I say we must add the posing round again.

How did you go about getting posing to count for a full one-third of the athlete’s scores in your events? Many fans have speculated that it might lead to men with superior posing skills beating those who actually have better physiques.

There is some resistance on Jim Manion’s part, I feel, even though Jim was very gracious and said, “Well, let’s start off with the Arnold Classic events, include it there from this year on, during the judging procedure.” We had a great meeting. With all these things, there are always compromises. It’s like in politics. Everyone has different opinions, then you compromise, so everyone kind of gets their way, in a way. That’s how you move things forward. So we compromised, and we said OK, we’ll start with the Arnold Classic this year, and if that goes well we can talk further. One issue that comes up is, how do you judge it? What if someone is a fantastic poser, but doesn’t have the best body, and another guy has a fantastic body but is a lousy poser? Who would get the title? That’s up to the points. Let’s say you get 20 points for your physique, let’s say, and 18 for your posing. Another guy gets 19 points for his physique, and 19 for his posing. He now has a chance to win. It’s all about points, just like in gymnastics. They add up the points from the various rounds. Now, a guy who is a dynamic poser and has a great body can beat a guy who has a fantastic body but isn’t that good of a poser.

Arnold, you have stressed many times that you want to see a return to a time when every pro bodybuilder can hit a vacuum pose. How do you suppose some of these men with larger midsections, who have never come close to being able to pull a vacuum, will be able to do that?

Let me tell you something. The only way you can do anything is if you practice. Repetition. If you want to be a good public speaker, you have to do many reps. You practice your speech over and over until you feel so comfortable with it, that you can go out and have the audience in your hands like putty. It’s all reps. Look at a man who does a high-wire balancing act from one building to another. How many times do you think those guys practice? You see a little 7-year-old girl playing piano at the opera. How many hours do you think she spends practicing? I’ve had those girls at various events of mine, and a lot of them say they practice four to six hours a day. So if someone is willing to practice four to six hours a day to be the best at the piano, why can’t a bodybuilder spend some time practicing his posing and holding a vacuum? You can only do the vacuum if you send the signal to the brain that your stomach can be pulled back and into the rib cage. But you have to practice that. You have to sit down, hold your breath and pull your stomach in, then hold it like that for seconds at a time. Then for 10 seconds, then 20 and then 30. Then you do it standing up. You practice and you practice. Then you do it while posing. And you have someone there like we did.

When I did my posing, my lat spread, Frank Zane would call out and say, “What happened to the vacuum?” I’d say, “Well, I’m out of breath. I can’t hold it anymore.” He’d say, “Why should I give a shit about that? I don’t see a vacuum, and I’m a judge right now.” And Franco would say, “What about the thighs? You’re not flexing your thighs!” Or I wasn’t flexing my lower back, or they could see my stomach sticking out from the side. This is how we would critique each other, and this is how we all perfected our posing. Every single day, we did that. At home, I’d sit down at any given time and hold my stomach in, because you have to train the brain so it becomes second nature. It’s like me swinging a sword in a “Conan” movie. When I draw the sword, I can’t think about looking down to see where my sword is so I can draw it. It has to be second nature, and you get that from doing it a thousand times, over and over. In a “Terminator”movie, how do I drive a motorcycle with one hand, draw a shotgun, cock it and shoot a lock off so I can drive through a gate? Lots and lots of practice. If you tried doing that without practice, you would probably crash the motorcycle. So my point is that the bodybuilders have to practice doing the vacuum and keeping their waist in. They have to practice to smile and look friendly, and to look like a champion, not like, oh my God, I’m gonna die in three more minutes. That’s what a lot of them look like onstage. I think that the guy who looks great, who can smile and look like a champion, and who can have an excellent posing routine, that guy has a great shot at winning. That’s exactly why we want to go with this thing, so we get back to a great body and we don’t just reward the huge lumps. Right now, they’re getting bigger and bigger, because of all the various things that people take and all that. But I don’t see the performance improving.

We can talk about changing the criteria all day long, but in the end, isn’t the judging going to be subjective, and based on the personal preferences of each judge on that panel?

I think that if they don’t want someone to win, there’s always a way of pointing out a certain weak point. It’s as simple as that. Look, you can put me and Sergio together. And let’s say they want Arnold to win. They can say, I can’t let Sergio win because he doesn’t have any peak on his biceps. There’s no way I can vote for a guy without peaked biceps. At the next contest, they want to have Sergio win. And they say, there is just no way I could have Arnold win, his thighs aren’t as big as Sergio’s. You gotta have huge thighs, so I could not vote for Arnold. It’s always been very subjective. This is why we have all these judges, and the high and low scores are thrown out.

What do you think of the new Classic Physique division that Jim Manion added to NPC and IFBB events for this year?

We just have to watch it. It’s now new. We have to see how many more competitors it draws and how popular it is with the fans. I will watch it and see how it develops. I think Jim Manion is trying hard to have both, the monsters and the classic physiques. Again, this is part of the compromise.

You’ve already introduced sweeping reforms to bodybuilding that could soon impact how the judges choose winners. Do you see this potentially affecting who our champions will be?

The important thing is that we go and we have the most spectacular physiques, with the most spectacular posing routines, the most ripped physiques with the best vacuum, all of that together. That’s what we’re looking for. I think it could easily be the same guys who are winning now, with a little more adjustment; they could pull it off. They’ll work harder on their posing. Right now, there’s no reason for it. When they will be judged on their posing routine and creativity, their proportions and vacuum, then they’ll be perfect. It’s just a matter of us leading the way to get them back to where we once were.

Arnold, thank you so much for your time and for your many contributions to the sport. It’s been an honor.

You’re welcome, and I appreciate all the coverage and pages that MD has given to the Arnold Classic events every year, all the promotions, and Mr. Blechman’s contributions to the sport.

Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram

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