7/11/2015 SuccessBySchwarzenegger:6SecretsOfArnold'sSuccessBodybuilding.

com

24/7 Customer Service 1-866-236-8417 Get Discounts & Deals How are we doing? Free Gift with Orders Over $75 Like 2,711,023peoplelikethis.

Home Articles & Videos Motivation

6 SECRETS OF
ARNOLD'S
SUCCESS
STORE TRAINING ARTICLES & VIDEOS COMMUNITY Search

ARTICLES & VIDEOS COMMUNITY ACTIV

by Ivan Solotaroff silvas03
WORKOUTS Last updated: Apr 08, 2015 her bodyfat
31%
3.3% in 38 da
NUTRITION
Arnold Schwarzenegger's iron mindset was legendary, and it jrfuller13
SUPPLEMENTATION transformed every part of his life. We've reverse engineered his triumphs new photo
photo gallery
so you can make his secrets work for you!
MOTIVATION Monkeyboy7
tracked the w
Transformations By the late 1970s, Arnold Schwarzenegger was no longer just the best bodybuilder in Jul. 11, 2015
07:42AM
Venice Beach or a six-time Mr. Olympia. On the eve of his 15-mile migration to Hollywood,
SettingandAchieving his level of dominance transcended any superlative or official title. "Arnold was the king," View
Goals
recalls former training partner Danny Padilla.
Inspiration The intensity of Schwarzenegger's Gold's Gym workouts, while legendary, couldn't explain
it all, or what came afterward. Surely, the Styrian Oak had found some taproot to future
MotivationTipsand
Techniques success. Ask Arnold himself, as many did, have, and will continue to do, and you'd be likely
to get an unsatisfying and straightforward reply. "If there were any secrets, I would have
MILITARY found them by now," he said at the time. His answer was that there was no substitute for
hard work.
FOR WOMEN Then, against all odds, Arnold became king twice again: First, of the action blockbuster film
genre, and then the chief executive of the Great State of California. None of us could say
FOR TEENS
we saw these other victories coming, but when they did, it all seemed to make sense
somehow. Three very different crowns, but all three were built on fundamental strengths of
FOR SPORTS
this unique giant's mindset.
BODYBUILDERS
Here are six surefire strategies for success that Arnold forged in the crucible of Gold's Gym,
and made work for him in every other part of his life.
CONTESTS

EBOOKS SECRET 1: BREAK DOWN THE BARRIER BETWEEN TRAINING AND LIFE
Arnold always stressed the need for rest between sets. But over time, following the advice
EDITOR PICKS of trainer Joe Weider, he began devoting an increasing percentage of his rests to what
Weider called the "Isotension Principle." You might know it by another name: flexing.
INTERVIEWS
Here's how it works in its simplest form: After a final set, continue hitting the targeted
SUPER FEATURES muscle by flexing to peak contraction for 3-6 seconds. The action maintains connections of
myofibrils, the building blocks of muscle, without resistance. The longer and more repeated
VIDEOS the flex, the greater those connections, and over time, the greater the tension your muscle
fibers will generate.
VIDEO AND AUDIO GUIDES

WRITER LISTING

ARNOLD SET GOALS TO DOMINATE HOLLYWOOD AND HOLD POLITICAL POWER. HE SUCCEEDED IN
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/successbyschwarzenegger6secretsofarnoldssuccess.html 1/9
7/11/2015 SuccessBySchwarzenegger:6SecretsOfArnold'sSuccessBodybuilding.com
SPITE OF ALL THE NAYSAYERS.

This tensionand the ability to hold it for a prolonged period of timemake a competitive
bodybuilder stand out onstage. Arnold called posing and flexing a very important part of a
bodybuilder's workout, but beyond that, it also helped him extend his mind-muscle
connection beyond when he was lifting. You can see it in "Pumping Iron," when Arnold is
flexing even at mealtimesat least, when he's not taunting his fellow competitors.

Like fellow isotension devotee Bruce Lee, who blazed the path from cult-sport standout to
international film star, Arnold continued this practice through his acting career, keeping the
mind-muscle connection front and center.

The lesson for the rest of us: He eliminated the division between his training and his life.
Sure, he "rested," but he never took a break from improving, and he never let his skills
lapse. His boundless commitment enabled his return to Mr. Olympia competition in 1980,
five years after retiring, when he took the crown with just a few weeks to prepare. That
seventh win, over then-superior opponents, helped launch Arnold's first action film, "Conan
The Barbarian," and he was on his way to a second crown.

SECRET 2: KEEP YOUR STRENGTHS GUESSING

As Arnold often pointed out, he was intensely loyal to his favorite movements, like incline
bench presses, concentration curls, and Arnold presses. But within and around these
exercises, nothing was sacred. He changed weight amounts, switched grips, added reps,
paired exercises for opposing muscle groups, and decreased rests or cut them all together.
If one day's routine began to feel familiar, he'd perform it in an unfamiliar order or style.

One of his favorite ways to turn the norm on

its head was to convert barbell exercises to
dumbbell movements. His signature dumbbell
movement, the Arnold press, came out of this
intuitive approach, and the switch helped him
identify any right-left imbalances.

He was never the strongest, but Arnold was

always the most proportioned, and this
technique was crucial to creating a physique
that seemed devoid of weaknesses.

"Changing constantly really worked for him,

and he seemed to grow right before my very
eyes," recalls former training partner Ric
Drasin. Embracing unpredictability as a way of
life kept him ready for anything, and in his
later career, helped him make sure his most
ambitious career choice achieve the maximum
possible impact.

This is, after all, a man who, en route to

promote "Terminator 3" on "The Tonight Show," decided to use the interview to announce
that he was running for governor.

SECRET 3: FIND A CONTRARIAN COLLABORATOR

Arnold's third crown required true mass appeal, and he had it, in the form of 89 percent
approval ratings when he took office. Some responsibility for this unprecedented
momentum has to be chalked up to his decision to ease out of the 1980s action genre and
into lighter fare like comedies, where he co-starred with opposites: Danny DeVito, Sinbad,
and the child cast of "Kindergarten Cop." Such unpredictable pairings came easily for
Arnold. He'd been doing it for years.

Arnold trained with many different lifters at Gold's, but he was inseparable from 5-foot-3
Franco Columbu through the six consecutive Mr. Olympia titles. "Two restless racehorses in
the starting blocks" is how Dave Draper, Arnold's first Gold's partner, recalls the two
Europeans when they trained together. They may have both spoken with accents and
sported similarly tousled hairdos, but far more important was what separated the two: the
100 extra pounds Franco squatted.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/successbyschwarzenegger6secretsofarnoldssuccess.html 2/9
7/11/2015 SuccessBySchwarzenegger:6SecretsOfArnold'sSuccessBodybuilding.com

"IT'S NOT A TUMOR!" ARNOLD'S WORK IN COMEDIES MADE HIM A HOUSEHOLD NAME.

Standard wisdom pairs partners of more or less equal strength. Not Arnold. He did back
days with Frank Zane, shoulders and chest with stronger men, and legs with Mike Katz,
whose NFL career-ending leg injury had led to oversized recuperation. Arnold was similarly
quick to help other partners learn from his personal strengths, and his strategy became a
maxim at Gold's: "Working together to defeat one another."

Though he was a big believer in compliments to motivate, his contrarian approach also
allowed free use of negative feedback. You'd never cut corners with Arnold or, God forbid,
not finish. "If he did his 15 reps and you didn't do your 15 reps," recalls Danny Padilla, "it was
like, 'Vat's wrong, I got to do your reps now?' What's up with that? If you can't hang, go back
to something else!'"

SECRET 4: LIVE FOR YOUR GOALS

They say that nothing motivates like success. This is true, of course, but what about early in
your career, when success is elusive? In bodybuilding, there's always someone bigger or
stronger, and this applied to Arnold, too. But nobody had goals that were bigger, and
nobody clung to them more tightly than him.

ARNOLD DID HIS OWN THING, BUT HE ALSO LISTENED TO BODYBUILDERS AND MENTORS CLOSE TO
HIM. HE KNEW HE NEEDED OTHERS AND HE BORROWED KNOWLEDGE FROM MANY SOURCES.

Arnold's goals were no secret. He wrote them at the start of each year on index cards, and
made reference to them often. Some, like a new car or a mail-order business, were short-
term, recalls Padilla. Four others, which he announced shortly after arriving at Gold's, took
longer: He would "become a movie star, make millions of dollars, marry a glamorous wife,
and wield political power."

Easier said than done, of course. But in Arnold's case, they did get done. He was unique in
recognizing that the difference between his short-term and long-term ambitions was one of
degree, not kind. A goal is a goal; what matters is how you pursue it.

SECRET 5: KEEP IT REAL

Arnold would later scandalize the bodybuilding community by speaking openly of grass
and hash, whiskey in his protein shakes, and a host of other taboo topics. Part of why he
felt OK doing this was that he'd arrived at the peak of the freaky 1960s, and he saw that
Venice Beach was only a small part of Los Angeles, a community where he and his cohorts
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/successbyschwarzenegger6secretsofarnoldssuccess.html 3/9
7/11/2015 SuccessBySchwarzenegger:6SecretsOfArnold'sSuccessBodybuilding.com
Venice Beach was only a small part of Los Angeles, a community where he and his cohorts
were often seen as overgrown freaks.

HE NEVER THOUGHT OF HIS BODY AS PART OF HIM, BUT RATHER AS A COVERING OVER HIM WHICH
HE COULD MANIPULATE. HE WAS AN ARTIST AND HIS BODY WAS MERE CLAY.

Even while he was laboring day and night to be the best bodybuilder in the world, he knew
how to turn his ego off and look at himself as others saw him. "It's outside of me and also
part of me," he said of his body in an interview with "Playboy" in 1977. "I don't say, 'Arnold,
how do you look?' but rather 'Let's check out this body in the mirror and see what it looks
like today.' Professionally, I have to be detached in order to be critical of it. I don't criticize
myself; I criticize my body."

When he looked in the mirror, Arnold saw what he wanted quickly: "The goal is to carry the
weight but keep the proportion and symmetry." In layman's terms: Keep it real.

To the uninitiated public, proportion and symmetry were what separated the freak from the
superhuman. Arnold was always the latter, never the former. And when he set his sights on
being an actor, he was more than willing to put his hard-earned mass on the line. For
instance, when director Bob Rafelson asked him to drop from 240 to 210, not wanting him
to dwarf Sally Field in 1977's "Stay Hungry," Arnold didn't blink.

SECRET 6: MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR VICTORIES

"The weightlifters shone with sweat powerful looking, Herculean," Arnold wrote of his first
visit to a bodybuilding gym, age 15 in his first autobiography, "The Education of a
Bodybuilder." "And there it was before memy life, the answer I'd been seeking." To this
day, Arnold says he's a bodybuilder at heart.

As he continued training, however, Arnold found that simply getting big and strong wasn't
really his heart's desire. He had to look deeper. "I discovered that the secret of successful
workouts," he later wrote, "had to do with competition." He wanted to win, and he wanted
to be noticed for it. In short, he wanted to be famous, and the documentary "Pumping Iron"
gave him the perfect launching pad.

The film opened huge, and just as importantly, it opened when Arnold was up for a Golden
Globe for his work in "Stay Hungry." "Of course this brought out the competitor in me,"

Arnold recalls in his autobiography, "Total Recall." He

used the documentary's premiere to build his star
power as much as possible. He invited members of the
Hollywood Foreign Press Association, whose members
select Golden Globe winners, to the premiere and to a
star-studded pre-release lunch featuring celebrities like
Andy Warholthe man who had made fame an art
formand Jackie Onassis.

All of a sudden, everyone seemed to know who Arnold

was, and just in time. He won the Golden Globe, and
proceeded to leverage his victory into more parts,
more fame, and more victories. It was what he had
been looking for all along, and once found he'd never
lose it.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/successbyschwarzenegger6secretsofarnoldssuccess.html 4/9