Why You Shouldn’t Follow Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Bodybuilding Routine

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a bodybuilding legend and looks a bit more human than today’s top bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman, so it’s no surprise that many men aspire to look like him. To be specific, let’s say they want to look like Arnold 35 years ago, and not the flabby 61-year-old politician he is today. It’s a lofty goal, but everyone should aim high, right?

The problem is that many young people in particular think that the first step is to go to Google and search for Arnie’s bodybuilding routine, as you may have done to get to this page. This is a bad idea, and following Arnold’s old routine, or ANY professional bodybuilder’s routine, is not the right way to achieve his goals. Why? Because you’re not a professional bodybuilder and you’re definitely not Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you want reasons, here are three ways you’re different from Arnie, not counting the fact that he’s a cybernetic organism, living tissue on a metal endoskeleton.

1. Genetics

Let’s face it, most of the time you hear this term it’s a “weight gainer” complaining that he can’t gain muscle while skipping breakfast and generally eating like a bird. With the right training, everyone can gain muscle, even the biggest gainers, but there’s a difference between gaining a little muscle, getting stronger, a little bigger, and looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie was twice as muscular as you will be when he was in his teens, and a big part of that is a genetic predisposition to build a lot of muscle. If you’re over 17 and not huge yet, I guarantee you’re not as genetically wounded as he is, and following his routine to the letter won’t change that. More importantly (regarding sticking to his routine) Arnold had a great work capacity, which allowed him to thrive on high volume training (volume = sets x reps x weight) and become massive. Genetics is a big factor in work capacity, and if you don’t have it, trying to follow a high-volume program like Arnie’s is only going to wear you down and end up just as weak, only more tired and depressed. Enjoy.

2. Training age

This basically refers to how long you have been training with weights. This is significant because the more advanced a trainee is, the more volume they can handle and the more conditioned their body is to the stress of weight training. Arnie’s routine, like almost all professional bodybuilder routines, is high volume and not suitable for beginners or even intermediate lifters.

3. Supplements

How to say this tactfully… Arnie used illegal performance-enhancing drugs in his bodybuilding career. Even though he used only a fraction of the dosages that top bodybuilders use today, he still makes a huge difference compared to a natural trainee. Anabolic steroids allow you to gain more muscle, lose more fat, and recover from training much better. This recovery is particularly important because the day after a hard, high-volume training day, he could wake up refreshed and ready for another hard training day. If he didn’t have such good (medically enhanced) recuperative abilities, he wouldn’t have been able to fully recover from each of his 6 weekly weight sessions and consequently would have gotten smaller and weaker as time went on and her body was unable to cope with the stress.

So what can you do?

Of the three points, you will have noticed that 2. and 3. can be modified. Unfortunately, your training age can only change with time and experience. Arnie began weight training at age 15. How old were you when you started? And what about those middle years when you were too lazy (sorry, I meant “busy”) to train? They don’t count.

Finally, we come to the supplements. As long as you have a bit of initiative and a good amount of money, you can get your hands on some anabolic steroids and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs. He’ll even be able to get and use more of what Arnie did in his prime, so it’ll surely make up for his inferior genetics and training age of him, right? As much as performance-enhancing drugs DO work (which is why they’re banned from the Olympics and yet athletes continue to use them), they’re illegal. Tsk tsk. Don’t break the law. Oh, and the other reason is that you probably don’t know anything about how to use them, so instead of getting huge and muscular, you’ll get huge nipples, shrunken testicles, and some serious back acne (you can shorten it to “acne” when they’re given). explain to your friends how cool you are for taking steroids).

And thatshouldyou do?

First of all, don’t expect to look like Arnie overnight; It’s not going to happen, and I’d hate for you to be disappointed if it doesn’t. However, you can make big changes to your physique, including gaining muscle and losing fat. One advantage of not looking like Arnie is that you can also buy clothes in regular stores. The simple answer, unfortunately not as easy as sticking a needle up your butt, is to stick with your training. Train smart and hard, and eat good food by truck. If this advice seems very vague, well, it is. For more specific tips, you’ll have to click through to the site and read the other articles.