I've had a couple of trainers -- the kind with degrees in sports-medicine, not the kind that were selling cell-phones in the mall last week -- say that Arnie was the single worst thing to happen to modern fitness.

Their complaint was that his genetics are exceptionally rare. That very few people, like 1 out of 10,000, could ever hope to come anywhere close to achieving the same physique. That by becoming a sort of fitness idol he set up everybody else up for disappointment and often giving up because it is literally impossible for the rest of us to do what he did.

As an aside, if you ever watch his first movie, a documentary of sorts called Pumping Iron, he says that smoking pot was a part of his regimen. He even lights up on camera.

That's more than unfair. Arnie sparked a massive fitness craze that benefited many people. If you get disappointed, that is ultimately your fault. Arnie (as well as every other bodybuilder since the mid 60's) were on varying degrees of steroids. This is well known. They have to deny it, but ask anyone in the sport. Arnie's body is an ideal, a loooong term goal that is probably never going to be achieved naturally. But that great physique is what made a ton of people get off their butts and at least try.

If you want an achievable natty physique look up "Zyzz" on youtube. Dude teched as a shortcut, but his physique is easily attainable in 3-5 years, if you do it right. Like Arnie, he has inspired many people. And then to say that the people that are too weak-willed to follow through on workouts deserve to blame these men? That's just silly.

Arnie doesn't deny he was on steroids either. He "just" says he only used them while they were still legal. Whether that is true or not... Well.

But the impressive part of Arnie's physique from a modern standpoint is the symmetry and attention to detail, not really size. We have steroid-driven monsters like Ronnie Coleman that makes Arnie seem like a starving child these days...

I think the bigger problem with bodybuilders as an ideal is that most people don't understand that Arnie didn't look like what he looks like in most of his published photos for more than a few minutes on stage every year. E.g. at his peak shape, yet cut as much as possible, dehydrated, pumped, oiled, artificially tanned, and flexing to the max.

That's not what Arnie level bodybuilders look like if you meet the on the street, or in the gym...

I like to point people to Conan, as in the actual movie rather than the posters. That was Arnie in the kind of shape that let him win Mr Olympia in 1980, yet if you look at the movie rather than the posters and pictures most people are used to seeing of Arnie, his seems big but his shape doesn't seem all that unachievable - that's the difference that competition prep makes...

People also misjudge size of bodybuilders in pictures massively, I think, and seem to believe they're huge giants mountains of muscle. Consider that Arnie at his peak was roughly 105kg, at 6', and with a 34" waist. There's tons of untrained guys larger than that - bodybuilders like Arnie just looks massive because of their shape and low body fat.

Of course most people still won't achieve Arnie's physique, especially not without steroids, but you can get "close enough" to his day to day appearance much easier than most people think.

I remember watching Pumping Iron, and he was massive alright. And he's 6'2". After he stopped competing, he slimmed down for the movies.

In general though, you're right. Nobody to this day has looked as good as he did.

Zyzz had crazy genetics too AND he roided. I wouldn't call looking like that "easily attainable".

In fact that's one thing I find quite annoying about fitness these days, everyone tries to play down exactly how much work is involved in getting fit, especially if you start from a really bad position (massively over/under weight).

It's hard hard work and saying it's not devalues everyone who has made it.

“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody wanna lift no heavy ass weight.” – Ronnie Coleman

Dont think Zyzz is a great example and shouldnt be mentioned in the same text as Arnie. Look at his youtube videos and meet a giant douche with mantras like "disregard females" and stuff like that. Sure, he motivated people, but he also died at 22 years old because steroids worsened his inherent heart problems.

Other great examples are the bodybuilders of the 50s like Steve Reeves, when aesthetic standards were a bit different (broad shoulders / thin waist, eg. look for the 'vacuum pose'.)

Frank Zane is also a really weird bodybuilder from the 70s. He won Mr Olympia 3 times I think. He's very "philosophical" about his workouts, brining in some kind of Zen philosophy to it. I like his physique the most of all bodybuilders, perfect V taper and king of the vacuum pose.

He seems very despondent about modern bodybuilding and the obsession of getting as BIG as possible without regard to the aesthetics (HGH/roid gut). He said they should make the vacuum pose a mandatory pose in all pro bodybuilding competitions to weed out this kind of crap.

In my opinion the physiques of the pro Bodybuilder in the 50 to 70ies really looked awesome. Personally still way too much for something i would want but still looking impressive. While todays pro Bodybuilders are just abominations caused by massive steroid consumption.

Meh this is kind of an irrelevant complaint in my opinion. It's not like everyone is out to look like Arnold in his prime - 99% of people would be thrilled to look 1/10 as good as he did (and they would look good).

Isn't physique, like, orthogonal to fitness? Bodybuilding may be a way to get fit, but working out in general does not require it at all. I think the lesson we all can take from Arnold is the mental effort, strength of will and so on, not necessarily the specific exercises he used to perform.

> Isn't physique, like, orthogonal to fitness?

Not if "physique" means not being obese. If "physique" means "photogenic," then yes -- they're pretty much unrelated.

> Bodybuilding may be a way to get fit, but working out in general does not require it at all.

Very true, and if people thought they had to build up muscle and look like Arnold, it would set the fitness movement back.

> > If "physique" means "photogenic," then yes -- they're pretty much unrelated.

> Where do you get your information?

You misunderstood me. I didn't mean that physical fitness can't lead to a photogenic appearance, only that they're not strongly correlated to a dispassionate third party, over all cases in the population. For example, there are any number of very highly paid, photogenic models who are not only unfit, but who suffer from anorexia and other ailments, and there are any number of people who benefit from a modest fitness regimen but who do not look any better because of it.

> So, people trying to get in shape and look good at the same time is bad for the fitness/health movement?

Ah, I just got it. You misunderstood me on purpose.

> Are you trolling?

I just demonstrated who's trolling. Being physically fit, and being photogenic, are unrelated, i.e. not correlated. That doesn't mean that one won't lead to the other, only that the absence of a photogenic appearance doesn't demonstrate a lack of fitness.

I can see you're not a deep thinker, so let me explain this more precisely. Let's call engaging in a fitness program X, and a photogenic appearance Y. The fact that X can lead to Y (and it certainly can) doesn't assure that outcome in all cases or even a majority, because the absence of Y by no means implies an absence of X.