Arnold Schwarzenegger Blueprint Trainer Day 46

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At his Mr. Olympia height, Arnold’s chest had a look unique among all of his competitors. It was huge and deep, yes, but it also seamless and perfectly balanced. His pecs looked like they were hammered out of metal, not made of flesh and bone. His secret for building them was years and years of the incline bench press. “It gives that ‘armor-plated’ look to the upper chest and helps fill in the hollow spaces around the clavicle (collarbone),” he wrote in “The Education of a Bodybuilder.”

This movement isn’t as glamorous as the flat bench; you don’t move nearly as much weight, and nobody does it competitively. But the fact that Arnold consistently placed it at the start of his chest workout, where he was freshest and strongest, showed just how important he thought it was. As with his abs and calves, he prioritized this area because it was a weakness for him, whereas it was a strength for others like Serge Nubret, the only man to beat Arnold in a Mr. Olympia competition. Once Arnold perfected the art of transforming his weak points into assets, he never lost again.

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