Arnold Schwarzenegger Blueprint Trainer Day 51

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Every Venice, California stalwart has a story about the first time they met Arnold. Vince Gironda famously called him either fat or, more kindly, “a vast untapped reservoir of unused tissue,” depending on who you ask. In his autobiography “Brothers of Iron,” Joe Weider recalls being similarly nonplussed when meeting Arnold in the flesh in 1968, seeing impressive size, but not much in the way of definition, proportion, and posing skills.

“I saw the stuff that made our people overseas so excited, but nothing jumped out at me,” he recalls. “To be blunt, I thought Arnold was overrated.” Everything changed when he saw Arnold staring longingly at the Mr. Universe trophy backstage at the Mr. Universe contest later that year. “He kept looking, in a trance, and his eyes lit up with desire like I’d never seen,” Weider writes. “Pure longing filled every cell in his body. I could see it as much as feel it. He could have been a knight of old seeing the Grail or a saint having a vision of the Kingdom of God.” Recognizing Arnold as a “fellow true believer,” Weider called over a photographer to capture the moment when he realized that he “just found something terrific.”

“‘Arnold had the genes to be the best in the world. But the spirit, not the body, set him apart.’”

“Nothing in the world would keep him from grasping what he wanted,” Weider writes. By that time I’d seen enough of his physique to know that nothing would hold him back, physically speaking. He had the genes to be the best in the world. But the spirit, not the body, set him apart.”

Today, let your spirit guide your body through this intense workout.

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