Q: I get depressed when I read through my stash of old hand-me-down bodybuilding magazines. I’m 19 and weigh 185 with abs, but I see that the pro bodybuilders weigh anywhere from 250 to 280 pounds, and that’s at 3 percent bodyfat. I don’t want to take steroids, but it seems like that’s the only way to get impressive development, right?
A:If you’re looking for us to give you the okay to take drugs, you’re barking up the wrong tree. We love bodybuilding (the lifestyle, not necessarily the competitions); however, resorting to steroids to get an “impressive,” extremely muscular physique is not mandatory. Look at this shot of Jonathan…
In that photo from our X-Rep transformation year, he is more than impressive—most people on the street would consider his most muscular astounding (and some would say he’s too big).
How much did he weigh in that photo? About 202 pounds at 5’10”. That’s not a typo; his bodyweight was just a tad over 200. And he’s a lifetime drug-free bodybuilder. Another example is 3-time Mr. Olympia Frank Zane. He competed at anywhere from 185 to 200 pounds—and won. We’ve run this photo before, but it’s damned impressive…
While today’s pros are gigantic, there are usually some bodyweight lies going on with them. Most fudge their weights upward by as much as 20 pounds. It’s why you rarely see weigh-ins at the pro shows.
You’re 19 years old, in the prime of your growth years, so a bodyweight of 185 with abs is an excellent bodybuilding base. Keep training hard, efficiently, and consistently, and you'll pack on more muscle month after month.
Genetics willing, you could look like Jonathan in a year or two—healthy without taking drugs—and that type of development will impress just about anyone anywhere anytime. [Note: To kick-start your anabolism, you may want to try Jonathan’s 20-pounds-of-muscle-in-10-weeks program. For more on that, see the 3D Muscle Building e-book.
Vince Gironda was the Iron Guru, a bodybuilding legend ahead of his time. His most famous pupil in the bodybuilding world was the very first Mr. Olympia Larry Scott, and he also trained many Hollywood stars back in the day, like Clint Eastwood, and even Arnold consulted with him and was a fan (even though Vince told Arnold that he was a "fat f**k" when he first arrived in the U.S.).
Many of Vince's mass-building tricks and methods have been forgotten, buried by information and misinformation overload on the Internet, but now you can find them all, his true methods, in this must-have, 330-page Vince Gironda e-book anthology…
You get everything from "Train 21 Rest 7" to 10-8-6-15 to Vince's Stone Age Nutrition, the 8x8 method and program and much, much more (remember, it's 330 pages). And it's on sale at a discount for a limited time: Simply use the code GIRONDA20 at checkout for an extra 20 percent off.
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