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After an eight-year job, I felt the time was right to move to California to compete against the big boys. So I loaded up my car and a U-Haul, my Harley and my exercise machines, and headed west. Moving from a little town, Lake Helen, in Florida to a huge metropolitan area like Los Angeles was a huge culture shock for me. Luckily, I had plenty of contacts in L.A. and I would need them to survive in that concrete jungle.
When I arrived in L.A., Mike Mentzer offered his hospitality to me in his Santa Monica home. I ended up staying with him for a week until I could find a place close to where I would be training and near the beach. The Santa Monica weather was great for hard workouts as the mornings were cool all year round. Mike and I started training together at Gold’s Gym. This was my first training spot in Santa Monica. Every morning at 10:30am, I’d cruise up in front of the gym on my Harley (low rider) and this usually got everyone’s attention due to the extremely loud exhaust pipes. Mike and I would start by warming up–doing sit-ups and crunches by the hundreds.
It’s important to note one thing–there was a big difference in the attitudes of bodybuilders in the old days versus today. Back then, everyone in the gym helped each other out and trained together in the pro bodybuilding world. Whoever turned out the best, was the best. No arguments and no grudges. We all worked hard and competed against one another for the good of the sport and ourselves. Times have changed.Once we were done our warm ups, I’d grunt, “Lets rock” and we’d pile the heavy weights on. Leg day workouts usually created a crowd of spectators, with Mike and I grunting out some remarkable poundages. We used to have a little game called Rep Bet. Rep Bet would be called, which means you got paid $5.00 for each extra rep you could get past the competition on that day. I rarely lost this bet and it was a good form of motivation.
Mike was a real hard driver and motivator. Ray would sometimes step in the training and then the weights would really fly and our collective intensity would spike to a higher level. Ray was quiet and short-tempered, two qualities that make for a great training partner in my opinion. There was no clowning around or talking. We were just grinding the heavy weights with proper assistance at the end of sets, with every rep being forced out. Three of us training at one time meant there was not time for resting if we all wanted to maintain a real pump in a given muscle group.
Gold’s Gym where we trained was famous. Many foreign bodybuilders and trainers from the East Coast would just show up at the front door with luggage in hand, straight from the airport. I still remember one mid-summer morning when a young Dorian Yates showed up with a gleam in his eye. I think he was all of 19 years old, with a shaved head and very little muscle on his frame. This kid came all the way from England, just to be inspired to train with great intensity.
We treated him good and let him watch our grueling training sessions. He was wide-eyed and appreciated every minute of the hard training. I remember he was worried about his tattoos back then, and how it would affect the judges when he started competing. We all told him that the tattoos would not help in the judges’ eyes, that this form of personal expression was frowned upon. He said he was trying to get them removed, which was a step in the right direction.
The next time I saw Dorian, he had packed on 100 pounds of pure muscle and was winning shows in Europe. He turned pro just after that, and the rest is history. To me, in the beginning Dorian had just an average frame, but above average motivation. Boy, did he surprise everyone with his size and shape later in his career. In my mind, he’s still one of the best Olympians to date.
Cardio-vascular training was a must during preparation for a contest. In Santa Monica, Mike, Ray and I would jog 3 miles to the Santa Monica stairs, on 3rd Street. The stairs consisted of 175 steps right up the side of a cliff. At the top, we had great mountain views. It’s a famous place with many tourist and locals all making there way up and down the long trek.
Back then, all the pros used those stairs to get that last amount of body fat off of their bodies. Many advanced athletes even used a 30-50 lb. weight vest to make the stairs even harder. We usually climbed up and down three times before calling it quits. After a grueling workout this was the finishing touch for a complete workout. Plus you were out in the (sometimes) fresh air, very close to the beach.
I usually slept like a bear after all this work. I felt like I accomplished something by doing this type of training, and I was. Soreness was an everyday welcomed result of this type of training (if you keep up this pace and determination, you can blast through any sticking point). Sometimes my muscles would get so sore, I would run a high fever from the intense workouts. But plenty of rest and good food turned this work into results and you could almost see me grow after nearly every workout.
As far as eating goes, it was fairly easy to get lots of protein and low carbohydrate meals. There were many Swedish Smorgasbord restaurants and other all-you-can-eat types of places located around town. The area was a hungry bodybuilders delight. We’d gorge on roast beef, cottage cheese and scrambled eggs every chance we could get. The owners of these restaurants frowned upon our arrival but they couldn’t say much. Hey, the sign said “all you can eat” after all. One time, I remember Mike eating a whole stick of butter and liking it during the off-season. That Mike was a wild man.
One month before a pro show, I had a standing weekly appointment to see Joe Weider for lunch and a posing session at his main office in Woodland Hills, California. He would meet me in his large conference room and he would tell everyone else to leave. There, we practiced muscle control and the proper positioning of poses. The sessions lasted about one hour and they were grueling. I usually had a circle sweat on the floor around me when he put me through this flexing practice.
Joe was a busy man, but he always took the time to help me with my stage presentation. It helped in the long run, even though I got really sore from these flexing sessions. After this, we’d get a bite to eat and he would go back to work, running his empire. Joe kept in close contact with the bodybuilders he sponsored, and if he liked you, he helped all he could. To this day, I have never seen a man so into his job like Joe Weider was. Obsessed… That’s what he was.
Arnold was another person who helped me a lot with my posing. When I was contest ready, he would invite me to his residence in Santa Monica and we would practice posing, trying to get the right posing angles for hours. Arnold really knew how to make you present your muscles to your advantage, and it helped later when I stood before the judges.
I was starting to rack up wins at the Grand Prix circuit. It was the summer of 1980. Because of pre-contest diets and mood swings, Mike and I agreed it would be best to train by ourselves. I was in the middle of the five Grand Prix shows and the Olympia, and Mike was getting ready for his last show, the Olympia.
I decided to train after the gym had closed which was 10:00pm. It was quiet at that time, and I could get some intense concentration in my workouts, away from the fans who wanted autographs and who wanted to talk and train with me. The training was going well until my friends caught on to my “after hours” time. Then one by one the gym started getting busy after closing time. Hulk Hogan, Tony Carroll, even Jane Fonda showed up late one night. Pete Gymkowski (the owner) would come and train also.
A slew of people would even bring in coffee and food, and it seemed like no one could sleep in L.A. It was great. Even Rachael Mclish would show up along with Lisa Lyons and other beauties.
After the late night training, we’d all go somewhere and eat a low calorie meal. The only problem I had with training after hours is that I’d turn into a late night vampire. I slept during the day and grocery shopped in the middle of the night. Banking? That was a hassle too.
On the plus side, I got better pumps and could concentrate better. This helped me a ton with my muscle gains and getting cut up. I can still remember walking out of the gym at 4:00 am into early morning with steam radiating off of my wet gym clothes. It was often cold at that time of the day by the beach with lots of fog and wind. Staying warm in wet gym clothes was always a challenge. I did what I could to cover up and keep warm after training and on the way home.
