What we learned from the Mr Olympia results.

[Vince B]

We now know that God no longer wants Ronnie Coleman to win. Neither did the judges. Just shows that we do not know what God's plan is for us. Ronnie was convinced his purpose was to be Mr Olympia. Now what is he supposed to believe? I just wish people would stop mentioning God in public announcements. Surely Ron cannot blame God for his placing?!

The IFBB judges can award the title to a non-reigning competitor. Apparently the judges did the right thing this year. Is that a miracle or the new IFBB criteria in force? The IFBB remains consistent in that they do not award first place to a person who does not present with the necessary condition. That applies now to former champions.

Injuries can make a difference to condition. Diet can also be important. If you tear a triceps or lat or both you are unlikely to be able to train hard enough. Those injuries will be obvious to the judges. Lifting heavy weights is dangerous. No bodybuilder should do really heavy deadlifts.

If you set a certain standard and then show up below that standard you cannot expect the same placing as previously.

Short men do not place high in the Olympia. They stuggle to make the top 10 and are more or less overlooked. Ronnie Rockel is another example of this bias.

Black men have small calves. Those with small calves have little or no chance of winning the Olympia. Few of the black bodybuilders who competed showed much in the way of cuts in their calves. Exceptions are Vince Taylor and Victor Martinez. If you are a no calves bodybuilder you really cannot expect to win the Olympia.

Black bodybuilders are bigger and better than white guys. A generalization, of course.

Joe Weider was not present at the awards which is sad. The end of an era, perhaps.

[SUBTRACTION]

We now know that God no longer wants Ronnie Coleman to win. Neither did the judges. Just shows that we do not know what God's plan is for us. Ronnie was convinced his purpose was to be Mr Olympia. Now what is he supposed to believe? I just wish people would stop mentioning God in public announcements. Surely Ron cannot blame God for his placing?!

I blame God.

Ronnie should too! 

[TheAnimal]

Lifting heavy weights is dangerous. No bodybuilder should do really heavy deadlifts.

No way! heavy deads all the way!
without mixed grip of course
Mixed grip is asking to rip that bicep of it's tendon

[AVBG]

We now know that God no longer wants Ronnie Coleman to win. Neither did the judges. Just shows that we do not know what God's plan is for us. Ronnie was convinced his purpose was to be Mr Olympia. Now what is he supposed to believe? I just wish people would stop mentioning God in public announcements. Surely Ron cannot blame God for his placing?!

The IFBB judges can award the title to a non-reigning competitor. Apparently the judges did the right thing this year. Is that a miracle or the new IFBB criteria in force? The IFBB remains consistent in that they do not award first place to a person who does not present with the necessary condition. That applies now to former champions.

Injuries can make a difference to condition. Diet can also be important. If you tear a triceps or lat or both you are unlikely to be able to train hard enough. Those injuries will be obvious to the judges. Lifting heavy weights is dangerous. No bodybuilder should do really heavy deadlifts.
If you set a certain standard and then show up below that standard you cannot expect the same placing as previously.

Short men do not place high in the Olympia. They stuggle to make the top 10 and are more or less overlooked. Ronnie Rockel is another example of this bias.

Black men have small calves. Those with small calves have little or no chance of winning the Olympia. Few of the black bodybuilders who competed showed much in the way of cuts in their calves. Exceptions are Vince Taylor and Victor Martinez. If you are a no calves bodybuilder you really cannot expect to win the Olympia.

Black bodybuilders are bigger and better than white guys. A generalization, of course.

Joe Weider was not present at the awards which is sad. The end of an era, perhaps.

Hey Vince,

Where did you pick this up? Was that in the telecast too?

[Hulkster]

we also learned that one olympia win can transform a mediocre back into a "its the best ever fantastic oh my fucking god!" back, in that of Jay Cutler

[ARMZ]

The lord loves Jay more..

[Vince B]

If you look at the images from the European Grand Prix contests it is clear Ronnie has torn his left lat. What a disaster that is. How the heck did he do that? Well, steroids and heavy deadlifts could combine to blow something eventually. Just my theory. His left triceps looks shorter than the right one. Sergio Oliva had that problem later in his career. I am not sure what causes that. Lots of bodybuilders are tearing muscles. Biceps, pecs, lats, you name it. Arthur Jones was right when he said we should not demonstrate our strength. Doing sets with 10 reps is still the way to go. All those heavy sets for a few reps is insanity.

Deadlifts have NO place in a bodybuilders program. That many do silly things doesn't surprize me. Collectively we are all dopes who lift weights because we believe so much nonsense and embrace a lot of crap from the past. For example, why does anyone still use free weights? Beat me, but there you are. Knuckleheaditis is almost universal among bodybuilders.

[Vince B]

Cutler has to learn how to pose better and not lean back so that his back is in shadows. We learned that the best back did win again. That tradition remains.

[ARMZ]

The lord made iron for a reason..  We must lift free weights for the lord..

[Heywood]

Good points, Vince.  I remember the IFBB stating that there would be criteria imposed this year, and that proportion and symmetry would (once again) be important.  I think the waistlines were what they were alluding to.  What would have happened if Ronny came in at "only" 250 lbs?   Muscle vs. proportions.  

Regarding injuries, the judges may have also sensed that Ronny was going down the same path that hurt Dorian's physique.  That is, serious injuries (tears) would begin to mount and do more harm than good to let him continue to win.  I'm not sure why bodybuilders think that doing rows with 400 lbs is a good idea.  I remember Boyer saying (in the 1970's) that he used less than 200 lbs, but did them very strictly.  Talk about longevity...

[McFarland]

All very interesting points, gentlemen. 

[McFarland]

I'm still waiting to hear all the behind-the-scenes info regarding Ronnie and what's going on in his life, contract negotiations, etc.  Something changed way up top's all I know, because things just aren't the same anymore.  Everybody's acting all weird, and what the hell is Steve Blechman up to, and does that fit in anywhere?  Chad's also out of the loop it seems.  Ha ha ha shit this is gonna be good when it finally all comes to light...   

[McFarland]

I honestly think Blechman's plotting to take over every damn thing right about now... 

[McFarland]

He's the youngest of all the powers that be right now.  Everybody else's gotta be getting close to retirement.  Kennedy of Musclemag, that guy behind Ironman...everybody, even Peter McGough looks to be about done with all this nonsense here pretty soon.  This industry needs to keep an eye on Blechman...he's a clever one and still young enough to get diabolically power-hungry if he gets on a good enough roll...ha ha ha...and we all know that's required at some point if you're gonna make a mogul of yourself in this industry.  I think Chad Nicholls knew his gig was up, oh, about 2 and a half years ago and feels lucky to have gotten out of shit when he did unscathed, so he's not about to make any huge push for anything.  These are all just observations from a very far, BTW...I have very little access anymore to much inside stuff nor have I cared enough to ask anyone in a long time.  I guess I just thought I'd throw this out to see what came back.    

[The True Adonis]

This industry just hit another iceberg and the hull is seeping in water.  Pretty soon the HMS IFBB will see a watery grave, deep in the abyss.  Like a good captain, Weider will go down with the ship and Arnold will jump off in a lifeboat never to sail again on the big ship. 
The only question remains is how far will the ship sink and will anyone care that its capsized?

[AVBG]

This industry just hit another iceberg and the hull is seeping in water.  Pretty soon the HMS IFBB will see a watery grave, deep in the abyss.  Like a good captain, Weider will go down with the ship and Arnold will jump off in a lifeboat never to sail again on the big ship. 
The only question remains is how far will the ship sink and will anyone care that its capsized?

As if Arnold gives a shit?

[McFarland]

I think I'm most concerned because Blechman makes sure that every single picture used in his magazine is altered to make the guys all look 15-30 pounds heavier and he does something to the friggin resolution of the pics to make the physiques in there look artificially drier/crisper than what they actually are.  Now this is just my observation...but I think there really is something else he has done with the pics that makes them look better than they actually are.  This fucks everything up because it leaves us all chasing ideals that aren't possible without fucking your end-result conditioning up.  Guys need to stop eating so fucking much protein, leave the insulin alone, and spend more time posing.  You know how you spend more time posing?  You fucking drop all the water-retentive shit at the start of the diet so that you've got something fun to look at in the mirror throughout the entire diet.  Trust me...if you look good as hell you WANT to "practice posing."  Nowadays, in order to weigh as absolutely much as possible on contest day, guys do multiple grams of test right until the VERY end and then diuretic their kidneys out right before the show.  Physiques are going to shit this way.         

[Marty Champions]

i say we let adonis control everything!! ill be his bodyguard

[McFarland]

i say we let adonis control everything!! ill be his bodyguard

I think you're right.  But I also think Bast has a crush on you, so be prepared to deal with that, too.   

[The True Adonis]

I think I'm most concerned because Blechman makes sure that every single picture used in his magazine is altered to make the guys all look 15-30 pounds heavier and he does something to the friggin resolution of the pics to make the physiques in there look artificially drier/crisper than what they actually are.  Now this is just my observation...but I think there really is something else he has done with the pics that makes them look better than they actually are.  This fucks everything up because it leaves us all chasing ideals that aren't possible without fucking your end-result conditioning up.  Guys need to stop eating so fucking much protein, leave the insulin alone, and spend more time posing.  You know how you spend more time posing?  You fucking drop all the water-retentive shit at the start of the diet so that you've got something fun to look at in the mirror throughout the entire diet.  Trust me...if you look good as hell you WANT to "practice posing."  Nowadays, in order to weigh as absolutely much as possible on contest day, guys do multiple grams of test right until the VERY end and then diuretic their kidneys out right before the show.  Physiques are going to shit this way.         

Now that is some bodybuilding knowledge you won`t find in the magazines. 

[Marty Champions]

I think you're right.  But I also think Bast has a crush on you, so be prepared to deal with that, too.   

most humans envy me

[McFarland]

Now that is some bodybuilding knowledge you won`t find in the magazines. 

Well that's the best I can make of the information I've had available to me.  The only other alternative I can think of is that the sort of gh or maybe gear they had in the mid-to-late 80's up until about 2000 was of a much higher quality or there was some small change in the manufacturing process of the gh that makes a real difference in the way it works in the body...but if you look at all the physiques from the late 80's, they were all posing, posing, posing...not just posing for pictures...but the pictures were taken of the guys POSING FOR POSING'S SAKE.  Guys back then idolized their own bodies and were obsessed with them.  They were in shape for a longer period of time throughout the year, and their detail was greater.  I've been considering this theory for a really long time now, but yesterday I took about 10 minutes to really look at alot of the little random pictures gracing the walls of Gold's Venice again...there are many more than probably any of you realize hung there...I mean, there are all these 8x10's comprising basically the whole wall next to the stairs leading up to the upstairs locker rooms, and they are ALL from right around the time Gold's took up that location from the original one, so around 1981 or 2 or 3...somebody help me here...but what you get when you see all of them together is an overwhelming sense that something in the base-level mentality of the sport has deteriorated.  Back then, guys sat around and tried to see how fucking beautifully awesome they could get their bodies to look...the competition was just as much with themselves as it was with each other, too.  I don't know...you've just gotta see it.  Maybe I'll take my camera in there and try to capture some of what I'm talking about.  These pictures aren't to be found on the net anywhere and they are a virtual treasure...each one of them will eventually be seen as an irreplaceable piece of bodybuilding history when they are gone...someone needs to get this stuff while it's still there, seriously.      

[McFarland]

most humans envy me

Actually, Daddywaddy, listen to me...you embody alot of the traits that I saw in those photos.  I know you sit around and look at yourself all day and this shit you talk isn't made up.  There is an ability that the mind has to take whatever you give the body and turn it into pure perfection through sheer intention and a true passion/love/appreciation of the form that you are sculpting.  when you have learned to visualize the end product, and face your current one with enough imagination, you influence your phenotypic development.  I am convinced of this and the type of muscle shape/detail you have in some of your bodyparts really does demonstrate this to me.  My point is that back in the day, before all the bullshit, when guys were still figuring out what was possible with God's help and not through forced and unjustified training/dieting/supplementing techniques, bodybuilding was something magical.  There is no soul left in this sport.  In it's current state, it is dead and devoid of passion for itself.   

[pobrecito]

Deadlifts have NO place in a bodybuilders program.

Right, becuase the men with the two greatest backs in history didnt do deadlifts

[Palpatine Q]

Actually, Daddywaddy, listen to me...you embody alot of the traits that I saw in those photos.  I know you sit around and look at yourself all day and this shit you talk isn't made up.  There is an ability that the mind has to take whatever you give the body and turn it into pure perfection through sheer intention and a true passion/love/appreciation of the form that you are sculpting.  when you have learned to visualize the end product, and face your current one with enough imagination, you influence your phenotypic development.  I am convinced of this and the type of muscle shape/detail you have in some of your bodyparts really does demonstrate this to me.  My point is that back in the day, before all the bullshit, when guys were still figuring out what was possible with God's help and not through forced and unjustified training/dieting/supplementing techniques, bodybuilding was something magical.  There is no soul left in this sport.  In it's current state, it is dead and devoid of passion for itself.   

I am of this mind as well. If you have the ability, you will yourself into what you want to be. This can be done positively or negatively.