Whatever you can share bout the man, the training, the diet, the "supplements". Not often one can hear bout a Mr O's "inside stories" from a training partner/someone who knew him then.
Well I’ve posted it several times so I don’t want to bore everyone. Yes Samir was one of my favorites so it was great to get a chance to train with and hang out with him. He autographed a picture for my parents on time when they came out to visit and I found it when I was home for Christmas a few years ago I found that picture in the house I inherited.
Samir LOVED to do JoeWeider imitations and joke around. Our third training partner liked to do Crystal Meth before training but Samir and I did not. They guy talked real fast because of the Meth so Samir and I started this machine gun sound that was our way of making fun of Steve. To this day when we see each other we do the machine gun sound.
When I met Samir he was still following a variation of a routine that was given to him by George Turner. Samir had lived in George's city for a period of time before turning Pro and before moving to L.A. and had made a great deal of gains on this routine, so did I. George wrote an article about it back in 1978-79 in one of the Weider magazines. It was the first three on one off routine anyone ever wrote about. Before that guys would either do a 4 day a week routine splitting the body into 2 days and hitting each workout 2 times a week OR they’d train 6 days a week splitting the body 3 ways. With Samir it was Day 1 Chest and Back, Day two Legs, Day three Shoulders and Arms, Day 4 rest, Repeat then 2 days off, Repeat then One Day off. Three exercises on a body part with 11 working sets total per body part for large muscle groups and about 9 for smaller groups.
We’d vary the choice of movements each workout. Example Chest Start with Incline Barbell Press 4 sets then Flat Bench 4 sets then Cable fly's 3 sets. Reps went the typical 12-6 reps. Samir was VERY strong. He did Reps in Bent over rows with 405 and one time when we were squatting he had 315 for his first work set but when he finished the set of squats he proceeded to 8 reps of behind the neck standing presses to our amazement. I got real strong and real big on this routine... to that point my biggest ever. At one point Samir changed the split but kept the bodypart workouts the same.
The new split was Day one a.m chest/back day 1 p.m. shoulder/arm day 2 rest, day three legs, day 4 rest, Repeat, repeat, repeat. I did not like this split as well but Samir liked it. Rest periods... there were three of us so we just rotated through. Cadence was actually fairly fast 1/0/2. Basic exercises for the most part but he always had a favorite variation or two that would be difficult to show here, nothing earth-shatering in terms of "some secret movement" though.
His contest diet was low carb and “supplement” dose was well under 1000 mg./week…
