He should be a lot bigger for this amount of sauce. But seriously, taking several grams of sauce a day, every day, is not possible for more than a few weeks. I don't care who you are, your liver would collapse after a few weeks at the most on these amounts. He is clearly exaggerating on the doses to boost ratings.
The reason why the guys from the 1970s were smaller is lack of insulin and overtraining. These guys would do 2 training sessions a day for 3 hours each with tons of sets. This is why most of them competed at around 220 lbs despite all the drugs, since they were constantly destroying their muscles through excessive exercise.
The year Jim Morris won the AAU America he was 215 or 220. At that contest Pete was 255 and no one was even close in size at the time. Pete did not like heavy androgens like D-bol and no one used test back then… we didn’t even know it existed until around 1982-3. Over-trained yes.
Maxrep,
Where did pete initially come across money, how did he become wealthy?
When he was back east, he bounced at a club but had a thriving clientele for gear.
wasn't his family in the construction business?
Yeah, ‘family’ business. They manufactured cement shoes. Pete had some ‘connections’ but I don’t think they ran deep because once he bought Gold’s (51% 0wner of corporate Gold’s from 1979 to 2000) there was no one looking for a cut.
He shared with me that the major money Pete, Tim and Ed made from Gold’s was from the T-shirt sales. One year they were #2 in their category. Harley Davidson was #1. Remember, they had David Lee Roth, Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stallone all wearing Gold’s T-Shirts so of course everyone wanted one.
MAX, did Pete use very heavy weights for his 100 sets-per-workout sessions, and can you verify IF this is true... MIDNIGHT to 7am workout followed by (his words) going to the fast-food restaurant where his girlfriend gave him 12 burgers, then he slept under the Santa Monica peer???
I’ve heard him talk about the 100 set workouts, the MIDNIGHT to 7 am workouts etc for years but I wasn’t in the gym at the time so I cannot verify it. I saw him using some pretty heavy weights a few times (315 for 6-7 reps on the incline, BNP with 275 for reps) but I don’t know if the 100 set workouts where all heavy weights.
I’ve never seen ANYONE be able to eat as much food as Pete. Usually good food too. He was lean when I saw him last and I mean probably 30 inch waist down to 180. He ordered Chinese delivery but clean stuff. Rice, fish, beef... he PILED his plate 3 times and ate more than myself, my business partner and his 25 year old wife combined AND he was still eating when were all done. I think the guy has hollow legs.
Pete had a design for a crude seated leg press machine that he sold for a while. When he went to Florida to train with Arthur Jones, Casey and Sergio he told Arthur that they didn’t need the cam on the Nautilus machines to accomplish the variable resistance. All he needed was an off-center balance arm. That was the basis of Pete’s leg press. He was right of course but Nautilus had already taken off and Arthur had already put a lot of print behind the Nautilus shaped cam.
When Arthur’s son Gary Jones started Hammer Strength he employed Pete’s idea of the off-center balance arm and one of his first machines was a seated leg press that was a much nicer looking version of Pete’s. I know for fact that Pete talked about this off-center balance arm long before Hammer ever came out.