John,
Thanks for doing these interviews.
A couple notes
I listened to the with Dave Mastorakis and Vic Downs and I noticed there was barely any discussion about training
Dave was one of the few guys who trained with Mentzer and apparently continued training in that manner. You asked what his chest routine was like and that was it. It would have been interesting to find out if he did full body or split it up or if he changed his split (as Mentzer did) over time.
With Downs you really didn't discuss his training at all. He mentioned is crazy diet and that he never varied it for ten years. He also said he trained very fast and six days per week. I would have been interested to hear more about this.
From what I've read (which could be total bullshit) he trained one bodypart per day hitting each only once per week (again could be bullshit). If this is true it's drastically different than how everyone was training at the time
You like to spend a lot of time on the old contests and that's cool but since many of these guys trained in different ways and many of them started natural and didn't take much I would just find their views on training to be of more interest.
I don't know if you make a list of questions before an interview but I also noticed you repeated a few of the same questions with Downs (how he got started, why he quit, when he moved to Canada, etc..). I found myself thinking didn't you just ask him that ten minutes ago.
Anyway, just some observations.
BTW - you did have a more in depth discussion with Phil Williams about training and diet and that was interesting.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to discuss their cycles. It was all legal back then so no one is admitting to any crimes and it would definitely be interesting to hear what these guys did back that. It certainly part of the "history" of this culture.
Those are great points and thanks for the feedback. I've been asking more about the training in my recent interviews (Phil Williams). I interviewed Jerry Brainum yesterday and I asked Jerry about the steroids that the bodybuilders in the 1970's used and he had a lot to say about that so that was very interesting to hear. Jerry is a great source of information because he was hanging out with those guys back then.
