By Leo Usselman
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a renowned bodybuilder known for his huge muscles and his Mr. Olympia titles. Schwarzenegger trained at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach with many other famous figures in the bodybuilding world. Not only was he one of the most famous bodybuilders, but he was also one of the most interesting figures in bodybuilding.
Arnold Schwarzenegger followed a relatively intense training regimen in very high volume. Schwarzenegger trained near three hours per day, which was the most common way of training in the Golden Era. Certain bodybuilders, such as Mike Mentzer, did the polar opposite of this kind of training, however. Mentzer performed very short workouts while doing extremely high intensity.
When Schwarzenegger talked about training during interviews, he was very keen on the concept of getting a pump. He even viewed it in grotesque detail, and it showed how much love he had for this sport. Schwarzenegger, unsurprisingly, felt the pump the best in his biceps. A pump is when you put a muscle under load, and afterwards, the body will pump blood to that target area to support it. When this happens, most people feel a good sensation in the muscle that makes them want to keep doing the motion. When the muscle gets a pump, the muscle also increases in size temporarily.
This was very important to Schwarzenegger because he believed that looking at yourself in the mirror after you perform a set is an important factor for hypertrophy. Schwarzenegger firmly believed that you should flex in the mirror after performing a set. For example, he would do a set of chest flies, then hit an all-muscular pose in the mirror. If Schwarzenegger finished a set of bicep curls, he would go into the mirror and perform a front double bicep.
Recently, crazy controversy has spiked in the fitness industry about the pump. Schwarzenegger himself has responded to this, talking about how if he could do it all over again, he would do it the same way. The only thing he would change is his diet, switching to a higher carb diet program rather than an unstrict carnivorous diet. Science-based lifters such as Jeff Nippard have come out and said that the pump is unimportant for muscle hypertrophy because the leading factor for muscle growth is mechanical tension. While Jeff Nippard is correct on this concept, he is also forgetting a key factor: Training intensity is very important for the pump, as well. So Schwarzenegger was correct, in a way.
Now, should you train like Schwarzenegger did? It all comes down to personal preference and intuition. According to Schwarzenegger, you have to train hard and a lot to become a champion. According to Mentzer, you need to perform one singular set a week. At the end of the day, what works for you is what you can perform intensely while recuperating properly. The pump is irrelevant, but Schwarzenegger was right on one thing: it does feel pretty good.
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