Franco Columbu

Franco Columbu

Many people liked the way the bodybuilders from the seventies looked. Most of them where seen as hero’s. And after the movie “Pumping Iron” the bodybuilding virus spread like wildfire. Nowadays you see that part of the present bodybuilding community would like to see those days returning. The other part of the community, mostly very young, likes the modern version of freaky physiques.

On the forums you can read the pro and cons of the “Golden Era” of bodybuilding compared to modern bodybuilding. We all know that bodybuilding is an evolving sport. It didn’t start in the golden era, or the seventies, if you like. And in those years many people didn’t like what happened either. Fact is that many of the trainings protocols, the diets and yes the old drug protocols, originated from that era.

And the face of those days of success was Arnold Scharzenegger, always together his friend and training buddy Franco Columbu. Franco Columbu never got the proper and full appreciation or the credit for his impressive achievements.  He was overshadowed by Arnold Schwarzenegger for much of his bodybuilding career.  But, Franco was also an accomplished strength and conditioning athlete.  Pound for pound he was one of the strongest men in the world – this is no exaggeration.  With a height of 164 cm (5’ 5”) and a body weight of 180 pounds, he could bench press 500 pounds.  He was able to squat and also dead lift several hundred pounds.  In one of his books, there is a classic photo of him deadlifting a bar with so many plates on each end that the bar is bowing or bending

Arnold and Franco first met in 1965 in Munich, Germany and would come to the United States four years later. In his autobiography “The Education of a Bodybuilder,” Arnold revealed the exact reason why he decided to train with Franco Columbo after he met him in Munich in 1965: “I did it because of something I’d seen in Franco, which was his incredible willpower. I knew he could go all the way. I knew too that he was the training partner who could weather the ferocious workouts necessary in the coming year. It was important for me to be with Franco during a time when I wanted to adhere to a grueling workout schedule.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger obviously believed he would be more successful with a training partner pushing him to train hard. In fact, Arnold trained without Franco the first year after he arrived in California. But because he felt something was missing, he convinced Joe Weider to bring Franco to the USA in 1969.

Arnold and Franco also became very good friends outside the gym, a friendship even lasting today. They started a successful bricklayer business together, and Franco even served as the best man at Schwarzenegger’s wedding with Maria Shriver in 1986). The two men complemented each other, a synergy that would push them to big heights.

From his fairly humble birth in Ollolia, Italy he grew up and started his athletic career as a boxer in Italy. He soon rose to become the amateur boxing champion of his regional boxing club. He continued to box for a while but soon realized this wasn’t what he wanted.

After a short and dominating boxing career, Franco went to power-lifting. Franco had huge success in this field thanks to his major self-motivation. He trained day in and out. He managed to become the strongest lifter in Germany, Italy, and eventually Europe. He claimed some world records for the time with a max bench press of 525 lbs, a max squat of 665 lbs, and a max dead lift of 750 lbs. These records have since been broken but they’re still not bad for a guy who is only five foot five and a hundred and eighty pounds! He continued to power lift for a good deal of time but in mid-sixties turned to bodybuilding. He kept a good mind in power lifting regardless and kept his strength higher than most of the other bodybuilders who simply went for looks. This is proven that in seventy-seven he competed in the world’s strongest man competition and placed fifth due to him not completing the competition. He tore a muscle in his leg while doing the refrigerator carrying event, otherwise he would’ve no doubt placed first.

After his illustrious power lifting era he decided to become a bodybuilder. He was driven to have the best physique on earth. He already had a great start from his power lifting career. He was already in great shape and only had to do minor changes in his training and diet to accompany fat loss with the muscle gain. He also garnered as much major success as a bodybuilder as he did with everything else he did earning many awards such as Mr. World, Mr. Universe, Mr. Europe, and Mr. Olympia to name a few. On the picture: Franco with another Italian Champ Giuseppe Deiana.

As you can imagine after this massive success people were always wondering how Franco worked out, what his diet was, his personal training preferences and things of those categories. This inspired a series of books Franco would write on training and proper nutrition for mass building over the next several years.

In the early to middle seventies Franco wrote several pamphlets and articles for several gyms, major magazines, and in health clinics. The articles were huge successes especially coming from such an accomplished man. Soon the public craved more and Franco obliged in the form of books.

In nineteen seventy-seven Franco wrote his first book entitled “Winning Bodybuilding”, within it he releases secrets to a monster physique which at the time had never before been exposed. The book sold well, men who thought their physique was inadequate bought the book like it was a necessary utility.

He continued to write about the topic he knew most about. A year after his first book he released a second book that was relatively similar but focused on the female audience. At this time it still wasn’t widely popular for women to train for strength but Franco aided the wave that would soon come. Within a decade women were getting stronger and began to bodybuilding.

We all know there are two parts to building muscle, diet & exercise. Franco knew this and took advantage of it by releasing “The Bodybuilding Nutrition Book” with cowriter Lydia Fragomeni. As you can probably guess it dealt with what a diet should consist of, good meals and foods for anabolism, fat-carb-protein ratios, unique body types and their diet needs, and such.

Today Dr. Franco Columbu is a Los Angeles chiropractor, nutritionist, and trainer who has co-written several health and fitness books. But most people will recognize Columbu as the muscleman posing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of the greatest guy flicks ever, the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. That body-fetish classic followed these guys through daily workout regimens that included five hours a day in the gym, ballet classes for posing techniques, and humongous mounds of ground beef and egg-and-tuna omelets. A lot of cholesterol went into the making of that film. Even now, it’s not uncommon for serious weight-training programs to include as much as 200 grams of protein per day, and nearly all of it from animal sources. As a key figure in the culture since the seventies (he won Mr. World, Mr. Universe, and Mr. Olympia titles) Columbu has seen the 200-gram protein diet, as well as every other extreme food fad, come and go.

Mostly, he avoided all of it. “It didn’t come out in Pumping Iron, but Arnold and I never went on those diets,” he says. We used to eat things in front of people and they say, “You eat that???” He didn’t do the high carb, he didn’t do the low carb, and he didn’t do the “food combining” diet, either. Remember that one? Don’t eat protein with carbohydrates. Food combining was so bad; I thought, these people are really out to lunch. How do you separate protein from string beans, pasta, potatoes, and rice? All these foods are half carbohydrate, half protein.

Then there was the egg-white craze. I had guests come to my house, bodybuilders, Frank Zane, Arnold, all the guys from Pumping Iron. Arnold didn’t care about egg whites. Arnold said, “Give me the protein and let’s go to the gym.” So I would separate the eggs because the other guys only wanted the whites. We ended up drinking the yolks.

In the ‘80s, a lot of bodybuilders switched to diets of water and meat. Frank Zane and Lou Ferrigno, a lot of those guys believed in low carbohydrates. But we realized that some of these guys had very low energy as a result. So we went with our instincts, which was that you need protein for the body and the stored glycogen and stored fat in the body for energy. The brain needs carbohydrates. Columbu and Schwarzenegger were roommates during that time. Backstage before a competition, Schwarzenegger would announce, “Franco, it’s time for pizza.”

They did it for the energy and also to psyche the other guys out. Their grocery bills were huge. Columbu recalls, “Joe Weider paid us $80 a week each. We’d go to the market, and three days later all the money was gone. We’d work construction to make extra money.”

Schwarzenegger, Columbu reveals, never ate a fad diet. But he was jealous of Columbu’s even less-exclusive menu. I could eat sweets, and this would make him angry. He’d say, “Oh, you. You can make muscle if you eat wood.” Franco is married and has a daughter, Maria. “Most of Maria’s friends are told, Don’t eat this and don’t eat that.” I say, “Eat the pasta.” She eats everything. And she is in the best shape of all of her friends. What I’m saying is, to put a kid on a diet is devastating, in my opinion.”

Eggs are the highest quality protein, he points out, and still the most important to any fitness program. He notes that most dietary guides were wrong when they said eggs cause cholesterol problems. In fact, egg yolks contain enough of the fat emulsifier lecithin to neutralize cholesterol in other foods. Columbu cites a study: “In a group of 100 people, the first group ate eggs. The second group drank only milk. The third drank milk and ate eggs. And people thought, that third group is really going to have high cholesterol. But the eggs lowered the cholesterol, even in the group drinking milk.”

Much of Columbu’s information goes against conventional wisdom. “Let’s say you’re going to the gym at 3 p.m. Breakfast isn’t important. Bread and eggs is perfect. Lunch is when you eat a big meal with carbohydrates. Why? Because you can’t go to the gym without energy. But if you eat that for dinner and you don’t burn it, it will store as fat overnight.?

He stresses eating smaller meals and more frequently and that high-protein diets require extra Vitamin B6. Also, check the labels for sulfur dioxide, prevalent on fruits and vegetables. “You can’t digest it, and it bloats your stomach. People say they can’t eat grapes. It’s not true. It’s the sulfites.”

But the biggest tip for anyone who is looking for a flatter stomach and smaller waistline is that many folks on high-protein diets require hydrochloric acid and enzyme supplements. The body just doesn’t make enough on its own, especially past age 26. As to diet, he pretty much eats the same way he did when he was competing, except that he eats less (about 120 grams of protein per day). He recommends eating high-quality proteins. In order of importance, these are: eggs, fish, dairy, and meat (including poultry and pork).

The two-time Mr. Olympia has become a respected expert in nutrition, sports medicine, and kinesiology. He does special training programs for sports injuries, and the list of celebrities who have sought his bodybuilding advice includes Sylvester Stallone, whom Columbu made sign a contract promising that he wouldn’t even swallow a vitamin pill without seeking Columbu’s approval first.

The Actor.

Apart from being muscular and writing there was also an actor within Franco. To date he has starred in 20 major motion pictures the first being “Stay Hungry” in seventy-six. The most notable films he has played in are probably, “Conan the Barbarian”, “The Running Man”, and “Ancient Warriors”. His newest film released in two thousand ten is “Muscle Beach: Then and Now. Franco was also award winning. In two thousand nine he was granted “The Lifetime Achievement Award” by his long friend Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But he doesn’t spend his whole life in the gym anymore. Columbu works out for maybe 20 minutes three times a week. He still sees Schwarzenegger all the time, but they gave up the constant training in favor of tennis. “I started playing tennis with Arnold in 1995, and we play on weekends. I mix up the sports tennis, cycling. I like hiking.”

On the Juice

During the sixties and seventies steroid use was not controlled, so bodybuilders, wrestlers, power lifters, weight lifters and others, if they wished, could inject as much as they wanted.

It’s well known that they took steroids in the Pumping Iron days. Even Schwarzenegger has come clean about this. Fact is, they didn’t have the information back then about how dangerous the drugs could be. But Columbu now says that the negatives far outweighed the positives; you got big but you lost definition. And he notes that musclemen who kept using drugs eventually developed fat stomachs.

 He sees those symptoms in today’s bodybuilders, some of whom are so massive they make the Pumping Iron bunch seem small. Columbu sees a lot of fat stomachs, which indicates to him that drugs are rampant. He tells young athletes and bodybuilders to stay off the juice, including Human Growth Hormone (HGH). But what did he do himself?

In a controversial interview taken by Brian D. Johnston a long time ago, the popular bodybuilder Sergio Oliva revealed that even Steve Reeves was subject to steroids. Here is the original quote:

“I don’t care who wants to take steroids, because that’s a personal choice… that’s his life. Now, today, everybody has access to them. I even saw in one of the big magazines that Arnold denies having used them, but Arnold was one of the first to bring steroids over to America. And everybody in the old days used them: Zane, Columbu, myself, Arnold, Larry Scott, Harold Poole, Dave Draper, and even Steve Reeves. There’s no way to deny it. It wasn’t much, nothing like today.

But the development of drugs is much different. I used Deca and Dianabol, and that was something really big at the time; and Deca was not considered that bad.”

Deca Durabolin (Nandrolone Decanoate)

According to some it was a stable part of most bodybuilders’ stack and Mike Mentzer took it to build his thick physique. In an interview published by Iron Magazine, December 2000, Mentzer supposedly revealed his dosages:

“I took 400mg of Deca Durabolin every 10-14 days,….and no more than five Dianabol a day.”

However, later on it was revealed by another gifted and popular bodybuilder, Casey Viator, that:

“Mentzer used up to 2.5 grams of deca a week, God knows how much primobolin acetate, along with d-bol and growth and later on even amphetamines, so as I said don’t be fooled about our low doses as we were just as reckless as these guys are today.“

Like every steroid Deca comes with a lot of side effects. It’s particularly known for causing the so called “deca dick” or loss of libido and sexual desire. Deca is also considered very “bloating”. Regardless of its negative qualities, bodybuilders from the Golden Era used Deca for its fast anabolic effect. Deca offered them instant growth and they signed the contract. They also believed that Deca had positive effect on the joints.

The European Connection!

The bodybuilders coming from Europe such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbo and Serge Nubret were known to have access to some exotic drugs such as Primobolan a.k.a. primo. In an article entitled “Training With Arnold” the wrestler Ric Drasin wrote the following: “Arnold and Franco would bring their supply from Europe. They had the best. Primobolan and Dianabol was what they used at the time. I got all of that I needed from them. Franco would give me the shot as it was a preloaded needle about 3 in long! Scared the hell out of me. But, the results I got from their stuff was awesome. I blew up and got really hard on it.”

Primobolan is considered a hardening steroid used during the so-called “cutting phases” when bodybuilders are trying to get shredded for a show. It’s also a drug used by females because of its milder side effects.

Franco Columbu has mentioned his cycling strategy in one or two of his books. For the most part it involved just cranking pre-contest, and trying to stay off for twice as long as when on. In his 2nd Olympia win (the one where he had gynecomastia) it is rumored he said something to the effect of: "it took more drugs to win this show than I've taken my entire career." He then retired permanently.

Franco Columbu's Complete Book of Bodybuilding makes for very interesting reading. Anyone who is a fan of the 'Sardinian Strongman' should definitely hunt down one of his antique books on Ebay or other great sites. The section which intrigues me most is his opinion on steroids. The good doctor says: "I became a Mr Universe winner before I knew that steroid drugs existed. I am amazed at what people will do to their bodies in order to look better" - read between the lines there!

"After years of experimenting with steroids, doctors and bodybuilders have concluded that Dianabol is the most effective. They have also decided that 15mg a day should be taken for a period not longer than 8 weeks, or it becomes ineffective.

"I would recommend that B-complex vitamins and Vitamin B-12 be increased during the period of drug taking, so the liver will continue to function more normally. There is a sort of rumour among bodybuilders that steroids in tablet form pass through the liver, but injected steroids bypass the liver. This is just not so; the truth remains, nothing bypasses the liver." There are also sections on thyroid medication and diuretics.

Franco Columbu's writes in his book he took Dianabol - methandrostenolone - at 15mg a day 8 weeks max. Bodybuilders then train without the drugs for 4 weeks and repeat the cycle all over again. Doctors studied Dianabol - methandrostenolone - and said to be most effective steroid (I am not sure myself) and best overall gains.

The relevance of this windy statement is that Franco probably down played the steroid doses he used, to keep kids away from heavy doses. He can’t say " I never touched steroids" kids are smarter than that. Remember is was 1982.