Old School versus New School

People often forget that over the years generations believe that if a beautiful era (mostly in their youth) ended, and that the time thereafter will never be as beautiful as it once was.

People also have the tendency to break time in certain limited periods. Mostly they then refer to a certain period as a closed breaking-point. One of those breaking points was the second world war. You heard older people complain that it would never be the same again. And in a certain way and for some people that will certainly be true.

Bodybuilding during many years changed too. It knew many breaking points and maybe we could say it evolved, for some people for the better and others will certainly disagree.

Surfing the internet you find many people that are yearning for the time they mostly call “Old School.”

For most people “Old School” is the look of bodybuilders in the 70's like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu, Serge Nubret and Sergio Olivia. They didn't have super huge waists and legs, we now call the “X shape” they looked more real and kids wanted to look like them. It looked and was a more achievable physique. When you’ll find a thread about it, it mostly contains comparison pictures that compare bodybuilders from a certain period with each other. Some are plain stupid comparing an early Arnold with Ronnie. Arnold progressed during all those years tremendously too. And if you see the picture above showing Steve Reeves compared to Arnold it is not that bigga difference realizing it compares 20 years of the ideal physique.

Bodybuilders throughout time where always busy looking to improve lagging body-parts at all costs. //juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/content/site-injections-progress-or-madness just like they are looking to find roids and peptides and cytokines and new means like SARM’s to get bigger and bigger.

And over the years they found all kinds of products that by off-label use caused todays knowledge on training, nutrition, cycles and performance enhancing drugs to create the monstrous looks of present top bodybuilders. Will this trend ever stop? Probable not since many guys want to look that way.

Most people don’t want extreme blown biceps like Greg Valentino. Bodybuilders are disgusted by their look. Just like most women hate size G fake-tits on female bodybuilders. Still if you search the internet you will find countless people that perform such invasive methods to achieve them. Even with the real dangers attached.

A remark from GetBig: “I believe the bottom line is that these guys are lazy and are not interested in building a golden age physique, they just want to be the biggest meatball there is, no matter the cost to their life or organs. Which can be classified as mental illness. It is no longer an art form but a freak show.”

The REAL “GOLDEN ERA”

Often people/bodybuilders refer to the period that bodybuilding evolved from an underground sport rooted in the gay community to a slowly acceptance and becoming more and more mainstream. No longer only “Sandal and Sword” movies. But “Pumping Iron” a movie about the sport itself.

Bodybuilders back then were Hero’s. They were charismatic played in movies and series like “The Hulk”. Young people trained the high volume methods, and waited for the newest magazines with articles that would teach them “the secret”. It was also the time the of “The Weider Myth” laughing bodybuilders surrounded by beautiful girls, with surfboards and dune buggies. I recently posted this blogpost about it: //juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/content/supplements-vs-steroids

The Golden Era is not the same period in time/bodybuilding for everyone. Especially because some people like to see different physiques.

But we can agree that not only bodybuilding changed, everything changed. We went from Old School’s simple equipment to “High Tech” machines. Some love it, other swear by the use of barbells and dumbbells. The smell of sweat and the sound of iron instead of an air-conditioned gym, with people in fashioned gym-wear with “ears” listening to their favorite music.

In the old iron dungeons people knew other people by name, they almost met every day. Exchanged knowledge and ideas about nutrition, drugs and training.

The changed intra- human contact and the self-centered education. Parents stopped learning their kids to RESPECT, just read the discussion forums, anonymous keyboard warriors dish other bodybuilders and also the older pro-bodybuilders. In the threads about “Palumboism” some qualify them as “garbage”. But those are the people that used their own body as a human guinea pig to increase our knowledge about muscle growth. And yes the combination of peptides and insulin stacked with all kind of roids, did cause bodybuilders that looked pregnant

Sometimes the use of another new means causes huge rumor and discussions on the boards and in the gyms. The first times spectators noticed the use of SEO’s (site enhancement oils or synthol) everyone was convinced this would mean the end of bodybuilding but it just became a part of bodybuilding. Some bodybuilders mostly those with African roots could not become calves that aesthetically where big enough to match with their overall muscularity and soon one could find pictures that showed enormous improvement on this muscle group. Bodybuilders demanded x-rays on the Mr. O to be able to ban users. Nowadays we hear almost nobody complain about these oils and implants, does that mean the disappeared from the scene? No of course not. Bodybuilders and professional experts, sometimes also called nutritionists” perfected its use. Just like peptides/slin combinations caused extended bellies in the past.

For many if not most people look of bodybuilders in the 70's made these years the Golden Age of bodybuilding, filled with all those classic bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu, Frank Zane and Dave Draper to name a few.

Bodybuilders had a physique that looked achievable and even worked on their handsomeness, not buckets of fake tan and shaved heads!

They looked almost like todays cover models for fitness- or Men’s Health magazine.

In the 70's muscles were more in proportion to one-another, more athletic and aesthetical. The size of the legs where that the athletes were able to walk and even run. This is called functional muscle. Today’s bodybuilders have such thick legs that the legs are rubbing against each other. Besides they weren’t that extremely dehydrated, vascular and ripped. On the pic you see Arnold compared to himself. Evolving over the years, or progressing if you like.

By the 1980s, Film stars and athletes from many sports were increasingly using bodybuilding to improve their marketability and performance. Even Arnold who retired in 1975 competed again and also won the Mr. Olympia contest in Sydney, Australia again in 1980, in. In the end, this 1980 Mr. Olympia contest would go down in history as one of the most exciting and controversial bodybuilding contests in the history of the sport. Even today, more than 35 years after it took place, it is still highly debated and discussed on bodybuilding forums all over the world. Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, went on to superstar status as one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Franco Columbu, hot on the heels of his former training partner Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial 1980 Olympia win, decided to make a comeback of his own at the ’81 version. Franco, bowlegged, off his usual ripped conditioning, top heavy, and sporting gynecomastia (the benign enlargement of breast tissue in males), was not considered to be a threat to the top six. That he won this contest ahead of at least five men who all were in the running for the winner’s check reeked of political interference and cast a shadow of doubt over Olympia judging protocols. It remains one of the most controversial decisions in Olympia history.

Then Chris Dickerson and Samir Bannout, probably the worst Mr.Olympia's ever, and then Lee Haney started his streak. Even though he had a fantastic physique, he is the least spoke of Mr.Olympia ever, especially for his amount of wins. Lee Haney, who won seven Mr. Olympia's. His physique at around 240 pounds had surpassed any other bodybuilder up until that point When he retired, Haney had beaten Arnold's record of six Olympias, and in the eyes of many, surpassed him in terms of muscular development.

Other notable bodybuilders of this period were Lee Labrada, (one of the few successful under-200-pound professional bodybuilders due to his classical symmetry and presentation skills), Vince Taylor, Shan Ray, and Mike Quinn. Shawn Ray would go on to compete throughout the '90s, placing highly in every Olympia he entered.

The '90s could truly be defined as the era where competitors demonstrated a leap forward in terms of muscle mass. Dorian Yates won five Mr. Olympias between 1992 and 1997. Dorian is most famous for being the first Mr. Olympia to reach 250 lbs bodyweight with super low body fat..

During the late 80s and early 90s Milos Sarcev a bodybuilder from Serbia was experimenting with insulin for the purposes of gaining muscle mass. In the end he was able to come up with his own special protocols and most of the information that people have on insulin usage in bodybuilding is some version of Sarcev’s principles.

This happened in the mid-90s when Yates was at his best. The secret is called human growth hormone (HGH) and insulin. The combination of human growth hormone (HGH) and insulin is the reason bodybuilders got so freaky in the mid-90s. Out of the two the mass builder is insulin while HGH is supposed to keep the bodybuilder very lean. The usage of insulin is very dangerous and improper dosage and/or timing can kill you in a heartbeat. However, since bodybuilders are not ‘doing it for health‘ they abuse insulin which is the most anabolic hormone there is.

Dorian Yates was one of the first bodybuilders to successfully use insulin and in about 12 month he was able to gain 30 lbs of muscle which is an absolutely insane amount for someone at his level. Truth be told most natural bodybuilders won’t gain 30 lbs of pure muscle in their whole career let alone in 12 months.

The face of modern bodybuilding has been shaped by the abuse of anabolic steroids, HGH, insulin, diuretics and super high calorie diets. While this phenomenon started with Dorian Yates and Milos Sarcev there is no doubt they’re not the only people to blame. As they say: ‘Don’t hate the player, hate the game’.

In fact, all professional bodybuilders of this era demonstrated a distinctly different, more massively defined physique to that of the '80s, as extreme practices prevailed. And just when everyone thought that Yates had redefined the massive physique, along came a man who would surpass him by at least 20 pounds.

Ronnie Coleman routinely competed at around 290 pounds, and took the competition physique beyond what was, up until 10 years ago, thought possible. Co-competitors Jay Cutler and Dexter Jackson also competed light years ahead of anything seen throughout the '80s and '90s.

A general trend in aesthetics and balance gave way to a mass-at-all-costs approach, and top placers were generally those carrying the most size, especially into the '90s and beyond 2000, where the GH guts started to show.

Extreme muscle mass combined with extreme dehydration and dieting to 4-6% bodyfat, the wish to show extreme vascularity, leading to a condition which is very unhealthy to be at, but bodybuilders basically fully dehydrate their bodies and lose as much fat as humanly possible to look good for a competition.

During his career Arnold Schwarzenegger was about 235 lbs – 240 lbs at 6’2″. Today, there are bodybuilders like Branch Warren who are 5’7″ and 252 lbs. And Jay Cutler who is a four time Mr. Olympia winner (2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010) who is 5’9″ with a contest weight: 274 lb (124 kg). Off season: 310 lb (140 kg). Quite the difference, don’t you think?

Something I wrote after Nasser El-Sonbatty passed away, it covers some I feel is wrong with Bodybuilding:

Bodybuilding is a subjective sport, just like a song-contest or a beauty-contest. In these kind of contests, just like a bodybuilding-show, the competitors are dependent on the taste and goodwill of a jury. Often these members of the jury have a good reason to choose certain competitors to win. Mostly this reason is of course commercial. Money talks. The winner, in the case of bodybuilding the Mister Olympia, has the most coverage by the magazines, sells the most shirts etc and of course gets the price money. Bodybuilding demands huge dedication and sacrifices. You have to shoot yourself up with all kinds of dangerous drugs and peptides, eat very much food that you start to hate in the end. You have to lift hard and ease the pain with all kinds of painkillers and drugs and many, many guys get addicted. Lagging bodyparts are filled with all kinds of enhancement oils. Then you step on stage completely dried out from diuretics and expose yourself to a jury that often has a double agenda.

Nasser hated this industry, the people that made money at the expense of the bodybuilders, like Joe Weider and his companies that owned most magazines and the IFBB. In this industry people are dishonest, in the magazines you see the picture a pro-bodybuilder explaining he had used this bs supplement to get his size. The articles written by pro’s explaining their nutritional habits and their work-out. Of course all these articles are written by ghost-writers and complete nonsense.

Nasser became useful information from friends like Milos Scarcev and became a real danger for the other athletes. In 1996 Nasser was disqualified due to a failed diuretics test. He then started working with Chad Nichols, who knew how to pass the diuretics test by using other diuretic means. Nasser looked awful and deserved to win during the Mr Olympia in 1997. It was his is best year ever!! But the title went to Dorian Yates. For many years his fans called Nasser “the uncrowned Mr Olympia” .

One of our Juicedmuscle members F.I.S.T. gave me his very realistic opinion on the subject:

“There is without a doubt a HUGE difference brother. Being a gym owner I can tell you it’s night and day. Too many today think of a gym as a social gathering to hang out with friends and shoot the shit, or to try and pick up chicks. It’s so disheartening. At first you try to keep that type of people away and keep your gym "HARDCORE", you know a "REAL GYM OF THE IRON WARRIOR" but as a business person you then realize that its inevitable anyway and the purpose of your business is to make money first and foremost.

Also, today, far too many just rely on AAS as their sole solution. So little time (if any) put into their diets and training. Sure they come to the gym and throw some weight around....good form or not, and they eat some plain chicken breasts once in a while but they aren’t living this 24/7. They never even consider that there is so much more to this game than their little efforts. Those same guys are the ones complaining that they aren’t making any gains and being told by other ignorant lifters of today that they just need more gear!

Guys of yesterday took a 10th of the gear bodybuilders do today(,including guys that aren’t even competing) and made incredible progress and were strong as BULLS. So many in the 500lb bench press club back then without all the crap guys take today.

Now as far as how bodybuilding has progressed today, IMO it’s definitely gone into a realm that it shouldn't have. Sure bodybuilders were nowhere near as shredded as they are today but they looked a lot healthier and were in most cases than most of today’s bodybuilders. It’s just gone too far to the extreme IMO. The really sad part is all the time, effort and pains guys put into this sport today with so little reward for it all. Compare a top bodybuilders paycheck to that of a pro Boxer as proven by the recent boring ass Mayweather fight.

It’s sad in so many ways man.”