Funny

It long ago became accepted lore among body builders and their fans that -- with Joe Weider's off the books blessings -- Arnold arranged in advance with the Weider brothers bought and paid for judges to 'give' Arnold the win so that he could better promote his 'Conan the Barbarian' movie.

Mike Mentzer never really mentally recovered from the theft. Ironically Arnold would do it again but this time to steal the win for his best buddy for life Franco Columbu against the hopes and aspirations of Tom Platz.

Platz and Columbu have to be the inspiration for those little plastic muscle dude toys we used to buy from the gumball machines. Those dudes were built retarded like muscles on top of muscles. I had some badass little action figures. I remember that now that I saw a picture of platz. That mug was like the original ninja turtle.

Not long after Arnold retired for good the growth hormone usage exploded in the body building world and so the bodies started looking more and more like blow up toys. I don't think it's changed.

Yessir. After being in the Marines for 8 years in order to get ready to join the army I rode an MP mountain bike 20 miles to golds gym at beacon Mall in Alexandria VA. That is were Bautista and this huge dude that I believe acted as a doorman in in living color and in movies work out, and Don Long was sponsored by that gym. My friend from the neighborhood was 5'10" 265 lbs. He was trying to clown me and got Dave to see me working out on light weights because (I didn't know that I had a congenital heart problem called Wolf Parkinson's Syndrome) I thought I needed to lose weight to run better. I went from 165 to 138 in 5 weeks on the Atkins diet. So Dave said " I used to work out like that, until I learned how to lift." I'll remember that forever because once I got in the Army I got stationed in a cav artillery unit and I was skinny. I got a urinalysis every Friday because I went back to lifting and eating and shot up from 138 to 177 in a short amount of time which triggered this p.o.s weeded out roommate in the barracks that was into wrestling to say I had to be on steroids. I was all natural. My highest weight was 249 at 5'8" looking like... 18" arms, 20" neck, no chest, huge tricep bicep shoulder back combo especially forearms. Legs were naturally growers especially calves. Dave Bautista is blessed and Mike Mentzer's writings were my primary personal weight training education. Through my 20 years in the army I dropped weight on gummy bears and water for a month and ran my ass off and then got back to my gains lifting and eating until the VA finally discovered that heart condition syndrome and operated on me in Washington DC. I'm past my expiration date since I would have lived no more than 40 without the operation. I'm close to 60 now and still look like a biological machine because I stay active as much as I can stand as I am handicapped. Not handicapable because I have lost much gymnastic dexterity but I keep it moving.

Yeah I hear you. I'm rushing toward 70 with an uncurable blood cancer. I've been a martial artist for most of my life but all those years of hard training left my body a wreck. So once I started chemo at my local V.A. medical center I took up weight training to try and repair a lifetime of physical damage and combat the side effects of the treatments.

I've been training hard for almost three years now and have managed to repair much of what was damaged over the decades. I am also three years into only having five years left to live; but I figure that healthy living and weight training is going to see me live past the sell-by date. Well that plus the ongoing chemo treatments. Best of good fortune to you!

Cheers to your glorified body when you finally leave this physical prison. They say that the cup is half empty or half full but I know that it's always full. God and his angel army bless you.