It's true, Arnold started as a competitive powerlifter,
having won a couple meets between 166-1968. 

He later went on to win his first Mr. Olympia
bodybuilding title in 1970. 

I first heard about this from my buddy Mehdi
over at StrongLifts but don't take my word for it,
read what Arnold wrote himself in his biography.

"American magazines wrote about the split routine
as if it were my secret: it became the big thing.

Everybody thought that was how I'd grown as
much as I had in such a short time ..... From
the beginning, I was a believer in the basic
movements, because that was Reg Park's preference.

I was doing heavy squats, heavy bench presses,
and this provided some of the foundation work of
my body, which has always made me appear strong.

Certain bodybuilders lack that look. They have good
bodies but they don't appear powerful. The reason
is inadequate foundation training.

Reg Park had been a powerlifter; he had done squats
with 600 pounds, bench presses with 500 pounds
and dead lifts of over 700 pounds. I saw no reason
why I shouldn't continue in the same groove."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Education of a Bodybuilder

 

 

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Personally I consider Arnold a "powerbuilder".

 

What is powerbuilding you ask?

The simple answer is that it's a combination of bodybuilding
and powerlifting where the goal is to add lean muscle mass
with the strength to match.

A powerbuilder therefore may chose to compete in either
sport but one does not need to compete in anything simply
to have the goal of building strength & muscular size.

Stereotypically many bodybuilders are known for ripped
physiques but are relatively weak in comparison to
powerlifters that compete in the squat, bench press
and deadlift.  Likewise a lot of powerlifters tend to
look "out of shape" when compared to their bodybuilding
counterparts.

Powerbuilding training on the other hand makes body-
building synonymous with strength.   With this workout
philosophy you'll mesh hypertrophy training and strength
training by using heavy compound movements and insane
workout intensity.

Does it work?  Decide for yourself here.....

 

Keep training hard,

 

Mike Westerdal

CriticalBench.com