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VENUE COURTESY OF NORTHSHOREGYM.COM.AU92 menshealth.com.auNaturally, Arnold is numero
uno – but for a documentary?
Not quite, since much of
Pumping Iron was, shall
we say, exaggerated. The
sixth consecutive Mr Olympia
victory, the training methods
still traded on by muscle
mags four decades later- all of that is true. “But there
were certain things that are
not true,” Arnie admitted in
an interview marking 25
years since the film’s release.
“That’s why we never
called it a documentary. We
called it a ‘docudrama’...
because certain things were
created in order to make it
more interesting.”
In reality, Arnie had already
hung up his posing pouch
before the 1975 contest
to pursue acting. He was
persuaded to come out of his
brief retirement by George
Butler, who with Charles
Gaines had written a
Pumping Iron book that
Arnold
Schwarzenegger
featured Arnie and wanted to
turn it into a film. To create
drama, Schwarzenegger
invented the character of a
relentless terminator: “I said
to myself, ‘How can I sell the
idea that I’m a machine that
has no emotions?’” His story
about missing his father’s
funeral because it clashed
with his contest prep was
borrowed from another
bodybuilder; his claim that
the pump was like “coming”
was deliberately sensational
to generate press. (“It’s not,
trust me,” he said.)
At the time, bodybuilding
was “the least glamorous
sport in the world”, according
to co-director Butler: a niche
subculture confined to the
kind of dark Brooklyn
dungeon where challenger
Lou Ferrigno (who became
TV’s Incredible Hulk) grunts
and grimaces. The contrast
with glowing Arnie
sculpting himself inCalifornia’s Gold’s Gym and
sunning himself on Venice
Beach was purposely made
stark by the film-makers. As
Butler said, “We defined
bodybuilding to a world that
knew nothing about
bodybuilding.” Their movie
brought it into the light.
With magnetism so strong
that he almost didn’t need to
lift the weights, Arnie’s
Pumping Ironpersona gave
bodybuilding mass appeal.
Hundreds of gyms sprang
up across the US. Butler
estimated that just 25,000
Americans lifted weights
before the film’s release; a
1982 poll put the number at
34 million. Having previously
struggled to find acting
roles because of his size
and accent (his voicewas dubbed over in 1970’s
Hercules in New York),
Schwarzenegger broke
Hollywood’s leading
man mould and recast it in
his own image. As many of
the entries on this list
demonstrate, that mould
still stands. Bodybuilding
is mainstream.
Though he has always
been a campaigner for an
active lifestyle, Arnie has not
been an entirely benign
influence.Natural Born
HeroesauthorChristopher
McDougall believes his fame
contributed to anepidemic of
muscle dysmorphia and
static, aesthetic-fixated
exercise that we’re still
recovering from. Then there’s
Schwarzenegger’s – at the
time legal – steroid use,
which gave a false impression
of what was attainable. But,
as we’ve come to realise,
(clean) resistance training
confers health benefits on
men of all shapes and sizes.
Without Arnie inPumping
Iron, would any of us
even lift?PUMPING IRON 1977
Lifting
Legacy
Schwarzenegger’s
unique twist on the
overhead press was
so eective that it was
named after him: the
Arnold press. Use it to
build Olympia-grade
shouldersWhy it works
It sparks more
muscle growth by
targeting all three
parts of the
deltoid: anterior,
medial and
posterior. A word
of warning: it’s
tough on the joints,
so start light if
you’ve been lax
with your mobility.01/ Hold two dumbbells in front of
your upper chest, your palms facing
your body and your elbows in.02/ As you raise them, rotate your
forearms. You should finish with your
arms extended and your palms
forward. Never rotate your palms
further out than this.03/ Pause for a beat, then reverse
the move to lower. Exhale to lift;
inhale as you lower.“This film brought muscle
culture into the light”