Just read the other day in Arnold’s book that he was 209Ibs for the film Stay Hungry, and that the director wanted him to lose 20-30 pounds for the role. Arnold says he did and kept the weight off for 3 months then had to go back up to 235Ibs two months later for the Mr.Olympia.
How is this possible exactly?
What was Arnold, lets say 6’1 240 @ what, 4-5 % bodyfat pre-contest form? How could he possibly lose 30Ibs, when his initial body composition is at such a low bodyfat % to begin with?
He did look a little slimmer in the role, but not 20-25Ibs less then his Pumping Iron days?
Anyone know how this is possible for Arnold to lose so much weight on his frame, given his original low bodyfat at 230-240? (And also how did he get his weight back up so fast?)
Weight loss: zero lifting, starvation diet, + T3. Weight REgain, a steroid cylce + solid training and diet. I had a bad case of mono my sophomore year in college and couldn’t eat anything and got ridiculously scrawny. Within a month of recovering, I had put on 20 lbs. And almost none of it was fat. It’s pretty easy to regain lost muscle. Dramatically easier than gaining it the first time.
So I guess once someone establishes a core or base muscular body, they can adjust themselves up or down quicker than someone who has never reached a certain level of fat/muscle or whatever?
I guess that kind of makes sense. Especially considering the articles and gurus who constantly emphasize that you can’t really gain more than 0.5-1 pound of pure muscle per week unless extremely gifted genetically.
This is why I couldn’t understand how and why Arnold would mess around with losing muscle like that, and how he could gain it back so easily, after depleting himself…
A lot of it would be water and glycogen in the muscle itself, i.e. the muscles cells arent much depleted but their contents are. That would be easier to regain.