Pleasant Surprise...

Training Bodybuilding
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[quote]doubleh wrote:
Professor X wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

He had 17" arms when fighting. I remember reading that specific number and then seeing him soon afterwards in person. Those measurements are off. There is no way in hell Foreman was smaller than Ali in that department.

Ya know, off the cuff I would have agreed with you, but googling some old pics I’m not so sure. Granted, the pics are old and quality is poor, but I just don’t see a young Foreman clearly bigger. Later on in his career, yes, absolutely. But not early on.

I think Tyson had bigger arms than 16" as well.[/quote]

Yep, in that particular shot they look like 15-16 tops (but lean, of course).

Might be bigger in circumference if they were very tall.
I’m not particularly interested in boxing and so have no clue about most of their stats/don’t even know many of the names (foreman for example I’m not familiar with).

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
doubleh wrote:
Professor X wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

He had 17" arms when fighting. I remember reading that specific number and then seeing him soon afterwards in person. Those measurements are off. There is no way in hell Foreman was smaller than Ali in that department.

Ya know, off the cuff I would have agreed with you, but googling some old pics I’m not so sure. Granted, the pics are old and quality is poor, but I just don’t see a young Foreman clearly bigger. Later on in his career, yes, absolutely. But not early on.

I think Tyson had bigger arms than 16" as well.

Foreman was known for size and power though. Ali was known for strategy and speed…along with a strong punch. I like these arguments because they never end but I really have a hard time believing Foreman was smaller.[/quote]

Oh, no doubt. Foreman had tremendous KO power, and I’d have to say, I think Ali is best known for his jab. Not too many fighters you can say that about.

I don’t think smaller is accurate, but looking at the evidence, I don’t think bigger is really accurate either. I think they were pretty similar at that stage in their careers. Fast forward 20 years, and it becomes a no-brainer. Foreman is MUCH bigger. Here he is before the Briggs fight in the mid-90’s.

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[quote]doubleh wrote:
Professor X wrote:
doubleh wrote:
Professor X wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

He had 17" arms when fighting. I remember reading that specific number and then seeing him soon afterwards in person. Those measurements are off. There is no way in hell Foreman was smaller than Ali in that department.

Ya know, off the cuff I would have agreed with you, but googling some old pics I’m not so sure. Granted, the pics are old and quality is poor, but I just don’t see a young Foreman clearly bigger. Later on in his career, yes, absolutely. But not early on.

I think Tyson had bigger arms than 16" as well.

Foreman was known for size and power though. Ali was known for strategy and speed…along with a strong punch. I like these arguments because they never end but I really have a hard time believing Foreman was smaller.

Oh, no doubt. Foreman had tremendous KO power, and I’d have to say, I think Ali is best known for his jab. Not too many fighters you can say that about.

I don’t think smaller is accurate, but looking at the evidence, I don’t think bigger is really accurate either. I think they were pretty similar at that stage in their careers. Fast forward 20 years, and it becomes a no-brainer. Foreman is MUCH bigger. Here he is before the Briggs fight in the mid-90’s.[/quote]

Damn…and I thought someone said that was just fat!!!

LOL

He was huge when he first came back to fight and he didn’t get fatter until he started releasing Foreman grills…and apparently cooking/eating a hell of a lot more as a result.

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[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

Maybe they were measuring the arms relaxed rather than flexed?

Still… How tall are these guys? In that picture, I’d guess them at 16-16.5 and very lean if they’re of average height (say, around 5’10). They’re certainly not big, but they both have their elbows bent etc.

[/quote]

So you think 16" is accurate? Man, I don’t see it. Tyson’s arm in that pick looks a lot bigger than 16".

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I’m convinced at least one of the IBHOF’s figures is wrong (Ali’s calf measurement.)

I doubt they bothered to use the Tale of the Tape figures taken (typically or perhaps always) for each bout during the title reign and average them all, but likely took one reported set of figures. Perhaps, for example, on winning the title.

Human error likely makes the figures imperfect, but probably on average not vastly wrong.

On whether Tyson looks as if he had 16" arms: Not many would think he looked to have a 43" chest, either.

But unless theorizing a conspiracy going back decades, the heavyweight champions (almost all of them) really did have chest measurements such as that. Measurements were officially taken before each or at least most bouts. It’s not opinion or after the fact guesswork.

On the older Foreman again: I think I only ever saw one of his fights in the second run. I really didn’t have a mental picture of what his arms looked like, just an overall remembrance of fatness. Which he surely was.

And biceps strength, incidentally, has quite little to do with punching power.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
namor wrote:
I would expect most of us would see ourselves as smaller than we truly are because we compare ourselves to people bigger than us thanks to the internet.

Almost everyone on this forum if they have been lifting and eating properly for a few years should be one of the biggest and strongest persons in this gym unless you are in a gym where pros train. If your gym was your only point of reference you would most likely be satisfied with your physical prowess.

However, the second you have access to a larger comparison pool (i.e. the internet) you become exposed to a vast array of people with whom you can compare yourself…suddenly you are no longer as impressive as you seem in your own gym because you are now aware of a lot more people who are bigger and stronger than you. This forces you to adjust your perception of yourself.

I know that if I wasn’t on here or IM I would probably be pretty complacent regarding my lifting because as weak as I am I don’t see anyone at my gym lifting anywhere near the weights I lift. However, the second I come on here (and hang out in the BOI) my perception of myself changes as my lifts are now much less impressive compared to others who post on here. As such, I see myself smaller when I log on here than if I was at the gym.

At the end of the day, I visit T-Nation and read threads like the BOI because I like to see people bigger than me lifting more weight so that my competitive streak drives me to go further. I may never be better than those I compare myself to, but I will be a lot better than I am now just by trying.

Your gym sucks. Your surroundings have much to do with your own progress because, as you pointed out, you tend to gear yourself and your goals around what you see in front of you. If everyone around you is smaller than you, there is little motivation to keep going even further. I ran into that problem in the military and changed gyms because of it. I know in Houston, there is a relatively large population of impressive weight lifters. I may technically be one of the bigger people in the gym, but there is always someone coming through that makes me look like shit and gives me even more motivation to kick it up a notch.
[/quote]

My gym does suck, but I travel 30 minutes each morning to get there just to avoid the four worse gyms in between my apartment and the gym I actually go to. My part of Australia (Canberra) sucks

Anyway, as I said, my inspiration comes from here. I read posts on my iphone before going into the gym and then turn the music on my ipod up to eleven and forget about who else is in the gym.

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[quote]doubleh wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

Maybe they were measuring the arms relaxed rather than flexed?

Still… How tall are these guys? In that picture, I’d guess them at 16-16.5 and very lean if they’re of average height (say, around 5’10). They’re certainly not big, but they both have their elbows bent etc.

So you think 16" is accurate? Man, I don’t see it. Tyson’s arm in that pick looks a lot bigger than 16". [/quote]

I dunno… Looks like a lean 16 semi-flexed to me. Perhaps 17, but unless he’s way taller than me, that’s honestly pushing it.
Too bad we don’t have a relaxed to the side shot or some such from that era.

What do you think? If you’re going to say 18, then I’ll have to send you some contact lenses as a birthday present :slight_smile:

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420×606 47.2 KB

Ask and ye shall receive.

No, not 18s, I’m not blind yet. 17’ though at least, maybe slightly more. I feel like fairly lean 16" arms can be found in a lot of high school weight rooms. I myself had 17" arms early in college, when I was pretty lean and before I really knew shit about growing them. Now, granted, these fighters probably did little direct arm work, but they are also genetically blessed and the more contemporary guys mentioned (Holyfield and Tyson) definitely lifted weights (although at least early on in their careers almost all resistance training was BW work).

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Iron Mike, listed at 5’10" or 5’11" depending on where you look. Relaxed side shot. I’d estimate 17" with some nice round muscle bellies (a la 1morerep).

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[quote]doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

[/quote]

Tyson was like 220 @ 5’11, with abs. i doubt his arms measured 16 inches unless they were unflexed

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[quote]doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

[/quote]

Why? Who really cares?

I mean, if the guy has muscular, impressive looking arms, who gives a shit what the actual measurement is? The fat lady in the circus has 22 inch arms, but obviously a lean 18 on a bodybuilder in good condition would look a hell of a lot better.

Too much emphasis on measurements and you’ll drive yourself fucking crazy. Train for an aesthetic physique that LOOKS big and muscular, and who cares what the actual bodyweight/measurements are?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to it at all, but what’s more important (at least to me) is how you actually look.

Bodybuilding is all about the illusion - someone with developed musculature and relatively low bodyfat looks impressive, and you might be surprised by the reality of the bodyweight and measurements…

52

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Iron Mike, listed at 5’10" or 5’11" depending on where you look. Relaxed side shot. I’d estimate 17" with some nice round muscle bellies (a la 1morerep).[/quote]

But I’d go with closer to 16 than anything else… He has practically no tricep.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
You see yourself all day long and self image is ingrained at an early age. Your mind is not going to reset itself every time you gain 5lbs. It takes longer than that to accept mentally that you literally look different than before. That is why pictures and comments from others can always give a better insight.
[/quote]

This probably got touched on but after reading this paragraph I have a story:

A few years ago when I my grandmother died I went home for the funeral. The night before the wake we were going through old photos to find to put up for the memorial and we came across a few from when I was a senior in high school. I never really noticed this but I was a skinny, skinny kid. It didn’t register to me, but my mom pointed out how much smaller I was. And it had only been about 5 years from that picture to then.

I agree completely that it’s not noticed when we grow until we’re compared with something tangible from our past. An image or a recorded measurement that we have to compare the then to now. It’s been another 4 years from the time of my grandmother’s funeral, and, although, I’m only 10 lbs heavier now, I know that my body composition is different. I have more lean mass compared to the lean mass I had when I was the same weight 3 years ago.

I’ve been told by people I haven’t seen that I look a lot bigger and I get the same comments that the OP has gotten. I’m by no means big at all. Not by a long shot, but a lot of it has to do with perception.

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[quote]SkyNett wrote:
doubleh wrote:
I gotta say, some of those stats for the HW champs are a little mind-boggling. Tyson and Holyfield with 16" arms??? I remember watching those guys in their prime and thinking how huge they were. 16" at sub-10% BF is still nothing to sneeze at, but man, that’s a little disconcerting.

Why? Who really cares?

I mean, if the guy has muscular, impressive looking arms, who gives a shit what the actual measurement is? The fat lady in the circus has 22 inch arms, but obviously a lean 18 on a bodybuilder in good condition would look a hell of a lot better.

Too much emphasis on measurements and you’ll drive yourself fucking crazy. Train for an aesthetic physique that LOOKS big and muscular, and who cares what the actual bodyweight/measurements are?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to it at all, but what’s more important (at least to me) is how you actually look.

Bodybuilding is all about the illusion - someone with developed musculature and relatively low bodyfat looks impressive, and you might be surprised by the reality of the bodyweight and measurements… [/quote]

Sometimes its hard to tell an inch or so in the mirror so I like measuring as an objective way to gauge progress. Actually the whole original point of the thread was looking in the mirror and not being able to judge your own size objectively so having #'s to compare yourself to helps with perspective. And of course when we’re comparing ourselves to others we’re going to take leanness (or fatness) into account. That’s just common sense.

55

[quote]doubleh wrote:
Ask and ye shall receive.

No, not 18s, I’m not blind yet. 17’ though at least, maybe slightly more. I feel like fairly lean 16" arms can be found in a lot of high school weight rooms. I myself had 17" arms early in college, when I was pretty lean and before I really knew shit about growing them. Now, granted, these fighters probably did little direct arm work, but they are also genetically blessed and the more contemporary guys mentioned (Holyfield and Tyson) definitely lifted weights (although at least early on in their careers almost all resistance training was BW work). [/quote]

16.5. Is it just me, or does he have a huge head compared to the rest of him?