Thanks for all the old-school pics you guys have been putting up.
Say what you want about Tom Platz - he had some incredible thighs.
I tell ya, I had just recently watched Arnold the Comeback and felt Platz had really been robbed by not even being picked as one of the 7 finalists, but as I look at that picture I realized just how out of balance he is.
[quote]Zell959 wrote:
I tell ya, I had just recently watched Arnold the Comeback and felt Platz had really been robbed by not even being picked as one of the 7 finalists, but as I look at that picture I realized just how out of balance he is.
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the thing was, every major famous body builder (atleast the old school ones) had trademark body parts. This usually entitled them being larger then most of the other competitors, yet they were usually upper body parts therefore they couldn’t neccessarily dwarf the rest of the body. Even big backs helped accentuate the chest and straight tricep pose.
Platz’s greatest gift might have been his greatest setback. His legs are so unproportionately large that they dwarf his upper body by comparison, and you can’t really use them to accentuate anything like you can an upperbody part because they are an entirely seperate entity. At best, large legs can help make a waist look skinnier, but at 3 or 4% body fat come competition time, your waist already looks pretty skinny. These are the reasons I think platz never could make it to the finals in Arnold the Comeback.
Of course, in today’s competitions, where freakiness is the norm, balance and symmetry take a back seat. Tom would have been better(?) served being born 20 years later.
Apparently he was flexible in his legs, and liked to run and play tennis, which I doubt many of today’s pros could do without having a heart attack.
I do think though that in bodybuilding competition, symmetry is key, and when ONE of your legs is almost as big as your back, you’re not symmetrical.
Wouldn’t this image be so much better if it was in black and white like some of the cool Arnie shots put up recently? There’s something about the graininess of the muscles in those b+w shots.
I doubt it… His upper body just never caught up with what he had going on downstairs…
There’s a great shot of him in Arnie’s encyclopedia doing a hamstring stretch and practically touching his head to his knee.
-Goes to look at the photo-
Actually, it looks like he’s putting his head BESIDE his knee. Now that’s a powerful image. I think I’ll do some stretches now…
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
Apparently he was flexible in his legs, and liked to run and play tennis, which I doubt many of today’s pros could do without having a heart attack.
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