One of the odd things about the fitness world is the entertainment derived from watching other people do ordinary, everyday activities or weird behavior. Some examples of this are watching Dana Lin Bailey destroy her computer on the street; Ronnie Coleman eating breakfast; Dusty Hanshaw slicing a potato; Dave Palumbo waiting in a long gas line, the result of a hurricane; John Meadows tasting cheese samples at Trader Joe’s and telling us what he likes eating; and so on. I myself have frittered away hours of my life watching You Tube videos till the wee hours simply because this is what meat heads do, watch others do stuff.
Aside from this odd behavior, we also like to watch others train. My favorite to watch is Branch Warren, solely because of his grunting and his tendon fraying form, and no other reason at all.
Interesting thread… I’ve done the morning treadmill walking while watching as Ronnie waits for his grits to cool on DVD (‘Redemption’), as well as watching as Dugdale travels around the Country training with and picking the brains of other Pros (‘Legacy’). There is something inspiring to me as a competitor in watching others push themselves with their training, and yes, I suppose even a bit of feeling a sense of connection in seeing the same mundane tasks.
I have a few short video clips on my Iphone that I would always watch when I was prepping for a show that didn’t merely “Psych” me up, but reinforced the mental tenacity to go that extra mile, and dig deeper in order to persevere and be a champion.
-The best of Dorian Yates
-The best of Kevin Levrone
-Jay Cutler Ripped 2 Shreds (‘So far away’ by Stained playing over seriously non-intense scenes. Cutler plodding on the treadmill in an empty gym while the cleaning crew vacuums, Jay spacing out, obviously dragging ass after a serious set, Reflecting on photos of past contests… all moments I’ve felt myself in many times)
-Cutler Warrior (Zhanni video made after Jay shut up the entire sport by raising his game as no one expected in '09)
-Some Cutler video with ‘Adrenaline’ by Bush playing over it that has a great voice over about Jay reclaiming his title in '09
-Stallone Training (some serious meathead talk over the images)
As I got older, I found myself reacting more to the mental and psychological encouragement type of images and videos than by watching guys who feel the need to be loud and throw weights in an effort to feel like a badass.
I’m a pretty big Steve Cook fan and enjoy watching his training videos and vlog posts about different life topics in general. I think he’s a very good representative of the fitness lifestyle and has his head on straight in other areas of his life as well
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
as well as watching as Dugdale travels around the Country training with and picking the brains of other Pros (‘Legacy’).[/quote]
This does sound pretty cool. I’ll have to track it down.
I always enjoyed watching Lee Priest. The way he could flip the switch in a blink from joking between sets to lifting with major intensity is a good reminder that training doesn’t have to be a super-serious life or death situation all the time.
nothing tops Markus Ruhl’s cigarettes, farting while leg pressing, and mouthbreathing about brown rice
other stuff:
Pete Rubish deadlifting in front of front loading washer/dryers
Olympic lifters like Jon North
Antoine Valliant
Elliot Hulse and Clint Darden for actually useful advice
I used to love watching Dorian train when I was very young. I’d watch him train the bodyparts I would be training at the gym before I went like a full wannabe. I also liked watching Nasser train and talk because he reminded me of my granddad in a few ways.
As I’ve said here before, I worked at a Musclemag store in 2000 and 2001 and I’d fritter away low traffic hours watching videos of 90’s era bodybuilders. Loved watching Levrone and Flex Wheeler training while dressed like The Village People.
I went through a ton of training videos years ago. The entire MD archive, and then RX. Downloaded some 90’s stuff. Now there’s youtube. I used to like Johnnie Jackson’s training because his moves are explosive, yet stable. He’s got that smooth speed thing going on. At least in some of the ones I’ve seen. Some Cutler youtube stuff is alright. Mostly though, it was amateur and less famous bodybuilders that were interesting to me. Hehe, I guess that’s why I don’t remember their names. There were so many. Centopani, when he was starting out was interesting to watch. And his old posts on the MD board were very good. Although, now with the huge gut he’s dead to me.
But the darnedest thing is that I didn’t learn all that much from any of them in terms of practical knowledge. I remember CT saying something like [paraphrasing]: “The only things you can learn from IFBB pros is how much focus, intensity and dedication they put into their training.” I totally agree with this. What you really learn is the hardcore training mentality. The various ways of how a workout could look like. I hardly watch the stuff anymore. At this point, it all feels like deja vu all over again.
[quote]Majin wrote:
. I remember CT saying something like [paraphrasing]: “The only things you can learn from IFBB pros is how much focus, intensity and dedication they put into their training.” [/quote]
^That’s a great quote. I must have missed it, because it really puts into perspective how because of their unique genetics and ‘other stuff’, a lot of their approaches can’t really apply to the majority of gym rats. Still, it certainly doesn’t stop me from drawing inspiration for my own efforts.
I love watching Dennis Wolf. Not the most intense guy in the world but he explains his training in a way that is easy to understand.
I also find Antoine Vaillant very entertaining. Shows the lighter side of the sport. I liked his videos following Frank McGrath around during his contest prep. Really showed the behind the scenes of what goes into a contest. The videos when he trains in the underground gym in Germany (or maybe Austria) was awesome as well.
Pretty much any of the Universal (Centopani, McGrath, Antoine, The Cage) are pretty cool.
