So true, Scott. Dr. Darden is a great guy; we are all lucky to have him as an online resource - one that experienced & remembers a lot of history of ‘the iron game’. Thanks, Dr. D.
Jesse Lee
My son (6) has developed a keen interest in crocodiles. You can imagine my surprise when I put on a YouTube clip featuring crocodiles for him and it briefly talked about a crocodile that was owned by Nautilus founder, Arthur Jones 
There’s a really neat story on the internet about Jones saving a heard of baby elephants and the story of what happened to some of the elephants after Jones had to get rid of them. It seems to show a side of Jones we aren’t used to seeing.
Scott
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Dr Darden,
Considering the Mentzers and Boyer Coe had a short span with Nautilus - Was there any bodybuilder (except for you) that stood the test of time in Arthur Jones opinion? Sergio Oliva? Casey Viator? Who was AJ:s favourite bodybuilder?
I would think Yates is one of the few champion bodybuilders that stuck with Nautilus through out the long run and prospered with it. I’d guess Jones favorite bodybuilder would either be Casey or Sergio?
Scott
Maybe he would say both are his favorite. My guess is that Casey would be like a son.
Several months after Arthur Jones died in 2007, there was a memorial service for him at his ranch in Ocala. All of Arthur’s old friends and co-workers were invited.
The day before, I talked with Casey Viator and personally told him that a lot of the old guys were expecting him to be there. Casey kept telling me “he couldn’t make it.”
At that time Casey lived in Tampa and Tampa was only a 90-minute drive from Ocala.
So, finally I asked Casey what was so important that he couldn’t make it to AJ’s memorial service?
“I’ve got to,” Casey replied, “mow my yard.”
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It’s been a long time now so I can’t remember it all now but if I recall Casey and Arthur weren’t on the best of terms when casey left Nautilus and those latter years?
Scott
This is from an interview with Casey published in IRONMAN magazine in 2001. Casey’s thoughts on Arthur at that time:
Arthur Jones
Rosemary Hallum: What was Arthur Jones like? Stories and rumors abound about what a character he was and how he packed heat and threatened people.
Casey Viator: Arthur is definitely one of the most dramatic and unusual real-life characters in bodybuilding. Meet him and you don’t forget him. Many people focus on the man’s weird or negative aspects: He was a swashbuckler, a superwomanizer and a manipulator. He wanted to impress and intimidate you. He’d crawl down your throat and insult you to get your attention, and then he’d make up to you in the next 15 minutes.
Arthur had a Napoleon complex. He used to read extensively about Napoleon, Hitler and Howard Hughes. He didn’t care about what anyone had to say. He went his own way and did his own thing.
But all this isn’t to put him down. It hurts me to zero in on him like that. He was and still is a very charismatic individual, dynamic and inspriring. He’s way above most people’s level of thinking and is one of the sharpest and most versatile people I’ve ever met. I respect him.
Actually, I consider Arthur a genius’a mover and a shaker. He changed the way people think about exercise, making them realize that with his specially designed Nautilus machines and with concentrated all-out training, they didn’t have to spend hours and hours working out to get in shape. Arthur was a great promoter too. He could sell refrigerators to Antarctic explorers on an ice floe. He spent millions of dollars on his Nautilus prototypes and his work, but it wasn’t his money: He gathered investors and used their money.
I started with Arthur in 1970. I lived and worked around him for 10 years. He was my employer’not my mentor or guru, as has been variously reported. He didn’t try to brainwash me or control my thinking. Actually, he had very little to do with the way I thought. I could turn him off like a light switch. Yet many people who were around Arthur were so influenced by him that within a week they’d take on some of his mannerisms and speech patterns.
RH: How did you and Arthur meet?
CV: He was in the audience when I took third in the AAU Mr. America. Right away he saw ability, genetics, potential and promise in me’I was 18 then. He said he had an opportunity for me. He wanted me to work for him as a subject in his research work, not as a business associate. RH: You and Arthur got along well?
CV: We had our ups and downs, as he would tell you, but, yes, we got along well. We had mutual respect for each other.
I was young and impressionable. Arthur taught me a lot about people and animals and influenced me in many ways. We used to match wits. He’d discuss philosophy and basic beliefs in life, but as a teenager I was far more interested in sports and girls.
RH: What about all the stories about Jones and his guns?
CV: I’ve heard 'em all, about how he supposedly pulled a gun on Franco Columbu, me and others. I can tell you for a fact that I never saw him do that to anyone. I’ve seen him with guns, but I never saw him pull one on anybody. I think he knew that if he ever tried that with me [talks a little slower and chooses his words carefully], he was going to need the gun to defend himself.
RH: I get the feeling that if you were talking to another man, you’d be using stronger language.
CV: Yeah, I’d be using sailor talk to tell this!
RH: How did Arthur get started?
CV: Arthur did many things in his life, which you can read about in his autobiography, … And God Laughs.
He came out of Africa, literally. He was in Rhodesia with his family, making a film on animals. His findings upset the goverment, so the country threw him out, and he barely got away with his life and his family. I met him right after that, in 1970, when he was starting Nautilus.
RH: Did Arthur really keep a menagerie of dangerous animals?
CV: You better believe it! Alligators, crocodiles 15 to 18 feet long, Gila monsters, scorpions and tons of snakes’cobras, pit vipers, pythons and rattlesnakes. Arthur had everything shipped in, including 500 huge scorpions from Bangkok.
I was right in the thick of it, helping to take care of the animals, feeding and cleaning up after them. I learned quite a bit about their habits. The only things I wouldn’t get close to were the rattlesnakes.
RH: Do you and Arthur keep up?
CV: Yes. We talked recently and had a great time discussing politics and the current state of bodybuilding.
RH: Do you think that Arthur regarded himself as a father figure to you?
CV: Absolutely. I was the son he never had.
I wonder what Gary Jones and William Jones think about that?
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Ha, yeah I know I had thought the exact same thing when I first read it years ago. I wonder if he had just forgotten the fact he had two sons. Highly doubt he had no knowledge, being in the thick of things then as he was, but who knows.
Wasn’t his one son’s name Edgar though?
William Edgar Jones. I think he preferred to use the middle name.
Dr Darden,
Since you knew Arthur Jones so well - did he ever change his mind about any of his previous statements on training, later in life?
Yes. The last chapter in The New HIT said it best:
“I would’ve trained less.”
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This is interesting on a personal level.
Having followed your programs for the past two years, now researching the variations on HIT - I continue to make progress, however slower - with only two sessions a week. This means I agree with Jones (and you) on frequency. I have tried three times a week, but always end up in symtoms of overtraining and stagnation.
Of course, what is considered to be “less” varies depending on the individual, as well as volume and intensity, but I seem to recall early observations of you, where you trained a team of athletes - when one was unable to do more than twice a week - and did better than the others resultwise?
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My first exposure to Nautilus style training was in the early 1980’s, when I joined a fitness center that had a full line of Nautilus equipment. At the time, the recommendation was to train 3 times a week. My recollection was that, on those weeks where I followed the program, I felt pretty stale and depleted for that third workout. In contrast, on those weeks where I ended up only training twice due to scheduling issues, both workouts were good, and I didn’t feel like I missed much by skipping the third workout. Eventually, as I got older, I just naturally drifted into twice a week training, and then later got “permission” for it from certain Guru’s that I was following.
By contrast, I never really enjoyed once per week training. On those rare occasions when I tried dropping the frequency that low, I seemed to be left feeling excessively sore on the days following that workout.
Of course, I am now much older, and twice a week sometimes feels like too much. I know that when I drop back to once a week, the issue with increased DOMS does reappear. So I suppose one answer is make the second workout a less intense, not to failure effort. (Of course, old habits are hard to break, and it is hard to restrain myself…). I suppose the 30-10-30 NTF approach would be another way to adjust. But I just do not like 30 second reps, and can’t bring myself to do them regularly…
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For the last year and a half I’ve been “ working from home “ so to speak because of the pandemic so I had plenty of time to do whatever routine I wanted and for the most part I did 30 10 30 on my Nautilus machines about twice a week. I was having pretty good workouts and was making some progress. A little over 3 weeks ago I had to go back to work 5 days a week so time to workout shrank dramatically. I had a few dumbells at work so I decided during my lunch break that I’d get in a quick workout doing presses, curls, tricep extensions , rows etc, etc. I’d push it to where I couldn’t do a strict rep to failure every day. I’m feeling just as good now as when I worked out twice a week during the pandemic!
Scott
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I’m not really sure what you mean by this?
I’d push each set to failure, failure being where I couldn’t do a rep in good form. I did this 5 days a week.
Scott
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So you can workout every day and survive, even feel good!