• “I have set down in this book a program I know from my own experience will provide you with everything you need to develop your body to its fullest potential. The process of bodybuilding does not, in my estimation, stop with the body. Seeing tremendous growth and change in yourself can open new worlds for you… Having worked as a bodybuilder for most of my life, I believe I have been able to create that balance within myself. I know that building the body does make the mind reach out. Strength and confidence, plus a firsthand knowledge of the rewards of hard work and persistence, can help you attain a new and better life. Yours in good health, Arnold” - intro

A Teenager with a Dream

• Arnold was first inspired to pursue bodybuilding as a 15 year old, as his team started lifting legs to get stronger for soccer but he was addicted to the incremental improvement of muscle building → “I could not have chosen a less popular sport. My school friends thought I was crazy. But I didn't care. My only thoughts were of going ahead, building muscles and more muscles. I had almost no time to relax and think about bodybuilding in any other terms. I remember certain people trying to put negative thoughts into my mind, trying to persuade me to slow down. But I had found the thing to which I wanted to devote my total energies and there was no stopping me. My drive was unusual, I talked differently than my friends; I was hungrier for success than anyone I knew.”
• Remove your limiting beliefs: “In one of those magazines I saw my first photograph of Reg Park… I responded immediately to Reg Park's rough, massive look. The man was an animal. That's the way I wanted to be ultimately: big. I wanted to be a big guy. I didn't want to be delicate. I dreamed of big deltoids, big pecs, big thighs, big calves; I wanted every muscle to explode and be huge. I dreamed about being gigantic… Reg Park looked so magnificent in the role of Hercules I was transfixed.” - he’d study all of Reg Parks workouts, eating habits, lifestyle so he could emulate the success and eventually move to the US
• His dad: “He was genuinely worried about me. He felt I wasn't normal. And of course he was right. With my desire and my drive, I definitely wasn't normal. Normal people can be happy with a regular life. I was different. I felt there was more to life than just plodding through an average existence. I'd always been impressed by stories of greatness and power. Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon were names I knew and remembered. I wanted to do something special, to be recognized as the best. I saw bodybuilding as the vehicle that would take me to the top, and I put all my energy into it.”

Greatness requires OBSESSION

• His dad would only let him go to the gym 3 days a week, so he custom built a gym in their house and trained there despite the freezing cold: “I trained without heat, even on days when the temperature went below zero.” → one key to improving his workouts was having a lifting partner, as they inspired him to go harder
• “It became extremely important to have somebody standing behind me saying, "Let's do more, Arnold. Come on — another set, one more rep." And it was just as important for me to help somebody else. Watching him work out, encouraging him, somehow drove me on to do an even tougher set. I discovered that the secret of successful workouts had to do with competition. For me there was never any monkey business. I wanted to compete” - built up a great base with the compound movements like bench press, pull ups, squats, rowing, curls, etc
• As a teenager people thought he was a freak, would make fun of him for bodybuilding instead of playing soccer, but he was just gaining confidence and attention - he’d notice that some girls would be repulsed at his muscles so when he’d catch them looking, he’d just flex to bother them more 😂
• Bodybuilding became his sole focus, blocking out the noise of everything else in his life, like family and relationships, to manically pursue this: “During the early years I didn't care how I felt about anything except bodybuilding. It consumed every minute of my days and all my best effort” (Greatness requires OBSESSION)

Conventional Wisdom Produces Conventional Results…

• Conventional wisdom quote: “From the very beginning I knew bodybuilding was the perfect choice for my career. No one else seemed to agree — at least not my family or teachers. To them the only acceptable way of life was being a banker, secretary, doctor, or salesman — being established in the ordinary way, taking the regular kind of job offered through an employment agency - something legitimate. My desire to build my body and be Mr. Universe was totally beyond their comprehension.”
• At 18 he was placed in the local army base, but Arnold snuck out at night to take the train to Germany and compete in the Mr Europe Junior competition, where he won! - “I knew for certain that I was on the way to becoming the world's greatest bodybuilder. I felt I was already one of the best in the world. Obviously, I wasn't even in the top 5,000; but in my mind I was the best. I had just won Mr. Europe Junior.”
• The army officers were so impressed that they moved him off of cleaning tanks and let him lift weights every afternoon, even threatening him with jail time whenever they saw him resting lol

Work Hard in the Dark to Shine in the Light

• He soon was able to make his way to Munich, where he started training for the real Mr Europe and Mr Universe competitions and gained an advantage with his split training approach: “There was no initial theory involved. I worked out from nine to eleven in the morning and then again from seven to nine at night. I couldn't believe the results… At first, nobody paid much attention to this split routine, except to knock it. They thought I was stupid to train twice a day. They said I'd get overtrained, that my muscles would start to deteriorate. I ignored them. I kept pushing myself and growing, growing fast.” (Work hard in the dark to shine in the light)