His 520 exceeded the world record in his weight class at the time.
I also saw Franco’s lats and thought, ‘I got to get a lot stronger.’”įranco Columbu bench-pressed 520, using super-strict form and taking the barbell out of the racks by himself. “I thought 275-pounds in the bent-over row was pretty good until I saw Franco row with 400. Arnold used Franco Columbu to drag him upward. If you are the big fish in a small pond, your 400-pound deadlift will seem impressive – until you go to a hardcore gym and everyone is bench pressing your 400-pound deadlift – for reps. The fastest way to improve is to hang out in stronger circles. Here was a man that was flat-out stronger than Arnold, in any and every lift. Arnold saw in Franco many things: first and foremost, the ideal training partner. Franco knew he needed to train smarter if he wanted to take his physique to the next level. He and Arnold would see each other at European bodybuilding shows and over time they developed a friendship based on their mutual admiration of each other’s physique.Īrnold provided Franco the information he needed, insofar as training and nutrition. Training strictly through instinct, he won the Sardinian bodybuilding title and successfully competed at the highest levels of European bodybuilding.
He fought all over Europe and along the way was introduced to progressive resistance training.įranco Columbu did quite well all on his own. He first excelled as a lightning-handed boxer.
Franco was born into a peasant family and his homelife was backward, primitive and lean. And of course, Franco Columbu, Old School Iron Master, High Priest.įranco Columbu began life as a puny, undersized, half-starved (yet inherently athletic) boy from a tough neighborhood: war-ravaged Post-WWII Sardinia, the often invaded and impoverished island off the southern coast of Italy. He played football at Grambling and was terrific at every sport he tried. He deadlifted 700 weighing 220 and was quite athletic. Arnold was the Bavarian powerlifting champion. Sergio Oliva was an international-level Olympic weightlifter capable of a 400-pound clean and jerk weighing 198.
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Grimek would finish his posing routine with a standing backflip ending in the full splits.īill Pearl was the Pacific Northwest US Navy wrestling champion and was intent on trying out for 1952 Olympic games had not a knee injury ended his wrestling career. He placed 4 th at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and shook hands with Adolph Hitler. The first great bodybuilder of the modern era, John Grimek, at one time held the national record in the military press, 285-pounds weighing 181-pounds.
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There are very few pro bodybuilders with high level backgrounds in other sports. Bodybuilding’s isolation exercises filled in the leftover crevices, cracks and gaps: calves, abs, biceps, triceps, forearms, neck et. Olympic weightlifting was without rival for constructing traps, erectors, glutes and hamstrings. These triple-threat men of yore built incredibly complete physiques: the low-rep powerlifting done with bar-bending poundage built humongous body parts: legs, chest and back.
They mixed, matched and included all three iron disciplines into the weekly training template. There was a different definition of an Iron Man in those days: these ancient Iron Men were not guys that swam three miles, ran 26 miles and finished with a bike ride of 100 miles the Old School Iron Men were masters of three iron disciplines: Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting and bodybuilding. In the 1960's and 1970's, the hardcore of the hardcore were called triple-threat Iron Men. During bodybuilding’s golden era, the top bodybuilders, such as Franco Columbu, had strong athletic credentials. With some notable exceptions, few top pro bodybuilders had any kind of serious athletic background. These articles would weave the champion’s current training routine and nutritional approach and would include some biographical information along with the champ’s bodybuilding exploits and career highlights. For many years, I interviewed the world’s best bodybuilders for feature length articles in major muscle magazines.
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