Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Bodybuilding Workout Guide | Get Ripped!

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on 30^th July in year 1947 and he spent his childhood in Thal which is situated in Austria (a small village bordering Graz).

In 1969, Schwarzenegger was relocated from Munich to Southern California. In 1975, his first-ever retirement from professional bodybuilding did not stay for a longer period. After a few years, Arnold’s passion for bodybuilding rose and he started his training with full dedication and passion.

As a result in 1980, Arnold won his 7^th Mr. Olympia title, and after that, he transformed himself into the greatest bodybuilder. He used to perform workouts twice a day, which helped him in mass bodybuilding, which is maintained by him till today.

Arnold mostly performed high-volume training (Such training is ignored by most of the trainers as it does not result in proper muscle recovery). But, Arnold’s madness made it possible by performing the actual and perfect workouts.

So now, we will discuss the workouts performed by Arnold (king of Bodybuilding) for different body parts.

But before that, here we are gonna discuss the competitive bodybuilding stats of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Let’s take a view on that!

Arnold’s Competitive Bodybuilding Stats

• Born– 30^th July, 1947, in Thal, Austria
• Height– 6’1½ “
• Competition Weight – 235lbs
• Off-season Weight – Around 250lbs
• Chest– 57”
• Waist – 34”
• Bench Press – 440 Pounds
• Deadlift– 710 Pounds
• Squat – 470 Pounds
• Thighs – 28½”
• Calves – 20”

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Arnold’s Double–Shift Workouts Routine

Days 1, 2 and 5

Morning Workouts- Chest, Back

Evening Workouts- Legs, Calves, Abs

Days 2, 4 & 6

Morning Workouts– Shoulders, Triceps, Biceps

Evening Workouts- Calves, Abs

Days 7

Morning Workouts-Rest

Evening Workouts– Rest

Now, let me explain to you Arnold’s several body part workouts separately such as the chest, back, biceps, triceps, abs, calves, shoulders, and legs in detail.

1. Chest & Back workout

The reason for explaining both the body parts together is because Arnold focused on both parts together instead of treating them separately.

Arnold has a simple reason for doing so, first, it helped him to save time and Arnold can perform it easily in one hour only. Second, in the desire to develop greater muscle density. Third, he enjoys greatly performing chest and back workouts.

When Arnold used to be in energetic mode, he increased his training intensity and performed the training of chest and back together.

Here it is described in detail, it will help you understand the actual style Arnold used while performing back and chest workouts.

Arnold’s Shoulder Workout

2. Shoulder Workout

Before going into any further discussion here we have shared Arnold’s views regarding shoulder workouts as he stated during his interview.

He stated that:

During his bodybuilding career, Arnold was dedicated to developing the upper body part as it was the weakest aspect among the other body parts.

After occupying the winning title of Mr. Universe in the year 1967 in London, he utilized his large part of victory in developing the upper body part such as the shoulder.

Three years later, in the year 1970 he again participated in the Mr. Universe contest, and this time he again gets succeeded by beating one of his idols Reg Park. And regarding this auspicious and memorable moment, he wrote that he was very much thankful for his dedication to achieving his shoulders hard.

The future California governor acknowledged that taking the example of Arnold he tried to explain that some individuals are possessed by special genetic characteristics but it doesn’t mean we have no caliber or capability to achieve the best in the desired area.

Arnold has worked hard to gain wider shoulders that is because developing the shoulder by at least 2 inches through training is not an easy task.

Arnold’s Shoulder Workout

3. Legs Workout

During his early days, Arnold suffered from two critical diseases while performing leg training Disuse and Primitivism.

Because of such injuries, the young Arnold left his legs training for a year.

However after a year finally, after knowing the importance of the lower body he decided that he would work hard to overcome such weaknesses.

Although he started the training with 10 sets of leg curls and 10 sets of squats every day. And surprisingly soon he started getting satisfactory results from those exercises.

Workout is too much connected to his daily timetable as Arnold starts squatting from morning till afternoon and then rests, parties, chills, and in the evening again back to squatting.

When Weider (Bodybuilder) gets to know about Arnold’s suffering then he states his views by seeing the bulky and lacking legs, Arnold.

“Suffering from such weaknesses, it is most important that Arnold must change his leg training”.

However, Arnold agreed with Weider’s statement says that:

“He also had not imagined that it would happen, as others may notice this odd effect and get puzzled”.

Finally, Arnold decided, that he would change his leg training and he have done so and helped him win the 7^th Mr. Olympia title.

Here we have mentioned Arnold’s latest type of leg workouts.

Arnold’s Legs Workout

4. Triceps Workout

Arnold rarely focused on enhancing the muscles of the biceps and triceps, mostly during pre-contest training for several events. The idea of training opposite muscles was first recognized by Weider but Arnold has applied that and has beliefs regarding the benefits of training opposite muscles.

During pre-contest training, Arnold undergoes the tortures of the biceps and triceps repeatedly four times each. To gain muscle mass he used to perform such exercises twice a week and sometimes thrice in week.

During one of his articles titled, “How I Built My 22½ – inch Arms”.  Where he wrote a few words for all non-beginners in which he asked them to use a trial of Arnold’s arm-growth training program just twice- a –week and see how it would benefit the non-beginners.

For most of his career, Arnold used to train arms at least two to three days per week with high volume.

Arnold’s Triceps Workout

5. Biceps Workout

After getting inspired by seeing the photos (Park in the German magazine Der Muskelbilder) of one of his idols Reg Park, Arnold started visiting to gym as a teenager.

During his childhood, the young Arnold loved to watch the gym- goers and from seeing them he was inspired and used to perform those workouts such as lifting heavy weights at home with his friends.

Shockingly, when Arnold landed in America he’d never at any point seen a minister seat—a device he’d soon come to utilize religiously (no play on words expected) to manufacture biceps that would outperform those of antecedents Larry Scott and Sergio Oliva.

He likewise found that American jocks prepared all the more systematically and had a firmer comprehension of life structures and physiology than he.

Despite as of now having a Mr. Universe title and two of the greatest arms on the planet, he believed he could improve the situation.

He watched Scott prepare and was “especially entranced watching him bomb his biceps on a twisting machine. His arms looked awesome and thick after preparing.” Despite the huge bumpy biceps crest Arnold created, we can firmly say it’s not a tumor.

Preparing TIPS

• Arnold wasn’t hesitant to undermine arms work out, particularly standing twists. He felt that going for an extensive workout was the most ideal approach to increase measure, and if a little body English was required to get the weight up, so be it.
• To accomplish full improvement, Arnold constantly incorporated into his routine no less than one exercise, (for example, a dumbbell twist) in which his palm turned up (supinated) as he lifted the weight.
• Even though biceps are a moderately little muscle gathering, Arnold ordinarily prepared them at about an indistinguishable volume from greater body parts, and with the heaviest weights he could oversee.

Arnold’s Biceps/Forearms Workout

6. Abs Workout

Arnold’s midriff wasn’t, of course, his solid suit. He didn’t have a normal little midriff, nor did he have the largely carved six-pack of a Frank Zane or a Serge Nubret. Be that as it may, his huge abs weren’t a glaring shortcoming, either.

Maybe that was because he was an ace of trickery. Take a gander at shots of his posturing and you’ll see that he would frequently contort his abdominal area such that he’d wind up confronting the camera or the judges paying little mind to the stance.

This gave him the presence of having a smaller midriff and was a critical technique for him in rivalry.

He additionally opposed any hereditary weaknesses by embracing an amazingly high-volume routine comprising of numerous activities and bunches of reps.

Moreover, he recognized that eating clean played a noteworthy part in limiting fat in his abdomen region, which enabled his abs to appear on the other side. That his vacuum posture wasn’t exactly Zane-like wasn’t for the absence of exertion or enthusiasm.

Preparing TIPS

• Arnold felt that stomach work ought to be done each day. He was even known to prepare abs twice every day when he needed to have a detectable effect in a brief timeframe.
• Arnold’s sideways preparation comprised basically of controlled winding movements while holding a bar over his shoulders. He was mindful to stay away from weighted slanted crunches, for fear they would develop muscle around there and make his waistline greater.
• He typically prepared abs toward the finish of his exercise, after calves—the other body part he felt required more incessant preparing to goad the essential improvement.

Arnold’s Abs Workout

7. Calves Workout

Arnold’s hesitance about his calves was all around plugged throughout the years. They used to be very little, therefore he decided to cut the bottoms off his warm-up pants while he prepared to uncover them.

This spurred him to enhance the zone, which he did at last by building massive soleus muscles. High-volume and EXTREME workouts were his keys to raising these huge muscles; however, it was significantly more than that.

Arnold appeared to be more intelligent when it came to calf preparation. This is what he needed to state in a past issue of Muscle Builder:

The calves resemble no other muscle, and consistently they appear to have an alternate state of mind.

Some of the time I can do calf raises with shoes on and it can rest easy, at that point different circumstances the shoes act as a burden and I need to do this activity with my exposed feet… It’s peculiar, sort of otherworldly or strange.

Preparing TIPS

• Arnold cherished collections when it came to calf preparation. Anything that would stun the hardheaded calves was reasonable diversion: high reps, low reps, super short rest periods (15– 30 seconds), supersets, and so on.
• His calves’ practices generally took the calves through a full scope of movement (down for a full extent), at that point up till they were almost confined.
• In any case, now and again he likewise did full arrangements of halfway reps, which enabled him to go significantly heavier; or he’d complete off full-scope of-movement sets with a couple of partials to consume the calves out.
• It wasn’t remarkable for Arnold to prepare calves for six days and seven days in his well-known twofold split preparation plan. Calves were normally prepared with abs in an evening exercise, either with quads or all alone.

Arnold’s Calves Workout