Annoying People At The Gym

Above, Marvin Eder Benching..... HEAVY, as always!

Back when I was a young teenagers, the ONE book I kept reading over and over and OVER again was Arnold's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding.

And although Arnold was a Mr. Olympia and ALL his buddies from The Golden Era were the world's top bodybuilders, a LARGE part of their workouts included bodyweight training, especially for upper body training.

There were stories of Arnold and his training partners doing bodyweight workouts such as:

- ALL Pull Ups for Back workouts: overhand, underhand, close grip, behind the head, weighted....

- Pull ups until his hands couldn't hold on to the bar any longer

- Finishing chest workouts with high rep push ups to failure

- Performing extended range of motion push ups with feet elevated and hands placed on chairs to stretch between the chairs (I actually did these before my first bodybuilding show because I was so enthralled in Arnold's book! ha ha)

- Performing high rep dips at the end of chest workouts

There were also Golden Era greats such as Marvin Eder, known for his awe-inspiring upper body strength, contributed from his love for doing dips, sometimes with body weight alone, other times with LOTS of extra weight strapped around his waist.

Check the pic to your right, Marvin is dipping with two dudes hanging on his legs!

When Marvin was asked how many dips he could do, his answer, "ALL Day!"

Here are some details on Marvin Eder in case you've never read up on this....

By the way, I ALWAYS felt I was a throwback, even when I was a kid, I gravitated towards reading older books on bodybuilding, my favorite pics were the old black & white pics and when I saw the golden era bodybuilders hanging out on the beach, pumping iron and having a GREAT time it made me wish I could step into a time machine...

I digress.... sorry, on to my story...ha ha

Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198.

He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell military press with 365.....STRICT!

Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put it, “Modern bodybuilders couldn’t carry his gym bag.” One of Eder’s favorite routines for adding bulk and power was a three days a week full body routine.

As Marvin advanced he would begin to do split training: Upper body one day, legs and mid section the next day.

As he advanced beyond that, he started to do Olympic lifting along with the training and at that time it went to four times a week where he would work out Monday and Tuesday, rest Wednesday, workout Thursday and Friday and rest the weekends because the training was exceptionally heavy.

Hmmmmmmm, these old school workouts sound similar to with my own tweaks

Marvin is now in his mid 70s, his current routine at such a young age?

Marvin still does his three-times-a-week workout, consisting of:

- five sets of chins for 50 reps

- five sets of dips for 50 reps

- 550 alternate jumping lunge squats

NOTE: I am doing an interview as we speak for my up and coming "Bodyweight Project" and ironically, the kid being interviewed is 19, performs high volume bodyweight work and has that unbelievable "God Given" strength that reminds me of Marvin Eder. AMAZING stuff, I tell you!

Some things to consider when we look at the Marvin Eder workouts and the workouts of The Golden Era:

- These men trained heavy, there was NO fear of lifting for strength, building muscle and tendon / ligament strength

- These men focused on being strong, first & foremost

- Training seemed to be most effective 3 - 4 x week, either using a full body program or upper / lwoer splits

- Olympic lifts was married to bodybuilding to develop the ultimate in a rugged and powerful physique

- was taken seriously, both for high rep sets as well as low and moderate rep sets using added weight on pull ups and dips

- Nutrition was basic and balanced. Protein was high along with plenty of vegetables and healthy fats

- 3 meals a day was a standard for nutrition, not 5 or 6 meals a day. Balance was King.

- Friendly competitions were held regularly during workouts to push one another to greater heights of strength and endurance

When was the last time you competed against your friends and training partners in pull ups, dips, push ups, military pressing, benching, squatting, deadlifting, etc?

When you military press, do you power clean the weight from the floor, or do you lift from the rack?

I remember when I trained at Diamond Gym & began power cleaning the bar from the ground before every set of military presses and my back, traps, shoulders and arms got seriously THICK in a very short time period.

MUCH to think about here.....

Stay tuned for my up and coming "Bodyweight Bodybuilding" course. Marrying the two together, Golden Era workouts & Bodyweight training have proven to be extremely powerful for decades on end now. To follow a training regime based on The Golden Era greats, a strength & muscle building routine I used with GREAT success, check out

All you need is a barbell, a few dumbbells and your body for a select few bodyweight exercises.

Prepare to pack on some serious "Old School" strength & muscle!

for The Gladiator Experiment