Saturday Workout Videos Review: Pumping Iron

If you have never seen this film, Pumping Iron is not an instructional exercise video. It has some scenes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno and other top bodybuilders in the golden age of bodybuilding, but none of them got into the details about their exercises. But, you will see a treasure chest (literally, the best built chests of all time in this video) of training wisdom as we can observe how top bodybuilders perform their reps on certain exercises. Let's take a look at the two most famous bodybuilders in the film, Arnold and Lou.

Lou Ferrigno

First, we'll take at the Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno. The guy was the most massive bodybuilder of his day, and is still freaking big by today's standards. He did incline presses in the video, and showed that he reps out from the bottom 2/3 of the rep, keeping his upper pecs under constant tension. This is has been shown to have some blood wringing effects in the muscle, increasing muscle size and strength. Is it any wonder that he has some of the biggest chests in history?

He follows the same rep range of motion during his standing overhead presses. He did not extend his arms all the way up. We can only imagine how much pump he has built up in those big shoulders as he goes and grit his teeth during the workout.

He also uses drop sets, as shown when he was doing barbell curls. Drops sets, or continuing a set with a lesser weight after failure is a great way to intensify you training but is best left to intermediate and advanced trainers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnie here seems to do the same tension building techniques, most evident during him doing 2/3 bottom reps on the dumbbell flyes and the top 2/3 of the concentration curl. The top pros seem to instinctively know to hit the most effective part of the rep that will produce the most muscle gains.

One odd thing I noticed is that he does his front lateral raises for his deltoids much higher than this head. He seems to do them similar to Cuban Presses. 

I say, I must recommend this video not just for what most people and critics praise about it, but also for the training insights one can gain in watching them. Be on the lookout for any fine details which may make or break your muscle gains.