01dragonslayer
Ripped
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1. “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” - Mark Rippetoe
2. "Biceps are like ornaments on a Christmas tree." - Ed Coan
3. "The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds." - Henry Rollins
4. “Sell yourself short on nutrition and you’re selling yourself short on maximizing your physique development.” - Ernie Taylor
5. "Just remember, somewhere, a little Chinese girl is warming up with your max." - Jim Conroy
6. "Fortunately, there is a solution, and it’s not performing multiple sets of whatever cable Kegel exercise is being pushed as “The Answer.” Just a little hard, smart, basic work." - Jim Wendler
7. "Your love for what you do and willingness to push yourself where others aren't prepared to go is what will make you great." - Laurence Shahlaei
8. "My old routine was McDonald's on the way to the gym, coffee during my workout, Burger King and Copenhagen post-workout." - Dave Tate
9. "If your waist measurement begins with a 2...EAT!" - SCStrong
10. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” - Thomas Jefferson
11. "I'm an extremist, and I hope to be remembered that way: noncompliant and an artist. I do not want to be remembered as a nice guy. I want to be the slayer of Bambi." - David Dearth
12. "If a man tells you he doesn't lift because he doesn't want to get too bulky, then his testicles have been removed." - Paul Carter
13. “For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger
14. "If you're capable of sending a legible text message between sets, you probably aren't working hard enough." - Dave Tate
15. "Last time I checked, lifting theory has a PR of zero." - Steve Shaw
16. “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
17. “Don’t have $100.00 shoes and a 10 cent squat.” – Louie Simmons
18. "I’m sure you’ve all read the latest article on the popular muscle building sites about how to develop a fuller, thicker back with “these 2 NEW maximal hypertrophy igniting muscle shocking lifts!” The title lures you in, but when you get inside, you find a small man doing strange movements that make little sense and use almost no weight. They aren’t making him any thicker, and they aren’t likely to add slabs of lean mass to you either." - Jordan Martin
19. "A champion is someone who gets up when they can’t." - Jack Dempsey
20. "Everyone has the ability to accomplish unique feats, everyone. You choose this. Become someone great in one other life. Forget about failing to many. Who cares? Doesn't matter when you start or finish, just start, no deviations, no excuses." - Tom Platz
21. "If you can't explain the essence of your program to a three-year old in 60 seconds, its too complicated. I've trained with Olympic medal winners and I can assure you, they don't do anything mysterious, they just do the exercises better than we do." - Maik Weidenbach
22. "I'm the strongest bodybuilding who ever lived, I think." - Franco Columbu
23. "There is no such thing as over training, just under nutrition and under sleeping." - The Barbarian brothers
24. "The road to nowhere is paved with excuses." - Mark Bell
25. "As soon as a milestone is passed, it’s significance fades, and the focus is shifted to some other marker further down the road. No matter what you do or how satisfying it is in that beautiful moment in time, immediately you want more. You have to, if you want to find out how good you can be." - Glenn Pendlay
26. “I don’t do this to be healthy, I do this to get big muscles.” - Markus Ruhl
27. "Some people like to live without too much risk. They’re satisfied leading a safe existence. This attitude of caution infiltrates into their goals. Every successful athlete - or businessperson - enjoys taking calculated risks. You have to. Especially in the gym when you’re squatting 500 for reps and you can’t get one more but grunt out ten. Your nose starts bleeding, you fall into the rack and that’s set one." -Tom Platz
28. "I don’t believe in bodybuilders using steroids. If a man doesn’t have enough male hormones in his system to create, a nice hard, muscular body, he should take up ping pong.” - Steve Reeves
29. "I'm not sold on one diet philosophy. I'm sold on whatever will work for you." - Dave Tate
30. "I always get suspicious whenever someone suggests that it's the fruit in their diet that's making them fat. I've seen a lot of crazy things in my time, but I've yet to encounter anyone whose admitted to polishing off a bag of apples while watching Dancing with the Stars..." - Shelby Starnes
31. "I'm not the kind of guy who tries to run between the drops. Sometimes you gotta get a little wet to reach your destination" - Erik Fankhouser
32. "Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it." - Mike Tyson
33. “To feel strong, to walk amongst humans with a tremendous feeling of confidence and superiority is not at all wrong. The sense of superiority in bodily strength is borne out by the long history of mankind paying homage in folklore, song and poetry to strong men”. - 'Dr. Squat' Fred Hatfield.
34. “Learn it all, then forget it all.” - Bruce Lee
35. "Sacking up is 90%." - Steve Shaw
36. "Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches." - Mark Rippetoe
37. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
38. "Compare that to today. Today, we have the rise of the internet icons, guys who haven’t done a single, solitary thing in the sport actually giving opinions on training to other lifters. These are guys who never even totaled elite but own websites and set themselves up as experts and actually get interviewed for their opinions when the only thing they have learned is what some college professor told them. No practical knowledge, no trial and error, no accomplishments, and in many cases, not even an ounce of muscle mass. Who in the blue hell made these guys experts?" - Billy Mimnaugh
39. "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Gandhi
40. “The single biggest mistake that most beginners make is putting 100% of their effort into the positive (concentric) part of the rep, while paying no attention to the negative (eccentric) segment.” - Dorian Yates
41. "Most champions are built by punch the clock workouts rather than extraordinary efforts." - Dan John
42. "There's more to life than training, but training is what puts more in your life." - Brooks Kubik
43. "The bench press per se is not a risky exercise. When done right, it can help improve upper body strength and size. It's only when form takes a back seat to numbers and when it's grossly overtrained that problems result. Injuries occur in the shoulders and elbows when the bench press is overtrained, poor technique is used, such as rebounding the bar off the chest and bridging, no other exercises for the upper body are included in the program, and there are no core exercises done for the upper back. Quite often, it's a combination all these factors." - Bill Starr
44. "There is no reason to be alive if you can't do the deadlift!" - Jon Pall Sigmarsson
45. "Regarding the mantra…”There is no overtraining” Just because you can handle large amounts of volume doesn’t mean it’s needed. That’s the crux of the issue. Just because the body can tolerate something doesn’t mean it’s a necessity for progress. This is simply poor logic." - Steve Shaw
46. "Working chest, delts, tris, and biceps works approximately 10% of your overall lean body mass. Working hard on deadlifts (bent legged, trap Bar, or sumo) or squatting (not necessarily at the same time) works more like 70% of your musculature at once and sends a strong message to your body to get better at growing now!" - Wesley Silveira
47. "Once you can squat with 180 kilograms, your arms and shoulders will come along much more receptively...If you want big arms and shoulders, your first priority is to be sure that your leg/hip/back structure is growing and becoming powerful" - Stuart McRobert
48. "Don't ever believe you have nothing to lose. There's always something to be lost when you change something or try something new. Nothing is ever free. Not even experience." - Paul Carter
49. "Not only are squats not bad for the knees, every legitimate research study on this subject has shown that squats improve knee stability and therefore help reduce the risk of injuries." - Charles Poliquin
50. "You are right to be wary. There is much bullshit. Be wary of me too, because I may be wrong. Make up your own mind after you evaluate all the evidence and the logic." - Mark Rippetoe
51. "I would like to be the first man in the gym business to throw out my scale. If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, what difference does it make what the scale says?" - Vince Gironda
52. "If you're training hard and heavy with the goal of lifting something awesome, something is always going to hurt. Whether it's your wrists, elbows, knees, hamstring, or even something ridiculous like a serratus muscle, one bodypart or another is always going to be giving you some bullshit. The elite athletes train in spite of or around those injuries. Sometimes they get worse, sometimes they get better, and sometimes they just get supplanted by another recalcitrant bodypart. Any way you cut it, something's always going to be bothering you. Suck it the **** up and keep going." - Jamie Lewis
53. “Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.” - John Wooden
54. "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson
55. "Stimulate don't Annihilate." - Lee Haney
56. "The internal processes of muscle growth are seriously complicated, people devote their lives to it, but the external processes that kick it off, the things in your control can be distilled down to a few principles: Get stronger in the right rep ranges, eat appropriately, commit to the program and consistently work hard at it." - Daniel Roberts
57. "There are no shortcuts. The fact that a shortcut is important to you means that you are a pussy." - Mark Rippetoe
58. "I believe you should train with the program you believe in. I'm out of the "justify my program" business; follow the path that will lead you to glorious times, to quote Ramesses." - Jim Wendler
59. "After being taught sets and reps and working at it for a length of time you can't paint by numbers anymore. It must come from within. Any artist has an emotional contact with their work. A true bodybuilder doesn't just build muscle he creates muscle. You can't be a robot." - Tom Platz
60. "Anyone under 200 pounds is a woman." - Matt Rhodes
61. "Remember - If you want to beat the man, you've gotta out-eat the man!" - JM Blakely
62. "That's the classic nature of people, though. We'll skip the basics and get pissed when the sexy stuff doesn't work." - Martin Rooney
63. “People laugh and call me lazy, while they twit around in their three-hour workout making zero progress. Sometimes, instead of what you do in the weight room, it’s what you don’t do that will lead to success.” - Jim Wendler
64. "Well, I am a great believer in supercompensation. Short term overtraining leads to long-term success. I can hear the complaints about injuries, but, in truth, not too many of us suffer injuries that lead to surgery, according to those studies in the 1950′s. In fact, if you are not a druggie and have some common sense, I think you can afford to train harder than you think." - Dan John
65. “I don’t eat for taste, I eat for function.” - Jay Cutler
66. "If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous." - Bret Contreras
67. "And what I'm telling you now is not for you to go out and try the same ways I try, or not to even try my technique. Just put it to your personality, put it to yourself, and you develop your workout. Cause those books and things, those are other people's gimmicks and hypes. Build your own gimmick and hype, and that'll make you a better powerlifter. Not just doin' it like James does it, cause if you try to fly off the building like superman you'll be out there in the middle of the street." - James Henderson
68. "You get one life. Live an interesting life. Do interesting things. Lifting is not that interesting in the grand scheme of things. If you have a chance to go somewhere you've never been, and it's a once in a lifetime thing and you turn it down because you don't want to miss lifting for that week, you are a F'n moron and should have your ass kicked 6 ways till Sunday. Lifting will always be there. Don't miss out on the interesting things in life for some iron on the bar." - Paul Carter
69. "Why so-called compound movements? Before I actually knew anything about proper training (and this is not to imply that I know even a fraction of what there is to know now), I realized that there was something, an indefinable something, that wasn't "right" about a number of bodybuilders who trained in the gym where I also trained. (This is not to be misconstrued as a criticism of all bodybuilders. Many have a great deal of athletic ability and fine, athletic-appearing physiques.) One such man was an advanced trainee (in the sense that he had been training a number of years and had won a number of local physique titles). However, he was missing a certain athletic quality, a harmonious look. My brother put the finger on it when he observed, "He looks like a bunch of bodyparts pasted together. He's all there, big and all, but the total picture looks awkward-no grace, no glow, no..." The point had been made." - Dr. Ken Leistner
70. "It is harder to be a lifter than a bodybuilder...lifting is purely masculine whereas bodybuilding entails feminine traits. Bodybuilding reminds me of a woman getting ready to go somewhere. Can you tell me that greasing your body up and posing in front of a mirror is masculine? A bodybuilder puts strength secondary to his physique, whereas the lifter puts strength foremost because it is more masculine to do so." - Doug Hepburn
71. "Trust me, if you do an honest 20 rep program, at some point Jesus will talk to you. On the last day of the program, he asked if he could work in." - Mark Rippetoe
72. "Always remember this...there is only ONE recipe for strength. A secret recipe that was handed down from Sandow to John Grimek to Paul Anderson to Vasily Alexeev to Bill Kazmaier to me. Now I’m giving YOU that magical recipe…hard work plus proper nutrition plus time equals strong." - Steve Pulcinella
73. "Back in the 1970s, I ate a high-protein diet to get bigger and stronger. As a senior at Utah State, I weighed 218 pounds with eight percent body fat, and threw the discus over 190 feet. Then I got some advice from the people at the Olympic Training Center. I needed carbs, they advised, and lots of them. They pointed to studies done on the American distance runners. Being an idiot, I took the advice to eat like emaciated, over-trained sub-performers. It took years of high carbohydrate grazing to learn the evils of this advice." - Dan John
74. "That's a good weight...for a small woman" - Dorian Yates
75. "Did you ever notice those who criticize the strong or the elite are usually weaker or less successful than those they pass judgment on. And those who are strong or elite in their respective sports rarely condemn those who are not as strong or as successful as they are." - Louie Simmons
76. "It's a rare individual who lets themselves be steered by what they feel is their own passion." - Dave Tate
77. "I never think about losing." - Lou Ferrigno
78. "In my estimation; which by the way comes from 32 years of training and over 20 years of hands-on coaching, 99% of the weight trainees of the world have 'real lives'. By 'real lives' I mean they have real life responsibilities / loves such as family, career, academic, spiritual, and social to name a few. The flip side of this is that most of the training information that these 99% use, comes from trainees who don't have real lives - their only responsibility (or choice thereof) is to train, eat, sleep, and more than likely take steroids. Even some of the rare well-intentioned writers gleam most of their training info from these trainees. These programs or even toned-down derivatives of these programs will not work (or work very well) for you. Be honest. If you have been trying to make a program work for you that is based on the information derived from the 1% - is it really getting you to where you want to be? I know it isn't." - John Christy
79. "Far too many bodybuilders spend too much time exercising the smaller muscle groups such as the biceps at the expense of the larger muscle groups such as the thighs, and then they wonder why it is that they never make gains in overall size and strength." - Reg Park
80. "At the end of the day it's not a weight contest, it's a visual contest. And it doesn't matter what you say you weigh, if you don't look that big then you don't look that big." - Dorian Yates
81. “The problem with many hypertrophy-based programs is that they leave out the strength component. You might get bigger as a result of the program, but if you don’t get any stronger you’re still a chump in my book. That’s right, I don’t care how big you are, if you aren’t strong you’re a sham. Having big muscles and no strength is the training equivalent of wearing a strap-on. All show and no go. End of story.” - Jim Wendler
82. “They can crack jokes. They can sit back and analyze and criticize and make all the fun they want. But I’m living my life, I’m doing it. What are you doing?” - Kai Greene
83. "Most powerlifters share some common defects, as a whole for whatever reason, LOVE to punish, beat and torture ourselves beyond the limits of mind and body. It is our spirit that prevails. This defect of intelligence and sensibility pushes us onto the next level, makes us better and stronger. We all have lifted sick and badly hurt,, When this subject comes up with normal people and other meatheads, we all have the prideful smile when we talk about lifting with a 100 degree temperature or a torn groin. Thank God that therapy doesn't work on us." - Kirk Karwoski
84. “You’ve got to block out all distractions when you train. Your focus has to be 100% into the rep. You’ve got to get into a zone. You know you’re in the zone when guys in the gym look you in the eye and then quickly turn away ’cause they see the fire. You’ve got to be all business.” - Mike Matarazzo
85. "On the Internet, everyone squats. In real life, the squat rack is always empty. You figure out what this means." - Steve Shaw
86. "When I get closer to a show and have to back off from training and cardio, I use sex as an aid to help me burn calories. Look at it this way: The risk of getting injured is zero to none." - J.J. Marsh
87. "I don't feel sorry for those who lack the discipline to eat more." - JM Blakely
88. ”You must understand that the workout does not actually produce muscular growth. The workout is merely a trigger that sets the body’s growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself, of course, that produces growth; but it does so only during a sufficient rest period.” - Mike Mentzer
89. "When they get a 50-inch waist and a gorilla butt, it's ugly looking - and I think bodybuilding has become ugly looking." - Joe Gold
90. “I always leave the heavy ones for meets. They don’t mean shit in the gym and I’ll end up overtraining. That’s what I used to do when I was younger, but I could get away with it then. Overtraining is really common in powerlifting, just like bodybuilding.” - Ed Coan
91. "Your body, despite the science that says "X number of reps is better for this, Y for that" will get stronger if it is overloaded." Dr. Ken Leistner
92. "NOT training everyday leads to more injuries! If you train everyday then your entire body is fatigued. Muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc. When you train every other day, then the muscles and avascular tissues don't recover at the same pace. What happens is the muscles become fresh and recover but all the connective tissue is NOT. When the additional stress put on these weakened tissues (that never really got a chance to recover) by fresh muscles equals injury. Lifting everyday keeps everything in a state that is equal and consistent within the system. A balance or harmony within. The fatigued muscles can't contract enough to harm the other tissues. The weak link moves from body part to body part, and in a sense is not letting the other parts max so that's when they are resting!" - John Broz
93. “I’ve made many good friends in bodybuilding, though there are few I’d trust to oil my back.” - Lee Labrada
94. "The longer I train, the less and less shit I do. The less shit I do, the stronger I get. The more I emphasize recovery, the stronger I get." - Paul Carter
95. “Arguing about strength training theory is stupid, the reason I came up with 5/3/1 was that I wanted a program that eliminated stupid thoughts from my head and just let me go into the weight room and get shit done. I’ve been training for 20 years, and this is what I’ve learned.” - Jim Wendler
96. "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." - Arnold Schwarzenegger
97. "When I go out there onstage, I want to be more than just a blocky guy who waddles onto the posing platform. I want the girls to feel something." - Tom Platz
98. "If your family was captured and you were told you needed to put 100 pounds onto your max squat within two months or your family would be executed, would you squat once per week? Something tells me that you'd start squatting every day." - John Broz
99. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” - Ayn Rand
100. "You can work technique all you want at 30 and 40 percent of your one-rep max using multiple sets and low reps, but technique is still going to be influenced by what's on the bar. You may look good at 50 percent but 80 percent may look like shit." - Dave Tate
101. "I also agree with you about the whole paralysis by analysis thing. Yes, you have to be smart in your training, and yes, you have to think it through and plan it -- but you also have to chalk your hands, grab the bar and lift it. That's where so many people go wrong." - Brooks Kubik
2. "Biceps are like ornaments on a Christmas tree." - Ed Coan
3. "The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds." - Henry Rollins
4. “Sell yourself short on nutrition and you’re selling yourself short on maximizing your physique development.” - Ernie Taylor
5. "Just remember, somewhere, a little Chinese girl is warming up with your max." - Jim Conroy
6. "Fortunately, there is a solution, and it’s not performing multiple sets of whatever cable Kegel exercise is being pushed as “The Answer.” Just a little hard, smart, basic work." - Jim Wendler
7. "Your love for what you do and willingness to push yourself where others aren't prepared to go is what will make you great." - Laurence Shahlaei
8. "My old routine was McDonald's on the way to the gym, coffee during my workout, Burger King and Copenhagen post-workout." - Dave Tate
9. "If your waist measurement begins with a 2...EAT!" - SCStrong
10. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” - Thomas Jefferson
11. "I'm an extremist, and I hope to be remembered that way: noncompliant and an artist. I do not want to be remembered as a nice guy. I want to be the slayer of Bambi." - David Dearth
12. "If a man tells you he doesn't lift because he doesn't want to get too bulky, then his testicles have been removed." - Paul Carter
13. “For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger
14. "If you're capable of sending a legible text message between sets, you probably aren't working hard enough." - Dave Tate
15. "Last time I checked, lifting theory has a PR of zero." - Steve Shaw
16. “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
17. “Don’t have $100.00 shoes and a 10 cent squat.” – Louie Simmons
18. "I’m sure you’ve all read the latest article on the popular muscle building sites about how to develop a fuller, thicker back with “these 2 NEW maximal hypertrophy igniting muscle shocking lifts!” The title lures you in, but when you get inside, you find a small man doing strange movements that make little sense and use almost no weight. They aren’t making him any thicker, and they aren’t likely to add slabs of lean mass to you either." - Jordan Martin
19. "A champion is someone who gets up when they can’t." - Jack Dempsey
20. "Everyone has the ability to accomplish unique feats, everyone. You choose this. Become someone great in one other life. Forget about failing to many. Who cares? Doesn't matter when you start or finish, just start, no deviations, no excuses." - Tom Platz
21. "If you can't explain the essence of your program to a three-year old in 60 seconds, its too complicated. I've trained with Olympic medal winners and I can assure you, they don't do anything mysterious, they just do the exercises better than we do." - Maik Weidenbach
22. "I'm the strongest bodybuilding who ever lived, I think." - Franco Columbu
23. "There is no such thing as over training, just under nutrition and under sleeping." - The Barbarian brothers
24. "The road to nowhere is paved with excuses." - Mark Bell
25. "As soon as a milestone is passed, it’s significance fades, and the focus is shifted to some other marker further down the road. No matter what you do or how satisfying it is in that beautiful moment in time, immediately you want more. You have to, if you want to find out how good you can be." - Glenn Pendlay
26. “I don’t do this to be healthy, I do this to get big muscles.” - Markus Ruhl
27. "Some people like to live without too much risk. They’re satisfied leading a safe existence. This attitude of caution infiltrates into their goals. Every successful athlete - or businessperson - enjoys taking calculated risks. You have to. Especially in the gym when you’re squatting 500 for reps and you can’t get one more but grunt out ten. Your nose starts bleeding, you fall into the rack and that’s set one." -Tom Platz
28. "I don’t believe in bodybuilders using steroids. If a man doesn’t have enough male hormones in his system to create, a nice hard, muscular body, he should take up ping pong.” - Steve Reeves
29. "I'm not sold on one diet philosophy. I'm sold on whatever will work for you." - Dave Tate
30. "I always get suspicious whenever someone suggests that it's the fruit in their diet that's making them fat. I've seen a lot of crazy things in my time, but I've yet to encounter anyone whose admitted to polishing off a bag of apples while watching Dancing with the Stars..." - Shelby Starnes
31. "I'm not the kind of guy who tries to run between the drops. Sometimes you gotta get a little wet to reach your destination" - Erik Fankhouser
32. "Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it." - Mike Tyson
33. “To feel strong, to walk amongst humans with a tremendous feeling of confidence and superiority is not at all wrong. The sense of superiority in bodily strength is borne out by the long history of mankind paying homage in folklore, song and poetry to strong men”. - 'Dr. Squat' Fred Hatfield.
34. “Learn it all, then forget it all.” - Bruce Lee
35. "Sacking up is 90%." - Steve Shaw
36. "Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches." - Mark Rippetoe
37. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt
38. "Compare that to today. Today, we have the rise of the internet icons, guys who haven’t done a single, solitary thing in the sport actually giving opinions on training to other lifters. These are guys who never even totaled elite but own websites and set themselves up as experts and actually get interviewed for their opinions when the only thing they have learned is what some college professor told them. No practical knowledge, no trial and error, no accomplishments, and in many cases, not even an ounce of muscle mass. Who in the blue hell made these guys experts?" - Billy Mimnaugh
39. "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." - Mahatma Gandhi
40. “The single biggest mistake that most beginners make is putting 100% of their effort into the positive (concentric) part of the rep, while paying no attention to the negative (eccentric) segment.” - Dorian Yates
41. "Most champions are built by punch the clock workouts rather than extraordinary efforts." - Dan John
42. "There's more to life than training, but training is what puts more in your life." - Brooks Kubik
43. "The bench press per se is not a risky exercise. When done right, it can help improve upper body strength and size. It's only when form takes a back seat to numbers and when it's grossly overtrained that problems result. Injuries occur in the shoulders and elbows when the bench press is overtrained, poor technique is used, such as rebounding the bar off the chest and bridging, no other exercises for the upper body are included in the program, and there are no core exercises done for the upper back. Quite often, it's a combination all these factors." - Bill Starr
44. "There is no reason to be alive if you can't do the deadlift!" - Jon Pall Sigmarsson
45. "Regarding the mantra…”There is no overtraining” Just because you can handle large amounts of volume doesn’t mean it’s needed. That’s the crux of the issue. Just because the body can tolerate something doesn’t mean it’s a necessity for progress. This is simply poor logic." - Steve Shaw
46. "Working chest, delts, tris, and biceps works approximately 10% of your overall lean body mass. Working hard on deadlifts (bent legged, trap Bar, or sumo) or squatting (not necessarily at the same time) works more like 70% of your musculature at once and sends a strong message to your body to get better at growing now!" - Wesley Silveira
47. "Once you can squat with 180 kilograms, your arms and shoulders will come along much more receptively...If you want big arms and shoulders, your first priority is to be sure that your leg/hip/back structure is growing and becoming powerful" - Stuart McRobert
48. "Don't ever believe you have nothing to lose. There's always something to be lost when you change something or try something new. Nothing is ever free. Not even experience." - Paul Carter
49. "Not only are squats not bad for the knees, every legitimate research study on this subject has shown that squats improve knee stability and therefore help reduce the risk of injuries." - Charles Poliquin
50. "You are right to be wary. There is much bullshit. Be wary of me too, because I may be wrong. Make up your own mind after you evaluate all the evidence and the logic." - Mark Rippetoe
51. "I would like to be the first man in the gym business to throw out my scale. If you don’t like what you see in the mirror, what difference does it make what the scale says?" - Vince Gironda
52. "If you're training hard and heavy with the goal of lifting something awesome, something is always going to hurt. Whether it's your wrists, elbows, knees, hamstring, or even something ridiculous like a serratus muscle, one bodypart or another is always going to be giving you some bullshit. The elite athletes train in spite of or around those injuries. Sometimes they get worse, sometimes they get better, and sometimes they just get supplanted by another recalcitrant bodypart. Any way you cut it, something's always going to be bothering you. Suck it the **** up and keep going." - Jamie Lewis
53. “Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.” - John Wooden
54. "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson
55. "Stimulate don't Annihilate." - Lee Haney
56. "The internal processes of muscle growth are seriously complicated, people devote their lives to it, but the external processes that kick it off, the things in your control can be distilled down to a few principles: Get stronger in the right rep ranges, eat appropriately, commit to the program and consistently work hard at it." - Daniel Roberts
57. "There are no shortcuts. The fact that a shortcut is important to you means that you are a pussy." - Mark Rippetoe
58. "I believe you should train with the program you believe in. I'm out of the "justify my program" business; follow the path that will lead you to glorious times, to quote Ramesses." - Jim Wendler
59. "After being taught sets and reps and working at it for a length of time you can't paint by numbers anymore. It must come from within. Any artist has an emotional contact with their work. A true bodybuilder doesn't just build muscle he creates muscle. You can't be a robot." - Tom Platz
60. "Anyone under 200 pounds is a woman." - Matt Rhodes
61. "Remember - If you want to beat the man, you've gotta out-eat the man!" - JM Blakely
62. "That's the classic nature of people, though. We'll skip the basics and get pissed when the sexy stuff doesn't work." - Martin Rooney
63. “People laugh and call me lazy, while they twit around in their three-hour workout making zero progress. Sometimes, instead of what you do in the weight room, it’s what you don’t do that will lead to success.” - Jim Wendler
64. "Well, I am a great believer in supercompensation. Short term overtraining leads to long-term success. I can hear the complaints about injuries, but, in truth, not too many of us suffer injuries that lead to surgery, according to those studies in the 1950′s. In fact, if you are not a druggie and have some common sense, I think you can afford to train harder than you think." - Dan John
65. “I don’t eat for taste, I eat for function.” - Jay Cutler
66. "If you think lifting weights is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous." - Bret Contreras
67. "And what I'm telling you now is not for you to go out and try the same ways I try, or not to even try my technique. Just put it to your personality, put it to yourself, and you develop your workout. Cause those books and things, those are other people's gimmicks and hypes. Build your own gimmick and hype, and that'll make you a better powerlifter. Not just doin' it like James does it, cause if you try to fly off the building like superman you'll be out there in the middle of the street." - James Henderson
68. "You get one life. Live an interesting life. Do interesting things. Lifting is not that interesting in the grand scheme of things. If you have a chance to go somewhere you've never been, and it's a once in a lifetime thing and you turn it down because you don't want to miss lifting for that week, you are a F'n moron and should have your ass kicked 6 ways till Sunday. Lifting will always be there. Don't miss out on the interesting things in life for some iron on the bar." - Paul Carter
69. "Why so-called compound movements? Before I actually knew anything about proper training (and this is not to imply that I know even a fraction of what there is to know now), I realized that there was something, an indefinable something, that wasn't "right" about a number of bodybuilders who trained in the gym where I also trained. (This is not to be misconstrued as a criticism of all bodybuilders. Many have a great deal of athletic ability and fine, athletic-appearing physiques.) One such man was an advanced trainee (in the sense that he had been training a number of years and had won a number of local physique titles). However, he was missing a certain athletic quality, a harmonious look. My brother put the finger on it when he observed, "He looks like a bunch of bodyparts pasted together. He's all there, big and all, but the total picture looks awkward-no grace, no glow, no..." The point had been made." - Dr. Ken Leistner
70. "It is harder to be a lifter than a bodybuilder...lifting is purely masculine whereas bodybuilding entails feminine traits. Bodybuilding reminds me of a woman getting ready to go somewhere. Can you tell me that greasing your body up and posing in front of a mirror is masculine? A bodybuilder puts strength secondary to his physique, whereas the lifter puts strength foremost because it is more masculine to do so." - Doug Hepburn
71. "Trust me, if you do an honest 20 rep program, at some point Jesus will talk to you. On the last day of the program, he asked if he could work in." - Mark Rippetoe
72. "Always remember this...there is only ONE recipe for strength. A secret recipe that was handed down from Sandow to John Grimek to Paul Anderson to Vasily Alexeev to Bill Kazmaier to me. Now I’m giving YOU that magical recipe…hard work plus proper nutrition plus time equals strong." - Steve Pulcinella
73. "Back in the 1970s, I ate a high-protein diet to get bigger and stronger. As a senior at Utah State, I weighed 218 pounds with eight percent body fat, and threw the discus over 190 feet. Then I got some advice from the people at the Olympic Training Center. I needed carbs, they advised, and lots of them. They pointed to studies done on the American distance runners. Being an idiot, I took the advice to eat like emaciated, over-trained sub-performers. It took years of high carbohydrate grazing to learn the evils of this advice." - Dan John
74. "That's a good weight...for a small woman" - Dorian Yates
75. "Did you ever notice those who criticize the strong or the elite are usually weaker or less successful than those they pass judgment on. And those who are strong or elite in their respective sports rarely condemn those who are not as strong or as successful as they are." - Louie Simmons
76. "It's a rare individual who lets themselves be steered by what they feel is their own passion." - Dave Tate
77. "I never think about losing." - Lou Ferrigno
78. "In my estimation; which by the way comes from 32 years of training and over 20 years of hands-on coaching, 99% of the weight trainees of the world have 'real lives'. By 'real lives' I mean they have real life responsibilities / loves such as family, career, academic, spiritual, and social to name a few. The flip side of this is that most of the training information that these 99% use, comes from trainees who don't have real lives - their only responsibility (or choice thereof) is to train, eat, sleep, and more than likely take steroids. Even some of the rare well-intentioned writers gleam most of their training info from these trainees. These programs or even toned-down derivatives of these programs will not work (or work very well) for you. Be honest. If you have been trying to make a program work for you that is based on the information derived from the 1% - is it really getting you to where you want to be? I know it isn't." - John Christy
79. "Far too many bodybuilders spend too much time exercising the smaller muscle groups such as the biceps at the expense of the larger muscle groups such as the thighs, and then they wonder why it is that they never make gains in overall size and strength." - Reg Park
80. "At the end of the day it's not a weight contest, it's a visual contest. And it doesn't matter what you say you weigh, if you don't look that big then you don't look that big." - Dorian Yates
81. “The problem with many hypertrophy-based programs is that they leave out the strength component. You might get bigger as a result of the program, but if you don’t get any stronger you’re still a chump in my book. That’s right, I don’t care how big you are, if you aren’t strong you’re a sham. Having big muscles and no strength is the training equivalent of wearing a strap-on. All show and no go. End of story.” - Jim Wendler
82. “They can crack jokes. They can sit back and analyze and criticize and make all the fun they want. But I’m living my life, I’m doing it. What are you doing?” - Kai Greene
83. "Most powerlifters share some common defects, as a whole for whatever reason, LOVE to punish, beat and torture ourselves beyond the limits of mind and body. It is our spirit that prevails. This defect of intelligence and sensibility pushes us onto the next level, makes us better and stronger. We all have lifted sick and badly hurt,, When this subject comes up with normal people and other meatheads, we all have the prideful smile when we talk about lifting with a 100 degree temperature or a torn groin. Thank God that therapy doesn't work on us." - Kirk Karwoski
84. “You’ve got to block out all distractions when you train. Your focus has to be 100% into the rep. You’ve got to get into a zone. You know you’re in the zone when guys in the gym look you in the eye and then quickly turn away ’cause they see the fire. You’ve got to be all business.” - Mike Matarazzo
85. "On the Internet, everyone squats. In real life, the squat rack is always empty. You figure out what this means." - Steve Shaw
86. "When I get closer to a show and have to back off from training and cardio, I use sex as an aid to help me burn calories. Look at it this way: The risk of getting injured is zero to none." - J.J. Marsh
87. "I don't feel sorry for those who lack the discipline to eat more." - JM Blakely
88. ”You must understand that the workout does not actually produce muscular growth. The workout is merely a trigger that sets the body’s growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself, of course, that produces growth; but it does so only during a sufficient rest period.” - Mike Mentzer
89. "When they get a 50-inch waist and a gorilla butt, it's ugly looking - and I think bodybuilding has become ugly looking." - Joe Gold
90. “I always leave the heavy ones for meets. They don’t mean shit in the gym and I’ll end up overtraining. That’s what I used to do when I was younger, but I could get away with it then. Overtraining is really common in powerlifting, just like bodybuilding.” - Ed Coan
91. "Your body, despite the science that says "X number of reps is better for this, Y for that" will get stronger if it is overloaded." Dr. Ken Leistner
92. "NOT training everyday leads to more injuries! If you train everyday then your entire body is fatigued. Muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc. When you train every other day, then the muscles and avascular tissues don't recover at the same pace. What happens is the muscles become fresh and recover but all the connective tissue is NOT. When the additional stress put on these weakened tissues (that never really got a chance to recover) by fresh muscles equals injury. Lifting everyday keeps everything in a state that is equal and consistent within the system. A balance or harmony within. The fatigued muscles can't contract enough to harm the other tissues. The weak link moves from body part to body part, and in a sense is not letting the other parts max so that's when they are resting!" - John Broz
93. “I’ve made many good friends in bodybuilding, though there are few I’d trust to oil my back.” - Lee Labrada
94. "The longer I train, the less and less shit I do. The less shit I do, the stronger I get. The more I emphasize recovery, the stronger I get." - Paul Carter
95. “Arguing about strength training theory is stupid, the reason I came up with 5/3/1 was that I wanted a program that eliminated stupid thoughts from my head and just let me go into the weight room and get shit done. I’ve been training for 20 years, and this is what I’ve learned.” - Jim Wendler
96. "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength." - Arnold Schwarzenegger
97. "When I go out there onstage, I want to be more than just a blocky guy who waddles onto the posing platform. I want the girls to feel something." - Tom Platz
98. "If your family was captured and you were told you needed to put 100 pounds onto your max squat within two months or your family would be executed, would you squat once per week? Something tells me that you'd start squatting every day." - John Broz
99. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” - Ayn Rand
100. "You can work technique all you want at 30 and 40 percent of your one-rep max using multiple sets and low reps, but technique is still going to be influenced by what's on the bar. You may look good at 50 percent but 80 percent may look like shit." - Dave Tate
101. "I also agree with you about the whole paralysis by analysis thing. Yes, you have to be smart in your training, and yes, you have to think it through and plan it -- but you also have to chalk your hands, grab the bar and lift it. That's where so many people go wrong." - Brooks Kubik
