60 years after Arnold Schwarzenegger started bodybuilding, he’s still training. Every day he bikes up to 60 minutes and lifts weights for 30 minutes. The training is part of his daily routine like eating and sleeping. It’s always been like that, he says.

“Today I exercise to maintain as much as possible as I get older,” he tells us via Zoom from Toronto, Canada. He happily drinks Austrian schnapps. Personal trainer Luke Worthington tells us that it’s a lot easier to maintain muscle than it is to build it. However, muscle mass begins to decrease after the age of 40, says nutritionist Nichola Ludlam-Raine.

“It’s half an hour of maintenance training every day,” says Schwarzenegger. “But the important thing is that I’ve always done it regularly.”

Schwarzenegger trained five hours a day

Schwarzenegger started lifting weights as a teenager in Austria. In 1970, at the age of 23, he won his first competition straight away, becoming the youngest Mr. Olympia winner. The competition is considered the most prestigious in the world. Between 1970 and 1980 he won the title six more times.

Although he’s still very active, his workout today bears no resemblance to how the former Olympian used to train: As a bodybuilder, he recalls lifting weights five hours a day.

The effort has gradually decreased over the years. He also adapted his training depending on his goal or acting role. For his role in the comedy “Mr. Universum” (1976), for example, Schwarzenegger was asked by the director to lose 15 kilos.

“The great thing about bodybuilding and strength training is that you can really tailor it to your body, whatever you need,” he said. Schwarzenegger had just won the Olympia when he was cast in 1982’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’ – but director John Milius wanted him to look ‘a little rounder, a little less angular’. His physique was too reminiscent of that of a bodybuilder, not that of an average person.

According to Schwarzenegger, fitness is like playing chess

Schwarzenegger compares fitness to a game of chess. Both have a variety of different moves that you can make. Whatever your goal, with the right training and diet, you can achieve it, he says.

“There are millions of moves you can do, millions of exercises, millions of training principles, just like with supplements and with nutrition,” says Schwarzenegger. He co-founded the sports supplement company with four-time NBA champion LeBron James in 2018ladder.

“If you want to gain weight, if you want to lose weight, if you want to maintain your weight, if you want to have more energy, whatever it is, you can shape and adapt,” said the bodybuilding legend.

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