Bodybuilder or Weightlifter (You Can't Be Both)

8/3/2019 Bodybuilder or Weightlifter (You Can't Be Both)

1/9

A bodybuilder sculpts to have every muscle stand out and aweightlifter endeavours to have a large ego as well as largemuscles. Which category do you want to fit into? Also: Are youdoing the Bench Press wrong?

By:Ron KosloffEDITOR'S NOTE: Many of the exercise ideas presented in this article are considered dangerousby other experts. We always want to show both sides of the argument on all issues.

You are going to come to a crossroad in our game where you are going to have to decidewhether you want to be a bodybuilder or a weightlifter.

What's The Difference?

A bodybuilder sculpts the body to make each and every muscle standout. If Vince Gironda'smethod is used, all four heads are worked to really make the muscles take shape, have definition,and aesthetics.A weightlifter (Tugger, swinger, puller or jerker) endeavours to have a large ego as well as largemuscles. To my way of thinking, weightlifting exercises are a conglomeration of cheatingmovements.

Example Cheating Movement:

For instance, a bench press is a cheating exercise where you use about six muscles. Plant yourfeet on the floor; arch your back and immediately you are using the terrous major. You also putyour thumbs around the bar (which should never be done, you should always use a palm grip)and immediately you use the forearms.


2/9

Now you're using your back and your forearms. Once you arch your back and get your feet in aplanted position, primarily the exercise is inner deltoid. When you do this, you are using yourbiceps and triceps. So you're using roughly six muscles to so-call lift the weight, never reallydeveloping any muscle, never shaping or sculpting it.

Click Image To Enlarge.Bench Press.

Video Guide: Windows Media - Real PlayerYou should never put your thumb around the bar. When you do, in any exercise, you will bringyour forearm into play. For instance, if you're working your biceps, half of the exercise will beforearm and the other half biceps. That's why people say to me, "Every time I do curls, I feel it inmy forearm."That's right because you are wrapping your thumb around the bar. You should be wrapping yourthumb under the bar which is called a palm grip or a false grip.

Click Image To Enlarge.Palm Grip.

Of course, if you do want to be a weightlifter, you have to realize that sooner or later you aregoing to injure everyjoint, muscle, ligament, and tendon in your body. All for the sake of saying,"I'm a power lifter and I can lift 400 pounds." It's not going to get you anything except a lot of painand it will only get worse as you age.With most power lifters, diet is thrown to the wind because they eat anything and everything.Technically, the more you weigh the more you can lift. You will have to ask yourself if that's howyou want to look or do you want to look like a bodybuilder. This is the ultimate decision that you'regoing to have to make.

My Decision


3/9

At The YMCA:

When I first got into the game, I was a member of Hannan YMCA on East Jefferson inDetroit. I would go there to swim and to shoot pool once in a while. Occasionally, I would

see these really big fellows come in. My God, they were huge; and I found out that theywere weightlifters.I went up to the weightlifting room to observe and was just standing around. One of themsaid to me, "Come on in, we'll show you how to lift." I thought, 'Oh boy! This looks good tome.'Most people who lift weights have some sort of an inadequacy complex. I won't sayinferiority complex but they feel inadequate and their self-esteem is low. I knew minewas. I had always been extremely slender. Well, they showed me all of these exercisesand I was thrilled.Naturally, I couldn't lift the amount that they were lifting because they were much olderthan I, but I made an attempt. I thought this was how you attained a decent body becauseI had seen pictures of Steve Reeves, but I never knew how he worked out.I had seen some pictures of the old-time bodybuilders and I thought bodybuilders andweightlifters were one in the same. I had no idea they were different. I recalled seeingbodybuilding magazines with the type of physique I liked.After I worked out my first night, everyone hit the showers. I was looking around at theseguys and said to myself, 'Holy smoke, I don't want to look like that!' They all had big gutsand large rear-ends. These guys were big but there were not impressive at all.They didn't have the look of a bodybuilder or a sculptured body. That is when I found out

there was a huge difference but since I was a kid, I just didn't know.Funny But Safe:

At the YMCA at that time if you were a bodybuilder you were considered a little funny.They would hold a bodybuilding contest but it would be in the basement.A man posing, shaving his body, this was unheard of. So, the weightlifters got all theattention. I used to go to some of the weightlifting meets. When I first walked in, I saw allof these guys with bandaged shoulders, wrists and knees. I could smell the liniment. It

was horrible.

I could hear them saying, "I ruined my knee, sprained my knee, and hurt my back." Ithought to myself, 'This sure as h*ll isn't something that I want to get into.' After observingthat, I knew right away that I didn't want to be a weightlifter. As an older guy today, I don'thave many injuries except for some scar tissue in my left shoulder and left knee when Itried to prove I could lift a weight that I couldn't.


4/9

Click To Enlarge.

Gene Rychalk's Failed Bench Attempt. [ Learn More ]Gene Rychalk Video:

Windows Media (3.8 MB)MPEG (13.4 MB)

When scar tissue forms, it never goes away. If you try and lift weights that Mother Naturenever intended for you to lift in the first place, you are going to injure yourself. Most of mylife being a bodybuilder, I never taxed the scar tissue in my shoulder or knee, so I havenever had any injuries. I have never torn anything. I have never injured ligaments ortendons.

RELATED POLLIs Heavy Lifting Worth The Risk Of SeriousInjury?

Yes, Go Heavy Or Go Home!

No, I Want To Build My Body, Not Break It.

It Depends On The Person.

Not Sure.

Vote - View Results

Steroids:

Most power lifters, weightlifters and bodybuilders today take steroids. The simple fact isand most people don't understand that steroids will certainly make you bigger, absolutely.They will make you tremendously stronger. They will anesthetize you.You will feel great when you are taking them. One thing that steroids can't do is makeyour ligaments, tendons and joints stronger. That's why there are so many injuries infootball and basketball. Most professional athletes are on steroids, either to get big andstrong or to recuperate from the strenuous almost yearlong endeavor of preparing fortheir jobs.


5/9


6/9

Click Image To Enlarge.

Vince Neck Press.

Vince Neck Press Video Guide:Windows Media (514 KB)

MPEG (3.6 MB)

When Larry Scott entered a bodybuilding contest, do you think the judges cared if hecould do a 300-pound bench press or squat with 400 pounds? They didn't care howmuch he could lift. They were concerned about how Larry Scott looked. Did he haveshape, definition, and aesthetics? People who do individual exercises have individualstrength. Those who do group exercise have group strength. I cannot workout the way a

weightlifter can but in turn he can't workout the way I do.Dumbbell Curls:

I had a Canadian weightlifter come into the office (Detroit is just across the border fromCanada) and he wanted to get some liver and some protein. We talked about VinceGironda's methods and he scoffed at them. I said, "Marcel, what do you do in curl. Doyou ever do dumbbell curls?"I asked how much weight he lifts (tongue-in-cheek). He said, "60-75 pounds." I said, "I

have a couple of 25-pound dumbbells here. Do you think you could do 8 sets of 8repetitions with 25-pound dumbbells?" He laughed at me. He thought it was funny. But Itold him we were going to do it my way, not his way."Put your heels together and your toes apart. Bend your knees and hunch forward andput your chin to your chest. Grab the dumbbell with a palm grip and straighten your armout. Start with dumbbell on your fingertips. As you curl both weights you lock your elbowsinto your side.Hunch over so the weight at the bottom will have the same resistance when you contractat the top. You're not leaning back and cheating the weight from a half movement to a fullmovement. Close your eyes and feel the weight. Feel the positives.Touch your deltoids and squeeze them as hard as you can for 6 seconds, then feel theweight on the way down. Do a full set. Don't drop the weight. Let it go down on yourfingertips.Put the weight on the floor and hyperventilate for 15 seconds. Grab the weight again anddo another set." It was a joke. On the second set, the sixth rep, he couldn't even lift theweight.


7/9


Vince Dumbbell Curls.

Vince Dumbbell Curls Video Guide:Windows Media (417 KB)

MPEG (3.1 MB)

Then I took the 25-pound dumbbells and I cranked out 6 sets of 8 reps and said, "See,technically I am stronger than you when I do an isolation exercise. But when you do aweightlifting exercise, you're stronger than I am. That's not to say I can't be as strong asyou. If I had the capabilities, I could not do as much weight but I could increase myweight a lot."

Sissy Squats:

The reason that Vince Gironda called the squat a sissy squat is because he would makesissies out of weightlifters when they would come in and do squats. Weightlifting squatsare not basically a leg exercise. Certainly, you get big thighs but you ruin the proportionbetween your thighs, your hips, abdomen and lower back.As Vince had said, weightlifting squats do many things that you don't want your body tobe accustomed to like increase the size of your stomach because you push it out, widenyour lower back and get a big rear-end. Vince said he could tell an eastern bodybuilderwhen he came into his gym by the size of his rear-end.Vince would always warn people, and I have advocated this and told people at thePowerhouse Gym when I owned it, once you develop your glutes, you can never reducethem. They are the densest muscles in your body. People used to laugh at me but manyyears later they now say they wish they would have listened.Look at all the modern day squatters who call themselves bodybuilders. They have rear-ends that proportionately are bigger than their legs. They look horrible. They walk likeducks. That's the first thing I noticed at the YMCA. I want to warn all you bodybuilders.If you start to do squats, you will get a large rear-end that will never, never go away. I'dlike a weightlifter to duplicate this. I saw Vince Gironda do a hack slide, hack squat thathe invented. He went up on his toes with heels together both knees would be pointedtowards opposite walls (like a frog).


8/9

I saw the man crank out 8 sets of 8 reps with 15 seconds of rest in between. I think thebar was around 225-230 pounds. Now that is strong! Most people do weightlifting squatsbecause it's easy to do. It's much easier to bend over and use a group of muscles. Whenyou isolate the thigh in hack slide versus a sissy squat, you have one muscle lifting 225pounds versus five muscles lifting 400 pounds, which is a cheating exercise to begin with.

Can You Do Both?

Now you ask the question, is it possible to be a bodybuilder and weightlifter? Well unless you area genetic superior like Vince Gironda always talked about, the answer is no. I have only seen twopeople in my life that were capable of doing both. One was an old-time bodybuilder/weightlifterwho was on the U.S. Olympic team.His name was Tommy Kono and he represented York Barbell. He had a terrific physique. Thereare some people that can do squats because they have small hips and small gluts to begin with,but 95% of people can't.

View Top Selling Tommy Kono Products Here.He entered weightlifting and physique contests. Sergio Oliva who defected from Cuba in the late50s to early 60s was a member of the Cuban weightlifting team.

Click Image To Enlarge.Sergio Oliva.

He didn't look like a weightlifter, he looked like a bodybuilder but he was blessed. When Iwatched him work out at the Duncan YMCA in Chicago, he had such a small waist and smallhips, and no rear-end to speak of so weightlifting squats didn't affect him that much.When he started in bodybuilding, he was very successful but he didn't pay very much attention tohis diet. When I watched him work out, he was eating some kind of pie and drinking a Coke orsweetened tea. He didn't look like he knew that much about nutrition and that's why when hecompeted against Larry Scott in 1966, Larry just blew him away.


9/9


Larry Scott.

Vince once said, "If I ever trained Oliva, nobody could touch him." He was such a geneticsuperior. He rivalled Don Howorth in bodybuilding proportions. I always thought Don had morepotential, but Sergio just never practiced good nutrition. I guess he felt that he didn't have to.When Scott beat him in the 1966 Olympia (I was there), Sergio was just dripping with oil. He putso much oil on his body to try to bring some definition out and it really made him look worse.Because of his genetic superiority and the fact he was blessed, he went on to win many, manytitles.One time I was at a seminar in Minneapolis, he was bragging that he beat everybody. I clearedmy throat and said, "Sergio you never beat Larry Scott." He was quite embarrassed about that.So, as I first stated, you will sooner or later have to choose! Good luck!Thanks,Ron

Bodybuilder or Weightlifter (You Can't Be Both)

Documents

Transcript of Bodybuilder or Weightlifter (You Can't Be Both)