Arnold Schwarzenegger PUMPS UP The Bears | 2 Bears, 1 Cave
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100%. There's two ways that you can move the weights. One of them is physically and the other one is mentally. So in order to really get mentally ready for it, you have to do just many reps with 300.

Or what are you supposed to do? 315. Yeah, so you have to go and because you have to let the mind know not to go and have fear of the 315. So what I usually did was when I was training for powerlifting was I was to, let's say, my max, let's say, was at a competition 515. And so I tried to do as many times as I can 500. Yeah. So I did 500 in the gym.

Then I waited a little bit, and then I did again one rep at 500. Same day? Then I waited, yeah, you know, just kind of like... Like waiting around, yeah. Five minutes later, so schmoozing a little bit, and then, okay, then the guys were coming in and said, okay, let's do another one, let's do another one. And then we were just going, doing it again. And so he gets us mentally used to the 500, so in a way you feel like...

And this is all happening subconsciously. It's not like consciously. Consciously, too, but I mean, the important thing is that you lie down eventually on the bench and you say, I have that nailed. Yeah, yeah. Because as soon as you say, let me try...

it's not quite cutting it to try. I mean, trying is good, but I mean, you got to do it. Cause then you feel the fear if you're not ready for it. The fear factor. So that's why I say psychologically, the important thing is to just do it, you know, just for your head to do it as many times as possible. So you go, I went in a once or twice a week, we went to the ultimate weight. Then we just stayed on that, whatever that weight is that day. And then just stay on and do the heavy weight, the heavy weight, the heavy weight, just one rep.

And when we normally train, you go up to three reps. So you go, let's say, in your case, you did three for 285. So you do then three reps and keep doing three reps and keep doing three reps. Then eventually the next week you go to just for one rep.

It's just kind of doing the mind game because our mind is really the thing that holds us back. Your mind is fascinating. Well, it's fascinating, but I try to work on it all the time because I figured it out on my own. I said, look, this is really weird because I was doing weightlifting competitions all the time as a kid because I joined a weightlifting club in Graz. So there was no bodybuilding club. So we had to weightlift every

And then after we went through the weightlifting routine and the weightlifting training, then we could go and do chin-ups or do some incline presses or do some lateral raises or biceps curls and stuff like that. But first we had to do the weightlifting. So we were competing pretty much every second weekend, going from one town to another, kind of competing against the town weightlifting club. And so you kind of...

eventually figured out, you know, that why is it that you get to the weight and you say, oh, I'm going to do that. This is going to be great. And you pound it out. You clean it up, boom, and you have it in your chest. And then, boom, you pound it out and it's a winner. And then you put on five more pounds on it and all of a sudden it doesn't work. That's what happened. Then you realize, wait a minute, okay, I went down to the bar and I realized

That second as I grabbed the bar, I was wondering, can I do it or not? And that's what fucked me. So I realized that the mind was the thing, not the body. The mind just says, maybe not.

And I said, what the hell is that? So, okay, how do I now get the mind ready for that? So this is how you then work on it and yourself. And everyone operates differently. But, I mean, that's what I did. I realized that the mind is so important to really lift the ultimate weight and also important to motivate you to get to the gym and also important to stay in there for more than two hours like we were.

competing in bodybuilding and then weightlifting and then powerlifting. So we had to train more than two hours. So I mean, how do you make yourself do that? And that's when you then come up with all the various different principles that you need in order to carry you through. But then your mind also, because you would, psychologically, you would do something in competition too, right? Because it seemed like you always had an upper hand.

on your competition when you guys were leading up to it and backstage. You were doing something different. Well, again, I think that when you compete, there is a competition, a psychological kind of a little warfare going on. Sure. You know, and we have seen that

very well, I think in the 60s with Muhammad Ali in boxing. - Right. - You know that boxing was not just boxing. You know I think that Ali taught us all that there's another dimension to that which was you know the psychological warfare that goes on or the selling of the sport itself that you can you know box as well as you can.

But if you're not a really good salesman and if you don't create a certain personality that people get, you know, kind of fall in love with, then you don't really have much. Then you will have your 10,000 people at the boxing arena and that's it. But, you know, Ali figured out how to get 25,000 and how to get 50,000 and how to fill a stadium. And it was all a psychological thing that he did.

And so I did the same thing in bodybuilding. I just tried to figure out, okay, what are the vulnerabilities that those guys have? And then I would just, you know, use that. And you would gas them up sometimes. Because I've seen clips where you're like, wow, you look really good, man. I'm worried about you. And you could tell that that guy was like, wait, what? You were Lou Frigno, and Lou Frigno's dad is gold. Yeah, exactly. And I was just trying to...

Well, there was two prong agenda. There was the one is to win and the other one was, you know, to kind of be entertaining for pumping iron. Yeah. And so I was trying to kind of show people how he can kind of slowly talk an entire family into losing. LAUGHTER That's awesome. LAUGHTER

It started out early already, you know, by telling them about, you know, it's just, you know, I said, I dragged them in by talking about my mother because they're Italians and they love family. And the Ferrigno's, they loved family and they always loved talking about the family and the daughter and the son and the mother and the grandmother and the grandfather and the father and all of that stuff. So I said, yesterday I called my mother

And I said, oh, we're really looking forward to seeing her one day. And all of a sudden, I said, she comes to America regularly. I said, but I told her, I said, I won. And she said, but the competition is tonight. I said, no. I said, but I just told her. I said, but I don't know if I can reach her tonight after the competition. I said, I told her, I won. She says, congratulations, Adam.

It was great. He was like, kind of like, made them all look at each other, kind of, oh, Jesus. I don't know if I'll be able to reach her later, so I just wanted her to know I won. Exactly. And stuff like that, it was kind of all a mind fuck kind of a thing, you know, and just to play with their mind a little bit and...

And Lou got all confused. Yeah, that's the thing. But like I said, a lot of it was kind of show was for the pumping iron, for the cameras and all that stuff. And for some reason or another, the funny thing about it is that Lou has never really trusted me ever again since that moment. Really? Imagine 50 years. This has been 50 years ago. I mean, next year, 50 years. Yeah.

And, see, always, you know, we're very good friends. And, you know, we play chess together and we hang out together and we schmooze together and have gossip sessions, go to the gym together. But every time I say something, I say, you know, I know it's foggy today, Lou, but the sun is going to come out, I guarantee you, within the next two hours, he will go like... LAUGHTER

We kind of look around. Is he putting me on here? Then he looks up.

No, I don't think so. You know, kind of like, I don't think this is coming out. I think you're putting me on or something. So he just, no matter what I say, you know, he kind of like is always doubting it and it's always kind of questioning it, you know. But, I mean, he's a great guy. I really got to appreciate Lou because he was one of the very few bodybuilders that was willing to work.

to work his ass off. Not only in the gym, but also the various different jobs he had. I mean, he was a sheep metal worker, he was a welder, he was playing football up in Canada, he was trying to join a football team, up there become a football player. He went into professional wrestling and he worked his ass off there, and weightlifting. I mean, everything that he did, and then,

in the movies, you know, he played the Hulk. And he did really a great job there. And then after that, that gig was over after years and years and years of the Hulk.

he then became a personal trainer and he was training celebrities here in Hollywood. And he was going from house to house. He never shied away from working. Not like, "I'm a star now, I don't have to work." For him the most important thing was to provide for the family and to go and to do the work. And I really loved it because

I would say like half of the bodybuilders are lazy bastards. You know, they're just, I mean, the ones that I hung out with, they wanted to be on the beach.

And they want to just hang out and they just want to get a tan. And then when Franco and I started our construction business, I said, come on, guys, we need some work. I said, we just had the earthquake here in Los Angeles. We need to rebuild some of the patios and the fireplaces and the chimneys. And they would come and they would just work one direction.

this direction, and then it will work. They put the bricks on it. I said, guys, you got to turn around and do it the other way, too. No, no, but the sun is coming from here. We want to get a tan. We want to get tanned today. They were just there to get a tan. Lazy bastards, right? And so Frank was always saying, you lazy bastards, get out of here. You know, we always did the work. But I mean, it was...

So it's great when you see a bodybuilder like Franco Colombo or like Lou Ferrigno that really were working hard. I love that. Because it's like I always say in my book, Be Useful, I always say that one of the principles is work your ass off. And be useful. And be useful, exactly. Because you're talking about Franco. And Tom is my best friend. And Franco is your best friend. And I can tell stories about Tom

of what I love about him and why he's my friend. And I was wondering, I read your letter you wrote when Franco passed away last night in bed. I was having a glass of wine. And I got emotional. I went, oh man, I'm going to do that for Tom when he dies before me. But I would love for you to tell a story just about... Look at that face. He might croak during the podcast.

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best prices i would love for you just to tell a story about franco that maybe you haven't told or like what you loved about him or just anything well franco was basically half animal half human you know so he he was like no one could figure it out because he was like he had this unusual strength and these unusual abilities

Like who would just hang upside down on his toes on the chin up bar? I could never hold myself with my toes. He did. It was like a gorilla. And then the way he was like going from bar to bar with his hands, he had this unbelievable power. It was like a monkey.

And so he was doing things in the kind of lifts. I mean, think about the guy lifted like 750 pounds deadlift and he weighed like 180 pounds. Yeah. It's crazy. It's ridiculous. Crazy. And doing like with 100 pound lateral raises and stuff like that that I used for dumbbell presses. Barely could do that with 100 pounds. And he would do lateral raises. I mean, it's just crazy, crazy strength.

And Franco came from Sardinia, and the way he grew up was kind of like also very primitive. Out in the farm, and he was like on a ranch, and he had to go and take the sheep up to the mountains, and he had to figure out himself how to go and feed himself while he was up there for a few days.

So he had to kill animals and do all kinds of things, live like a really primitive kind of a thing. And so it was like all kind of very strange, but it made him kind of like...

a person that had no fear of anything. And so when I brought him to America, Joe Weider brought me over to America first because I was like the big body builder. I weighed 250 pounds, I just won Mr. Universe for the second time, I was 21 years old, I'm this new sensation, this farm boy from Austria, let's call him the Austrian Oak, to create a little bit of drama type of thing. But then Franco was a little guy.

but powerful and just THICC.

And so I had to convince Joe Weider, I said, "You gotta bring over Franco too. "We're a perfect team." It was like the original twins type of thing, right? - Yeah. - So Franco, Joe Weider would always say, "He's a nice little guy, come on. "Why do you want to bring him over? "We have so many little guys around here." It's just the way he talked, with his Canadian Jewish accent. And so I said, "No, you gotta bring Franco over." He's like, "There's no one here."

In America, I can guarantee you that it's like Franco. As he can outlift anybody, he can outpose anyone, and he's going to win Mr. Universe. I guarantee you that he's on his way to win everything. And then Joe Vita eventually brought him over. And so Franco and I, we then continued training together here.

And within one year of being here, he won the Mr. Universe contest in the amateur category. The year after that, he won the Mr. Universe professional, then Mr. World, eventually Mr. Olympia and all that stuff. And Franco was the kind of a guy that, because there was no money in bodybuilding. Yeah. So Franco and I were just saying, hey,

We're from Europe. We're not one of those lazy fucks, you know, that just want to hang around and do nothing. I said, let's get our act together and just let's educate ourselves. Let's go to college, educate ourselves. So Franco loved, of course, chiropractic and medical stuff. So he went to chiropractic college. I went to study business medicine.

And then the site, we started working. And Franco, of course, was a bricklayer and a masonry worker and cement worker and stone worker from Italy. So I said, Franco, we should start a business here. And then, of course, we put an ad in the LA Times, Italian and European masonry work experts and all of this shit. I didn't know anything about masonry work. So we put the ad in. The next day after the ad came out,

we had the earthquake in Los Angeles. I mean, can you think about that? And then, all of a sudden, everyone called us and they said, oh my God, you got to come over, you got to rebuild our chimney, you got to rebuild our patio, the patio has a big crack here, the wall has a big crack, the wall around the house fell down and blah, blah, blah. So Franco and I, we were doing bits left and right and going around. So there's all kinds of places in L.A. that you and Franco rebuilt?

Yeah, there's a famous wall down in Venice, not far from here, that Franco and I, it was one of the first walls that we built. It's still standing exactly the way it was. Why don't you reopen that business? More than 50 years ago, this wall was built, and it's still standing there, not moved an inch, nothing changed. It's going to be like the Roman walls.

You know, it's got to be there for thousands of years. Yeah, yeah. Except someone tears it down. But I mean, I tell you, so our workmanship was good. But I learned everything from Franco. Franco would go in here, the Mustang, and he would pick up a wheelbarrow and he would pick up a cement mixer, one of those little machines, and he would just tow it to the construction site. And then I would be in charge of mixing the cement. He would show me what the combination is, how much water, how much sand, how much...

sand and water and all this concrete that we put in there and then mix it up and then help him with that. And then he taught me how to do the bricklaying and all those things. And so we made money. We made $5,000 together.

I mean, imagine, it's a lot of money. In the 70s, $5,000. I mean, it was like a lot of money. So we put literally $1,000 or $1,500 aside. And I started saving up money like that. And that's how I eventually, in 1974...

had enough money to put down $27,000 for an apartment building. In Santa Monica? In Santa Monica, yeah. A six-unit apartment building on 19th Street in Santa Monica. Because I knew that you had done that. Was that from studying business, or did you always go, I'm going to do real estate? No, I think it was the kind of thing as an immigrant. Yeah, yeah. If you were an immigrant...

that had its act together and he was willing to work and not live off the state or the country or something like that. We were kind of like... I had a friend who was...

a Czechoslovakian immigrant, then another guy that was a Polish immigrant. Every one of them had a little, kind of one had a kind of like a twin unit apartment building with just two units. Another one had like eight units. Another one had six units. So they talked me into this. I said, Arnold, don't buy a house.

You've got to buy an apartment building because that gives you money and you can then pay it off with the rent that the people are paying and the value goes up much more than a house and blah, blah, blah. And so then they've got a real estate agent that all of them used, which was a Lebanese woman.

Olga was her name. And she was like this little, it was like Danny DeVito height. And she would be, she also was an immigrant. So I think that she knew that we were hardworking and that we wanted to invest our money and we wanted to make our money $1 turn into $2. And so she helped us find those apartment buildings. They were available. And so she got this, so she found me one that cost $240,000. Wow.

And so I had $27,000 to put down, then needed $37,000 down, so Joe Weider gave me $10,000 for the third deed.

So he put up that $10,000. So I paid him back within a year. So now this was my building and he didn't have anything to do with it anymore. And then a year later sold it for almost $400,000. Wow. So, I mean, imagine by putting $27,000, $37,000 down altogether...

I went from 240 to $400,000, $160,000 profit. In a year? In two years, basically. And then they deducted real estate fee. It was the best return that you can think. But I didn't take the money because I didn't want to pay the income tax at this point. So I did trading up. Trading up exactly to a 12-unit apartment building and then eventually to a 36-unit apartment building.

and 48 unit above. So then it started growing and then they started getting into buying office buildings, old office buildings on Main Street here in Santa Monica that were decrepit and that had artists in it. And we then turned them into kind of like offices for banks and for real estate offices and stuff like that. We did the space and started making a lot of money on that.

That's incredible. Yeah. I got to ask you this because I was so fascinated by this when I was watching your doc series on Netflix is that, you know, growing up, like we all were, we knew about your bodybuilding, but we all became like obviously super fans from the movies. And there's, you know, it's no social media at the time. You don't have access to information. So you see the story. And one of the things I was most fascinated by was the rivalry with Stallone. Because when you're a kid, you're,

You kind of go, you know, you imagine, I wonder what there was. Like, I wonder if they like each other. And this was like, seeing this was the first time you guys talked about, verifiably, that you guys had a real rivalry. Right. And, like, how did it originate? Like, what made you guys, you know, was it just the fact that you were competing in the box office, or was it, like, deeper than that? No, I think that it was kind of what, the rivalry was there. Mm-hmm.

But it was, I think the whole thing was my fault. Really? Well, because I remember that I went and was really stupid. And a journalist asked me some questions about Sly off the record. And I did not know that she had the tape recorder on the side of her purse running and then printed the whole thing.

So it was not meant to be like that. Then of course he was very angry and that kind of flared up the competition. So at that point, the trust was gone and okay, let's make this an open kind of a thing and let's go all out. So for years we went just kind of like out, trying to outdo each other with movies. But I think as he said...

in an interview and I totally agree with him that it was actually healthy. Even though we went a little bit beyond what we should have done. But it was healthy because it did motivate me and I felt kind of like, oh yeah, I mean the guy is really ripped. You know, and Rambo too. I mean, Frank Stallone kind of redefined definition. Because he was so disciplined with his diet.

And so that motivated me then when I did my next movie, Commando, that, okay, I have to go and look like that too. And so, you know, I mean, I always had like a body fat of around, you know, 8%, 9%.

But I went down to 7%. I'm sure that he was down to 5%. Really? I don't really know exactly. You guys were really pushing each other. So it was like I got pushed by him, and then I got really cut. And people then said after, wow, you're really cut. And then that pushed him for his next movie when he did Rocky. Oh, look at how much bigger Arnold was than me. I got to get bigger. And so we kind of motivated each other. And it was also, like I said, the competition was so stupid. Mm-hmm.

that was like two little children. - Right. - It was like unbelievable for mature, supposedly grown up guys. Like who has a bigger knife?

in that movie. - Yeah, yeah. - So that was very important that we measured the length of the knife and how many teeth does it have on it, right? And who kills more creatively with that knife? That was very important. - For real. - You just slice someone's neck very quickly or you stab him three times and then slice the neck. So all of this was very, very important.

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I said, why don't we go, since I was a tank driver in the army, why don't we get a machine gun from a tank? I said, they're bigger than from a helicopter. I said, that's what I'm going to have in Predator. And so we got a big gun that you normally can hold. It's stupid stuff like that. And then, you know, I counted. It was like killing 46 people, so I had to kill 64 people. Just turned the number around.

And it's just crazy stuff like that. It's just dudes being dudes, basically. Yeah, exactly. That's right. And out came, you know, this real great, great action movies. He did fantastic action movies. I was doing fantastic action movies. But I always felt like I was kind of like behind. Because, I mean, he was like... Really? That's crazy. Just think about it. I remember that it was like I was getting a million dollars now for Conan number two.

This was 1983. And then I'm reading, I said, Sly just made a deal to get $5 million for a movie.

So I said, what the fuck? And then it's like, okay, I'm a fifth. This has to stop. So I worked my way up and I did everything I could. Eventually the next movie I got $3 million. Then it was like always doubling. Then it was $6 million. And so this is how I got up. And then eventually I remember I got $10 million, I think it was for Total Recall.

And it was in 1989. And Sly signed a deal for...

in one of his movies in number three for $15 million. - Here you just always like. - Jesus Christ, I can't catch up. What is going on here? There was always some number that was bigger than mine and then eventually I think we ended up both at $20 million as kind of like our standard salary. And there we were together now all of a sudden. This was like in the 90s.

and um then i did uh batman and robin where i got 30 million dollars they wanted me so bad for this movie because i didn't want to really play the villain yeah uh mr freeze and so they know if you give it 25 million dollars and they said 25 million dollars petty cash

What's the matter with you guys? And you know, I said, okay. So then they called me back like a month later. And they said, we give you $30 million plus we give you points and back end and blah, blah, blah. So I said, okay, I do it. They just like, Ines Lai doesn't have $30 million. I said, this is kind of my way to pay back for all the torches over the years that he got more than I did. So this is how the competition went.

It's interesting that you still remember all those numbers. Yeah. Like, because we can tell you what we made at clubs, what we made at theaters, what we made at arenas. You don't forget. I mean, I still remember when I had a mail order business. You see, so I started out because everyone always asked me about how do you train? How do you do your biceps? How do you get the

peak and your biceps and how do you do this with the separation and the rear deltoid and the separation on your back and the traps and this and that so everyone wanted to know kind of the inside scope I couldn't sit there for everybody I did seminars around the world but I couldn't just answer everyone's questions so I said to myself I'm going to come out like

Charles Atlas did, you know, like way back when with those Charles Atlas courses, right? You know, where you kick sand in someone's face and the next year you come back and you're the he-man and you pay him back for that and you grab the girl and all that stuff. So anyway, so that was the idea. I just started doing this...

and how to get the peak, the bicep, and how to get in a chest like a fortress, and all these kind of titles, right? And Joe Weider helped me with that. He was very generous. And so we started advertising those booklets. And I remember now, still today, that one weekend, I was counting all the checks and everything like that, and we made that month $1,600.

We're talking about in the 70s, huge

Huge money, $1,600. So now, of course, it would take $400 out of $1,600 to fill the orders because you have to print the booklets and you have to send it out and all that stuff. But the rest of us, it was profit. So this is the way I saved money. I mean, every dollar was important to me. And to do the work, and I was doing it myself, stuffing the envelopes, bringing it to the post office.

and mailing it out and all of this kind of stuff. It was really good learning experience how to get a business license, how to pay the taxes, and how to make a deal with the IRS. And they say, what is your estimated income? And you tell them, this is what I think we'll make. Okay, this is what you pay on taxes. It was fantastic. And I was always saying to Frank, I said, can you imagine how easy it is in America? You just go to the IRS and you say, this is the amount of money to make.

And first of all, they believe you. It's not that we wanted to cheat because we had no idea. So we just said, I think with construction side, we maybe make $2,000 a week or so. I said, but if you make more, then we'll let you know.

And so they said, okay, the estimated taxes is this. And it was like, you know, the business license we got immediately. No one asked us if we have a master's degree in masonry work or something like this, like they would do in Europe. You know, so the whole thing is just different. So we were just always so happy that America helped us, give us the opportunities to be able to work and give us the opportunities to be useful.

Because this is the key thing. Everyone always was positive here in America. No matter what we said, we would say, I would say, I'm going to win Mr. Olympia 10 times. They say, oh, that's fantastic. I mean, you really have a great goal. In Europe, they would say, you're fucking crazy. I mean, you're the Größenwahn cynic, which means that you're kind of like...

you know, crazy, you think you can do anything, you know? But I mean, here it's always the positive attitude. And so we adopted that. And since then I have become, maybe I was once negative, I don't know, but I became positive. I said, that's such a great way because in my family, everything was my father says, we want to go build those muscles. This is the new Vernon, you know, only showing off. What are you going to do with that?

Be useful. Come on. Do something. I mean, go in there and shovel some coal or some snow in the winter for some poor people or something like that. It was always negative. You're never going to make it. And here everything is positive. People build up. They go to the football games with their children and they go and say, oh, you're going to make it. You're going to score today. You're going to do this and that. That was fantastic. And even me, when I went with my kids yesterday,

They did soccer games. They said, hey, don't worry about it. You didn't kick a goal, but you were really good. Next time you're going to kick that goal, it's just don't trip over young balls. You've got to be great. So, I mean, it's just a much more positive kind of country, the way we look at things and the way people build each other up. It's better to be also because, like, especially in entertainment, you know, you can surround yourself here with negative people. There's a lot of negative people around. It's like you just try to embrace –

being around positive people. It just changes everything. Yeah, but you don't want to hang out with too many entertainers anyway. That's true. That's true. I think let's just hang out with normal people. Yeah. I mean, I love coming to the coach gym. These are normal people. A guy comes to me and he says, oh, yesterday I...

I was like, unbelievable. I put this new roof on this guy and blah, blah, blah. I said, are you a roofer? Yeah, yeah. I've been a roofer for seven years now. I have now these two guys, 20-year-old guys, they make $200,000 a year just because they're also now into roofing and they're helping me with the roofing. So you get ordinary people talking about ordinary things and

Ordinary struggles. I love that. A woman coming over, oh, I just was laid off. I was in the movie business and now they made this deal. Now they're making less movies. And you hear the problems that people have and how they can still fit into workouts every morning. Sometimes I'm here at 6 in the morning. Sometimes I come at 10 in the morning. I come at different times. But it's really interesting to listen to people, ordinary people,

I don't like hanging out with show business people because sometimes...

they're lost, I think, with their mind and where they think they're going to go with their careers and the hangups that they have and all of that stuff. By the way, I wanted to add, because you were talking about your mail order business back then, that now you have the daily newsletter that goes out. Well, his app, your app, The Pump, is fucking awesome. Well, thank you. Your workouts, I did your first workout. Of course, I did advanced weight training.

Muscle building. I expect nothing less. Thank you. Bench, T-bars, squats, flies. I mean, it's a great workout. And the schmooze, the weekend schmooze is fucking so great. Well, I tell you.

It doesn't surprise me that you like it because you and I, as you know, we worked out here. Yeah. And we had a great workout together. And yes, we try to have fun. And I mean, you're a comedian. So, of course, you have to do the schmooze and the funny lines and all of that stuff. But I mean, it was so great.

to see you actually working out and to have the strength and to have the energy and to do the reps and to be interested in doing the reps the full way. Because we all know, we talked about that, how every rep in bodybuilding and in weight training has a flexing motion and a stretching motion. So if you do a chin-up, so coming all the way down is the stretch of the lats, but then going all the way up is the flex of the back.

So there's always, the bicep is the same. When you curl up, that's the flex. When you let the weight down, that's the stretch of the bicep. And so you were fascinated with that whole principle and all this stuff and got right away into it. So I could tell that you would be interested in it and you will continue on with the workout. Oh, the workouts were amazing. My dad's 70. My dad's your age, 77? Yeah. And he just got into working out because of getting out of a chair. Right. And I was like, Dad, you got to get the pump.

You got to get the pump. It's just, it's such a great, can I tell you what's fascinating about you? Your book is amazing. Your book is amazing. I want, I'm saying this. If you have a high school child getting ready to go to college, buy them this book. This book is a guideline of how you should live your life.

But I couldn't stop thinking that it's so rooted. All of your philosophies about life are so rooted in working out. Like the way you look at everything is you've got to have struggle to have growth. You've got everything. The way you look at the world with just optimism and we're selling. Withhold some stuff first. It's really amazing. Working out informed all of you, I think.

Well, it helped me in learning about life because, like you just said, there's so many kind of similarities when it comes to the actual body and to the muscles versus your brain. I mean, you know, if you learn quickly, and hopefully one learns quickly, that the more you struggle...

with resistance, the more weights you use, the more you go through the pain period after you do like eight reps and you can't do anymore, then you just do the forced reps, which are the most painful ones. And it really differentiates you from the guy that is going to make it to the guy that's going to lose. And so then you cut to the mind and they say, well, wait a minute.

Isn't it weird that the mind is exactly the same way? That the mind also needs suffering. The mind needs also struggle, setbacks, and that you have to climb back up again. That's what makes you strong. It's like Nietzsche said, that what does not kill you will make you stronger. And this is exactly what it is. It's all about, you know, that people should look forward to the struggle because the struggle makes you tougher, right?

And so don't shy away from that. It's part of life and it will make you grow. It's that simple. It makes the muscle grow, the more you have resistance and it will make your mind grow and psychologically it will become stronger the more you struggle.

What exercise? I'm going to be all exercise questions. You look great, by the way. You look fantastic. Well, thank you. Thank you. Because I think you've always been the walking advocate for health and fitness for years and years. But I think one of the things is as people age...

so many people go, you know, stay away from training. Like you just see it all the time. But you're somebody who obviously you're like the standard for lifting, but you still train. And it's like something where I feel like somebody who is getting into their 50s or 60s and 70s, it's like you keep training and you look great, man. But I cannot even take credit for it because, you know, people always say you're so disciplined.

I have no discipline. It's just who you are. No, I'm addicted. Oh, you're addicted. It's an addiction. It's kind of like I cannot even imagine the mornings without riding down to the gym with the bike on.

and then working out. If I don't have it, like sometimes it doesn't work out because there's a morning schedule right away or something like that, then I miss it all day and I'm kind of lost in the way. So it's like it's an addiction. So I think that for my entire life, the 60 years that I've been working out now,

It's all because it's an addiction. It's kind of like, I have to. I have to go to the gym in order to feel good. And because it's like I always tell people, I said, the difference is like when I come down with my bike, it's like going through a black and white movie.

Then as soon as I work out and I ride back my bike to the hotel and I have some breakfast, it becomes a colorful movie. It becomes colored. Everything is more beautiful. Everything is brighter. I look at life differently. Everything is positive and everything like this. So it's just that the workout and having done something for yourself and having pumped up and having struggled a little bit, it

It makes you feel good for the rest of the day. Yeah. So this is what I needed. You were at the precipice of bodybuilding and working out. What exercises showed up in your career that you were like, wait, what are they? I heard you talk about tricep extensions one time. I think it might have been in your book. Yeah.

And I was like, well, all the exercises showed up. Like all the stuff we just know as. I still do Arnold presses and you created that. But like what other exercises showed up when you were working out and you're like, oh, this is brand new and I love it. Well, first of all, let me tell you, I was so fortunate that I worked out and began my workouts in a weightlifting club. Why? Because I learned quickly that the basic exercises are extremely important.

You know, like deadlift, the curl, the barbell curl, bench press, incline press, dumbbell press, deadlift. All of this stuff is basic stuff that has nothing with machines, but it's just with basic weight that if you build that and if you really use that, that you really can build a body, everything from ground up. Those are the basic exercises or cleaning the weight and then pressing it.

snatching the weight up in one motion, all of this stuff is just so good. So that to me was always the key thing. I always tell people, you learn how to do everything the perfect way for the rest of your life with the other machines because you know the basic exercises. So to me, the basics are the most important thing. Then the other thing is when you talk about what I found out was

I said to myself, I was looking at my bicep. I said to myself, well, if I go like that, it flexes. I turned the wrist and the bicep flexes. I said, so therefore, the motion is not just up and down, but it's also to turn the wrist. So now I put an inside of the dumbbell, an extra two to five pounds.

So now when I curl up like that, I struggle turning the wrist. And therefore, I get more of a cut and more of a height in my bicep.

So this was something that no one could see because no one counts the plates and says, why is Arnold using on the left side only four plates and then on the right side there's five plates or something? They don't do that, right? So you can do that in a very, very subtle way. And then eventually I started explaining it. I said, look, I figured this out a long time ago. And I looked at the anatomy book and even talked about it, that one of the jobs that the bicep says is to turn the wrist.

And so I said, well, here we are. I mean, we got to go and load up on the inside and do the turning of the dumbbell. So there's certain things that you can't do with just having a barbell because you don't turn. So people that are using a barbell and using a bridge or bench can only get a certain size bicep, but never can really get the height.

So the height and the peak you only can get if you turn the wrist. With dumbbells. If you use dumbbells, exactly. Wow. That's right. Those are the little things that you learn. And the key thing is also when eventually when you get into competition that you really figure out your own body because there is no routine that is exactly the same for everybody. You know, this is like buying gloves or buying shoes.

There's different sizes and the different colors and all that stuff. And the same is with the working out. Like Frank and Franco, he had shorter thighs. So therefore he never had to do as much squats as I had to do. I had long legs, so I had to do twice as much leg work than Franco did.

So even though we trained together, we sometimes split and Franco was working more on calves or working more on his kind of like biceps problems that he had that I didn't have. And I had leg problems that he didn't have and stuff like that. So you have to kind of realize that everybody is built differently and everyone has different needs. And this is exactly the same again with everything. You cannot go and have one way of teaching someone a language.

Yeah. There's some people that are doing much better when you give them pictures and show them what the words are. Sometimes when you have them watch TV, sometimes when you have conversations. Everyone operates differently. And so this is what you have to realize, that everyone is somewhat different. There are some common rules, but don't get stuck on those. Just figure out yourself what works for you. Wow.

- Wow, I wanted to ask you this 'cause I've always been fascinated. Everybody who's ever trained, played sports experiences cramps at some point, right? And it's usually that you're depleted from sodium and you need electrolytes in your system. Would you guys cramp in bodybuilding shows? 'Cause you're flexing so hard, I always wondered. - Well, there was this problem at the day of the competition

And the reason was because you're trying to get rid of the fluid in your body. So doing exactly that what you shouldn't do. I mean, you should do it in order to win, but you shouldn't do it because of health reasons. It's not really good. And then you're going to engage the muscles. So there's guys that actually have huge cramps on stage. They do. I've seen that. And this is also the time.

when you tell people to kind of lay off water so that they do cramp up and you win. - And you win. How would you not have them? What's the way that you-- - I just never went that extreme with the whole thing. So I said to myself, if I lose because I have too much fluid, I'd rather keep a little bit of fluid because I know I have to do, the pre-charging sometimes takes three hours.

So that means that you're posing for three hours. Yeah. You know, legs and calves and show me your back. And then these idiots ask you the same thing again. Oh, number seven at number nine, number two, number one. You come together, stand together closely and now do a back pose.

Didn't we just do a back pose? It's like for the 15th time. And he says, okay, turn around. Now we want to see a side chest pose. And okay, now let's see the vacuum. And then you suck in your stomach. So you do this over and over and over because they want to compare with the different guys, right? And not just always the same. And so you stand out there for hours. And now you go back at night when it's the final round. And...

and you get judged by your posing and by your total performance. So now you have to do it again. So you can get cramped up. So the key though is like don't be so dramatic with... Don't be so dramatic. I, for instance, I remember in 1980 at the Mr. Olympia, I came third in the pre-judging because I still had too much fluid. And the judges came to me and said, I'm sorry to tell you, but you're not going to win tonight.

And I said, no shit. I said, what's wrong? He says, you're not as sharp as you were the last time we saw you. This, of course, now five years later, and now that we understand it, but I just want you to know it's not going to happen.

So I went literally into a sauna when I went back after the pre-charging. I went into a sauna at the hotel and I posed for an hour to sweat out more fluid. And then I went back at night and I was sharper. And then I did my best job with the posing routine and I ended up winning. Wow.

Wow. Yeah. So, but I mean, so this is, so you have to really find that, that, uh, the right level. So you don't kind of like cramp up and you can't pose anymore and lose, uh, but still have, you know, kind of be sharp enough. Yeah. Who, who are your, I feel like I know this a little bit, but if you had to have your top five heroes that gave us the guy we got today, because when I got the encyclopedia of bodybuilding, I'm going to be very honest.

I was like, maybe I'm gay because I couldn't stop looking at your body. And I was like, this is like, I mean, this is why. And when I work out, I watch, I put the documentary, your documentary on Netflix, I put it on. It inspires me. But you draw inspiration from men, like I do, and I know you did. So who are your top five Hall of Fame dudes that gave us the guy we got today?

Well, I mean, I think that the first one was Reg Park. Reg Park. And Steve Reeves. These were guys that did Hercules movies. Yeah. And that inspired me to get a body like that, but also inspired me to have a vision beyond my career, which was to get into movies.

Oh, that's fucking fascinating. I never realized that. Yeah, to me that was very, very important. When I started reading about the Reg Park and about Steve Reeves in the magazines, it was very clear that these guys won Mr. Universe not only once, but I mean like Reg Park won it three times, Mr. Universe. And then Chinichita in Rome, which was the town where they did the movies, yeah.

They discovered him and they brought him down to Rome and they had him do Hercules movies.

And he made several Hercules movies and I said to myself, that's what I have to do. I have to get that good. I have to win Mr. Universe so many times so that they would notice me also and blah, blah, blah. So it gave me a vision. So Reg Park and Steve Reeves was the number one, the guys that were very important. Muhammad Ali was very important because when he came, when I came to the United States, I hung out with him and he was a very generous guy and

And he loved, he was fascinated with bodybuilding, even though he didn't want to work out with weights, but he was fascinated by that whole thing. He always had me push him around. He loved, and he'd say to his guys, he says, watch this, watch what Aaron does. He says, push me against the wall. And then I would grab him and then push him against the wall. And then he would say, see guys, see what I'm saying, how strong he is? Can you believe that?

He just loved it. And he also just loved calling me Schwarzenegger. We just saw a playback on one of the interview shows where the interviewer said, next coming out is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he says, yeah, Schwarzenegger.

and he said I didn't say that the interviewer said I didn't say that I didn't say that and he said no he said you're coming out Schwarzenegger and he said Schwarzenegger and he did it with me also he said he's one of us guys he said just look at his name Schwarzenegger and he said unbelievable you know and he said he's one of us you know and he just loved me so I watched him all the time

And I went one time, I mean, people always talk about, you know, he gives away money. But I saw him one time at an airport giving $100 to some guy that was begging for money. He didn't even look how much money he had in the hand. He just gave it to him. You know, and he says, this doesn't mean anything. He says, I'm not into money. You know, he was never into that. So he was like a very, very kind of generous person.

And I realized that how generous he was, but he started his foundations then, started giving money away and he was always thinking about a bigger cost than boxing was. And then I also learned from him how he sells boxing through his personality. And so I wanted to do the same thing. So the purse went up from $2 million for a fight to $5 million for a fight, $10 million for a fight. It was all because of personalities and who draw the most.

And so I wanted to do the same thing in bodybuilding. So he was kind of an example for me for generosity and being smart and being beyond just the sport and really just beating up, like you always say, there's a time where you beat up on guys and put them down, but there's a time where you lift up the whole sport.

And this is the most important thing. I want to do the same thing. Okay, I want to pump up and I want to go and win and destroy my competition. But then it was the time to build the whole sport up and to make it actually a bigger sport, offer more cash prizes and all this. So they were very important. But then when I got more and more into kind of life and the global thinking, I think people like, for instance, when I met my father-in-law, Sergeant Shriver,

He taught me a lot about generosity, about service, and giving back to the community, giving back to your town, and to your state, and to your country in some way. And he was, of course, the president of Special Olympics. And his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, started Special Olympics. So I got involved with Special Olympics. So he taught me about service and all of that stuff. So he became kind of a mentor. Ronald Reagan became a mentor. Because to me, I was always a Republican, right? And so when...

Nixon was campaigning in 1968 against Humphrey and he talked about you know get government off your back and less taxes and a strong military strong law enforcement I said this is me I love this guy and then Humphrey talked more like a

a socialist in Austria, right? So I didn't like that. So I said, what party does he belong to? He said, Republican. I said, well, then I'm a Republican. And so I followed Reagan, of course, and I was campaigning for Reagan. He became one of my heroes. And then Gorbachev became one of my heroes because he was able to recognize that communism doesn't work

And to have the balls to be president of Russia and to say, communism doesn't work, let's dismantle this whole thing that doesn't work. I mean, it's like unheard of. I've never heard of anything like that. And he had the balls to do that. So I said to myself, that's courage.

I admire that. So I became a big fan of his, met him many times, went to Moscow, had meetings with him. I always talked to him about international policies and also movies. He just loved, for instance, he wanted me always to do The Crusade, a movie that I wanted to do in the 90s. And when I met him in the 90s, he always said to me, he says, you must do The Crusade. You must do The Crusade. It's very important. It's an important message to...

the day, you know, about coming together, religions coming together and all this stuff, and not always fighting against each other. And so he was what? Mandela. I mean, when I went down to South Africa and promoted Special Olympics in South Africa, Mandela was there, and he was greeting me at Robben Island.

at his prison cell, right? And then we went into this prison cell and we lit a torch. We did a little torch that we then took out from his prison cell where he was in prison for 27 years. And then we took it out to the courtyard of the prison where there was 150 Special Olympians standing out there and I was lighting the torch of hope.

with the Special Enemies and with Mandela. And Mandela was one of the guys that they admired so much because he taught us about forgiveness. I mean, here's a guy that became president and could have kind of turned everything around and had the blacks pay back the whites in South Africa for the misery that they went through for so many years. And no, he didn't do that. He says, that would make me feel better. Yes. He says, but it wouldn't be better for the country.

He says, we need to do what's best for the country. We got to come together. And I said, oh, my God, this guy is like magic. I mean, I've never even heard of anyone talk that much about forgiveness like that and being able to do that. So just to mention some of my heroes. Wow, quite a list. But those are the people that inspired me to be who I am. And when people say to me, well, what's the most powerful?

what's the thing that would job the movie business or the party building or the governorship, what is the thing that they're most proud of? I always tell people, I said, none of them. I said, what I'm most proud of is that I'm me. That I was able to mold myself into a person that I am today.

A person that is generous, a person that has a vision, a person that is not shying away from working hard and all this stuff. And all of this kind of stuff, that's what I brought because that is what made me win Mr. Olympia seven times and Mr. Universe five times. That's what made me win the governorship. That's what made me go and do all of these great movies and be able to reach out and do a kind of

give something back to the community and all of this stuff and have the interest in doing, for instance, the pump app and to do all this, to give something back and to really inspire people. I said to myself, if I've been inspired by so many people, that's why I always say I'm not a self-made man, that I am a creation by all of those people I just mentioned and so many others. I said, then I have the responsibility

to inspire other people. And we all have to do that. You know, like you guys, you have your podcast, a fantastic podcast that everyone knows internationally. But there comes responsibility, right? The bigger your podcast gets, the bigger the responsibility because you've got to go always and pump people up. You have to entertain them, obviously, which is, of course, why people tune in because you guys are really...

fucking funny you know and you make me laugh when I hear you and you make everyone else laugh and so but you have the responsibility to encourage people to pump them up and to go and give something back and to be useful and all of that stuff at the same time that's our responsibility you know we got turned on by somebody to sit here today and now we have to do the same thing to pump other people up and say you can do it too you got me fired the fuck up I know I know I'm gonna go fucking bench 315 yeah shit

I'm ready to go, dude. You really are fucking awesome. Well, thank you. In the halfway through, I almost go, will you be our mentor? Well, it's funny because it's so true. And it's funny that it goes back to physique because I think you alluded to it earlier about being young men. But when you're a kid growing up and you honestly see your physique first...

It kind of looks like make-believe. It's kind of like a cartoon. It's like a drawing. You're like, is this a real fucking guy? Your shorts. I mean, all of it. And so you just kind of go like, I remember the first, I have such a vivid memory. I did a father-son trip.

When I was nine years old. His father was a competitive powerlifter. He was an Olympic lifter. Olympic, yeah. Olympic lifter. He was a three-time state champion Olympic lifter. Wow. So you know when they talk about Olympic lifting. Oh, yeah. Olympic lifting was... He doesn't... Before Ozempic, he was really strong. Son of a... You know, actually, I didn't ever do... He did Ozempic when he was pre-diabetic. But when I...

The person who helped me lose weight recently was Phil Goglia. He was Mr. California West, and he changed my diet and workout routine. He was fantastic with it. But what I was going to was when I did a father-son trip, I was nine years old, and I still remember we were in a hotel. I think we were in Orlando. And it was just me and him. He goes, don't tell your mother, but I'm going to let you watch a rated R movie tonight. And I was like, what?

Oh, great. This was in the hotel. And he puts on Predator. And so I'm nine years old and I had never seen a rated R movie. And I was like, this is the shit. He was like, do not tell your mom. And I see you in that. But you become like, you know, that's who I basically kind of learning who you are. But then we just follow you. First, like I said, physically, you're just like, is this...

a realistic attainable thing and you realize probably not, but all the things that you've done become inspiring. And I do think it's, it is kind of like, of course anybody can choose to, but I think as a young man,

you follow a great man and you go, this is an inspiration first physically and then through all your philanthropy and then your great career. So it's just a huge inspiration who you are, being yourself. Thank you. So let me ask you about your father. Yeah. How old is he now? He died. How old was he? He died at 74 a couple of years ago. So he must have lived during the Bob Hoffman era, right? Yeah.

Bob Hoffman was kind of the Joe Weider of weightlifting. So there was Joe Weider in bodybuilding and then there was Bob Hoffman from York, Pennsylvania. So all the original barbell plates said York. And they had York on it. And so they come from Bob Hoffman. So he was like the guy because I remember that he was like the king of the weightlifting kind of thing. All the weightlifting stuff all had York on it in the old days.

Yeah, he was really into the Olympic stuff. So he started competition at 14 and was the contender.

Kentucky State Champion at 14. Yeah, so he must have known all of those guys, John Grimmick and all those guys that were the editors of Health and Strength and the muscle magazines that they had back then in New York for the weightlifters. Yeah, it was an interesting period. I studied all of that. Really? Yeah, because there was this war between Hoffman and

And Joe Wieda, way back, we did bodybuilding and weightlifting, and one was supposed to be legitimate. The weightlifting and bodybuilding was not. And then they tried to get bodybuilding into the Olympics and, you know, it would become an official sport, which they then in 1970 were able to do that. Then bodybuilding became an official sport. So there was always this competition going on. But it was...

Interesting, the old days. Yeah, he loved weightlifting. That's good. It was a big part of our growing up. Will you tell him about Milton Berle? When we were working out, you had so many great stories about Milton Berle. Oh, yeah, yeah, Milton Berle. And I would just love for you to share them. You know Milton Berle? Of course, of course. Yeah, exactly. Milton Berle, by total coincidence, there was an organization called SHARE.

And it was Hollywood women that had husbands that were powerful.

So the women were powerful because of that. But there were wives of Sammy Davis Jr., wife of Dean Martin, the wife of Johnny Carson, the wife of Milton Berle, the wife of Selser, and all this kind of mishmash of different people. And so my then-girlfriend, then-future, became a wife, Maria, she was kind of like hanging out with all these girls because she belonged to Cher. She was part of it.

And so Maria, when we had our engagement party, she says, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have Ruthie come also. I say, you mean Milton Berle's wife? Yeah. But we had no idea if this meant also Milton Berle. So sure enough, Milton Berle came also. And he did a little stand-up.

I remember it so well because I was like appalled. Because you don't know, if you don't know really humor and comedy, what are the rules and all that stuff, I had no idea. I was like sitting there and he says, oh, it's so great to have Ruthie there. Look at my beautiful wife here. Last time I saw lips like that, it had a hook through it. And it's

I mean, I said, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Did he just say this about his wife? And she just casually looked over to Maria and says, oh, I hear this shit every day. I said, Jesus. I mean, it was like the beating. It was like unbelievable. He said, look at Schwarzenegger. He has bigger tits than his girlfriend. And all this kind of stuff. It was like relentless, this stuff. And so anyway, so Milton and I became very good friends.

And he says, you know something, let me tell you something. He says, you're a great actor. He says, but I want to teach you about comedy. And because as you grow in your profession, you will be asked to speak. And there's no speech without starting out with a joke. You got to be ready for no matter what the occasion is. And so he was kind of like teaching me all of this stuff. And I said, I didn't quite understand.

get it yet, what he was talking about. But then as time went on, he was telling me, I said, look, he says, you go, he says, you ask me to go and give you something about the speech that you're doing in Vegas, you're getting an award. And he says, so here it is. He was telling me this thing. He said, well, that was really fantastic. Thank you so much. I said, you know, being a bodybuilder and having...

I've been around the movie business, you get of course a lot of trophies and a lot of medals and awards, but this one is without any doubt the most recent. And so then he says, "Okay, say the joke." And then I will be going and he says, "Okay, and this is the most recent." He says, "Fucking stupid Nazi, what the fuck is the matter with you? What did I say?"

Did you see my paws? I say you have to look at it and say, you know, I've gotten a lot of medals. But this, without any doubt, is the most. You have to kind of get emotional. Yeah. And give that moment. And people go, oh, isn't that nice? And then you say, reasoned.

I said, and then he threw out the reasons. I said, you don't go and say reasons right away. You have to have the timing. I said, don't be stupid now. Listen to me carefully. And so he was always kind of like screaming at everything like this. So this is how I kind of like learned from him. That's a great lesson. How to kind of do comedy and how important it is to do the timing and all of that stuff. And I said, well, I said, like, you know, they may call you down to give a speech at the

some medical convention. And I said, no, I would never do that. He said, I know nothing about that. And I says, no, no, no, no, no. He says, what's wrong with just starting out and just saying? He says, hey, what a coincidence it is. I had a physical this morning. I went in there. The doctor says, okay, take off your clothes. And I said, okay, where should I put it? And he says, right there in the corner where mine is. laughter

And he says, that gets people laughing. He says, now you win them over. Then he goes, you know something, it's really funny. I am getting asked all the time all these stupid questions about, you know, how is your blood pressure, how is this, how is that? And one of them is, the other day was also, how is your stool? And I said, the doctor said, stool is fine. He said,

I have to go every morning at 6. He says, well, that's great. And I said, it's easy for you to say. I said, I don't wake up until 7. So he says, you see, he said, now we are talking. He said, you get people to laugh and you win them over. He says, you maybe follow up. And he says, you know, that's the stupid thing. First thing is, it's always the same thing. You did a blood sample, a urine sample, and a stool sample.

I just said to him, take my underwear. So he says, you see, I just gave you three jokes for the medical thing and this is how it goes with everything. If a guy gets divorced or something like that, you just say, well, my problem started already when my wife said to me, she said, I'd like to have sex in the backseat of the car. And then he said...

I said, me too. He says, no, no, I want you to do the driving. You know, so shit like that. So he showed me basically kind of like for every category. If you go to a plumbers convention, here's a joke. If you go to this convention, here's a joke. If you go to do this for politicians...

Here's a joke. So this is what he was trying to do. He was trying to teach me how to have a certain sense of humor and how to use the jokes and how important it is to do the timing and all of that stuff. And he hung out with me all the time. He, of course, was a big cigar smoker. So we smoked cigars at Café Roma in Beverly Hills. He always would come by or we'd go over to his house and smoke or he comes over to my house and smoke. Then he would come to the set. I remember when I was doing like...

twins or kindergarten cop people come to the set as the inspector general kind of to check out if I'm doing okay with the humor otherwise he has to kick my ass you know he would come Ivan Reitman was directing yeah right and so he would come to the set and he would say how is the kid doing and then I would say he's doing okay he says okay good you know in those days he was smoking right there in the classroom in the in the movie you know kindergarten cop all the kids around yeah

He says, okay, good. He says, okay, director said you're doing well. Keep on working. And he would do this whole routine, like coming to the set to check me out to see if I can do my comedy and a comedic movie. So we had a wonderful routine. And even, you know, they wanted me to...

or maybe he wrote it in his will, I don't know. But someone, they said, Melody wants you to do a eulogy. So...

I said, okay. So I went out there and I said to myself, in a Milton Berle eulogy, well, you're going to be funny, right? Yeah. Maybe it was a little bit over the top. I have to admit it. Because I said, son of a bitch, I just closed the casket. I said, it took us fucking 15 minutes because he still had a big boner.

He was always known for his long schwanze. People always say you have a long schwanze. But this is all bullshit. The kitchen help is jerking me off right now. Of course I did that joke. We put the casket at the top of the casket. It was really hard because he still had a boner. People were laughing. I

You mentioned Ivan Wright, but you worked with a lot of great directors. Do you have favorites that you just loved? No, because it depends what the movie is, but that can tell you one thing. That the director's the answer. I don't ever think that you can pull off a movie without a really great director. I've had shitty directors, then the movie came out shitty, and he went in the toilet. And then the same actor, me...

was doing a movie with a great director like Jim Cameron or Paul Verhoeven or Ivan Reitman. All of those movies went through the roof. I mean, not because of me necessarily, but it was them understanding me and figuring out what I can do well, and they had me do it that way. And so I really thank the world of great directors. And, of course, what is not on the page is not on the stage.

Right? I mean, it's like you got to have it on a page. You got to have a good script and with a good script and a good director, you're pretty much home free. God. Yeah. You're...

You're just... I mean, I feel like I could talk to you for an hour. Another hour. And I know you have stuff to do. But you're just so... Like, I'm dying to one day to get the call and go, Bert, you and Tom want to have a cigar with me? And we're just out there smoking. What does your cigar regimen look like these days? When's your first cigar? I smoke one a day. Just one? Just one a day, yeah, exactly. Same time? No, I sometimes start after lunch.

with one, just smoke a half one, and then finish it off at night. Or sometimes just smoke one right after lunch, or smoke one just at night. I mean, it really depends. But I would say most of the cases, it is kind of like once a day, and sometimes none actually. You know, if I fly, or if I travel around, or if I'm inside, I never smoke when I'm inside. So sometimes it just doesn't

The thing is, when you're used to smoking and having a great time smoking a cigar, you don't want to spoil it with just smoking it anywhere. There's certain moments where you feel like, this is what I need to smoke a great cigar. I love, for instance, when I go into a new town,

And I light up a cigar in the car and tell the guy to drive me around for half an hour and show me the town. You know, just have the window open and to just look at the city and just smoke your stogie. And hopefully you have a buddy in there with you that also smokes one so then you have a good time. But I love smoking over at my house. We have a fireplace outside.

Favorite beverage with a cigar? Say again? Do you have a favorite beverage with a cigar? No. No, it could be coffee. Yeah. It could be water. It could be anything. Do you drink? It could be prune juice. Do you drink much? I don't drink much, no. I think that the first time I have had a glass of wine...

in a long time was just on Saturday when I had a Christmas party and it was Glühwein. Do you know what is Glühwein? Glühwein is like hot wine with cinnamon in it.

Oh, I think... And so there's an Austrian kind of a thing that you drink. Like ski chalets. That's right, yeah. Yeah, I've had it in Austria. And so it fools you because it's hot and because it's cinnamon in it, it doesn't taste like wine, right? It just tastes extra, kind of like almost like a dessert drink. And so you drink more. Oh, man. Yeah.

I got a nice buzz from that one. I needed a stogie just for that one to stay awake. That was wild. So that was really good. But I very rarely, just this much wine or this much schnapps or something like that. In the old days, we would start playing pool and after every pool game, we would have

a stumble schnapps so after 10 games there were 10 stumble schnapps right and they were the loser who always pay but I mean eventually I got to the point where I just after my heart surgery and stuff like that I couldn't really handle the alcohol anymore that much so now I do it in moderation yeah do you think about death at all about what death I try not to

Because, I mean, it sucks, right? Yeah. I think about it every morning. Oh, you do? He's obsessed with death. Yeah, yeah. No, I can understand it because the funny thing about it is that I think that the better off we are and the more fun you have in life, the more pissed off you get that eventually this is going to be taken from you. Yeah. Yeah.

And of course we don't know that it has been taken from you because it's over. But I mean, that also pisses me off. Yeah. Since everything pisses me off about the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, there's just nothing good about it. I feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world and that death will be the one unlucky thing. I know. I know. It sucks. It's like... Who was asking me to catch up about what did I think about how it's...

He asked me, he said, Governor, I suppose being governor makes you an expert in death. He says, tell me, what happens to us when we die? I said, the only thing I can come up with is we go six feet out and we rot. Right.

And he said, oh my God, welcome to Los Angeles. He was doing his show out in LA. It's the only thing that I know. Well, I mean, I will simply say your doc series on Netflix is outrageous. It's so good. It is really great. Your book is phenomenal. I can't reiterate this enough. It's a great book.

Especially if you have a young boy, and this is coming from my perspective. If you have an 18-year-old boy, you buy him this book. It is so good. And if you are looking to get in shape this New Year's coming up, get the pump. The pump is awesome, and the schmooze is you. You are writing the schmooze. It is very personal, and the comment section is wildly positive.

It is just people pumping each other up. Yeah, that daily newsletter too has so much information, has different perspective on what's going on in the country, fitness, everything. It's all great information, man. And you said when you were a child that you never felt Austrian. You felt like you were American. You felt like you belonged here. And I will just simply say like...

As an American kid, you are like my favorite American. Yeah, well, thank you. You're an American hero now. Yeah, you're an American hero. Well, really, you're so right about this because I always, as soon as I saw documentaries about America, I said to myself, man, I belong over there. I mean, the skyscrapers in New York, the Golden Gate Bridge, the highways in California, you know, the beaches and the whole thing, Hollywood.

I said, you know, maybe my mother had something going with an American soldier. I literally checked into it. I said, there's something of why I feel like I belong there and not here.

And it's just that somehow it didn't pencil out because the Americans never went down in Graz. It was the British soldiers that were in Graz. Yeah. Thank God you didn't go there. We're glad you're here, man. Hey, I better tell you, it was the most wonderful thing to eventually come over here with the age of 21.

And to have someone like Joe Weider that was generous enough to bring me over here and to set me up with an apartment and with a car when I came out here to Los Angeles. And to be able to train on Muscle Beach and to see Hollywood and to be in a mecca of bodybuilding and a mecca of show business. I mean, it was like unbelievable. It was like I was so happy. So it was...

I tell you, I would not switch my life with anyone's. That's all I can tell you. I always say no one should cry at my funeral because I've done it.

Like, I have done it. But when I look at your life, I'm like, Jesus, I still have work to do. Yeah. So you don't want anyone to cry at your funeral? No, I want everyone to cry. Really bad. Everyone to cry. Yeah, and also... People have to suffer. Yeah. He said he would be okay. How do we not go move forward without schnitzel? This is impossible. How are we going to move forward without schnitzel? Exactly. This is impossible. He said he would be okay with the world ending at his funeral. Exactly. That's funny. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah.

Arnold, thank you so much. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. No, it's always great. I mean, we should do this on a regular basis, you know. It works great. Get that down. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Get that down. It was great to see you. Thanks for spending time with us. Good luck with the 315 bench press. 315. You will do it. I will do it. Well, you will do it. I would wish you could be there. I was trying to organize it here at Gold's and get the boys out here. Okay, let's organize it. I'll see if I can. All right. Just wanted to show you.

He's got good height. Your father will be proud of you. Thank you. With a bicep like that. Yeah, come on. I mean, look at his. You ready for this? This is the size your arm was when you were 16. I went through your measurements. Your arm, at its biggest, 22 inches. This is 17 and a half. Chest, right now, you are five inches bigger than me at your biggest. Your waist and my waist, nine inches difference. Well...

Also, you have twins coming in the new year. That was below the belt. What kind of a partner is that? You're the best, man. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bert and Tom, Tom and Bert. One goes to the top, the other wears a shirt. Tom tells stories and Bert's the machine. There's not a chance in hell that they'll keep it clean. Here's what we call Two Bears, One Cave.