n the old days, days long gone, weight trainers practiced and cross-competed in three different and distinct iron sports: bodybuilding, powerlifting and Olympic lifting. These triple threat athletes ended up with physiques rugged beyond belief as a direct result. Sergio Oliva, The Myth, was an incredible athlete and selected for the Cuban Pan American team as a weightlifter. Arnold, unbeknownst to many, won the Bavarian powerlifting championships in his weight division and later that same year won the Munich Strongman competition. Bill Pearl and Reg Park could each squat 600 and bench press 500 using super-strict technique way back in the early sixties. John Grimek was the Babe Ruth of bodybuilding and competed in the 1936 Olympics as a weightlifter before going on to physique immortality.

Sometimes it’s good to go back over the bodybuilding basics. One basic tenant of the Parrillo Philosophy is in order to make maximum physical gains you have to train hard, train relentlessly, train consistently and above all else, train smart! It’s that last attribute, train smart, that trips up trainees new to bodybuilding. Intensity trumps everything and with training intensity you can even make gains using a dumb and senseless routine – for a while. On the other hand you might use the most sophisticated training routine known to man but unless you learn how to generate true gutbusting effort in the gym, nothing much will happen.