“An Extra Thousand Sit-Ups”: Arnold Schwarzenegger Recounts Going a Step Further Toward His Ultimate Goal, Inspired by Former Herculean Mr. Universe

At the age of 15, when teens would focus on frolicking around, Arnold Schwarzenegger saw a goal and ran with it, as he wanted to be a bodybuilder. Schwarzenegger was determined to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Reg Park. In a recent podcast with Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman, and Will Arnett, the 76-year-old talked about everything under the sun that revolved around his life so far. Be it his entry into the bodybuilding industry or his prolific career as a governor, Arnie bared it all.

One of the noteworthy things he recalled was how dedicated he used to be toward his goal of becoming a bodybuilding sensation. The former bodybuilder’s philosophy behind his goals was simple: it’s easier to have a vision beforehand rather than someone suggesting a certain task or assignment to complete. He made an entire vision board of the sport, complete with posters of his idols on the wall.

“I always had fun going to the gym, lifting the weights… I was looking forward to an extra thousand set sit-ups and stuff like that because I knew that each one of those reps is going to get me one step closer in winning that title.”

Watching former Mr. Universe Reg Park on the stage and on the silver screen triggered the goal for Schwarzenegger, who believed he could do it too. Growing up in a small town in Austria, the challenge was to find someone who could hook him up to kickstart his dream into reality. Luckily for the Terminator, he found an ideal candidate, and that, too, right in his hometown.

“I met a guy that was actually Mr. Austria…There was a lake where I grew up, and he came down to that lake. So that’s where I met him, and he brought me to that weightlifting gym… So I became part of, uh, the weightlifting team.”

 

 

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Weightlifting turned into bodybuilding soon, and the Austrian Oak soon began training to his full potential. At 21, he finally landed in his dream country, the USA, to try his hand at Mr. Universe. However, across all the hurdles he needed to cross, the biggest ones began at home. Schwarzenegger’s parents were initially not very enthusiastic about their son’s odd dreams.

Arnold Schwarzenegger beat stereotypes surrounding his dream career

Bodybuilders back then would always carry the stereotypical label of a narcissist, owing to their obsession with aesthetics and their bodies. Belonging to a small town, Schwarzenegger saw these thoughts come to life once he embarked upon this journey.

 

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While his father, a police officer, deemed the act of looking at oneself in the mirror pointless and a waste of time, his mother went on a different tangent. Given his multiple posters of bodybuilding legends posing to show off their muscles, his mother, for a brief moment, thought that her son might be homosexual. Nevertheless, fighting these thoughts to move ahead, Schwarzenegger soon made his name as the star he always aspired to be.