The creation of a movie is usually spoken of as a collaborative effort, each artist and craftsperson adding to the jigsaw puzzle to create the finished film, but it really starts with someone’s evangelism for an idea. How often have we heard about a film that took 10-plus years from idea to screen, with someone’s sustained vision seeing it through? Not only must that vision—that passion—be sparked and sustained, but it must also be transferred to the other participants. It’s impossible to have a winning team without the players’ buying into a shared vision. What does that have to do with bodybuilding? Let me explain.

From the beginning of Iron Man in 1936, Peary and Mabel Rader were evangelists for the idea of bodybuilding, for the uniquely transformative nature of the enlightened use of the barbell. I believe that most of our readers are evangelists for the benefits of working out with weights. That’s what unites us and what inspires us to get into the gym and chase after that feeling that only the cold iron can give. As one reader said to me, the sound of the plates rattling is both seductive and addictive.

Our project, the transformation of ourselves, is like a movie in one respect—it’s collaborative. You are the director, the auteur, but if you don’t have a support group—friends, workout partners, family—who have bought into your vision, you will not reach your goals.

IRON MAN is a part of that collaborative side of the effort. Our goal is to present you with the best information possible and to inspire you with our passion expressed in words (scripts) and pictures (cinematography) to create your own movie. Bodybuilding is often described as a personal activity—solitary—to distinguish it from a team activity, but is it? You may be the one lifting the barbell, but you are not doing it alone. How many of us have workout partners? How would our own enthusiasm be sustained without their shared energy—and the energy of the gym itself. How many time have I heard that a gym’s “atmosphere” was a drag? Rarely does that comment have anything to do with the equipment. It’s the energy!

If you are really serious about the workout and getting optimal nutrition and supplementation, you want to share that information and passion with the people around you. By sharing, you become a part of the collaborative effort, and the creative energy is preserved and expanded.

Today, with social networks and blogging, it’s possible to be collaborative on an almost infinite scale. At IRON MAN we’re always attempting to expand our Facebook presence and increase our roster of expert bloggers at IronManMagazine.com. Recently, we added blogs by Tom Venuto, Jon Bensen, Shawn Phillips, Tom Terwilliger, Zach Even-esh, Nick Nilsson, Mike Geary, Kristi Frank and John Rowley. I know you will want to check them out.
Speaking of passion, no one exemplifies that more than this month’s cover man, Lee Labrada, who is in peak shape at 51. Amazing! Watch for his new column in the next issue of IRON MAN. IM

Is the workout a means to an end? In the strictest sense, the workout is an instrument that creates an effect. If you ask the average person in a gym why he or she works out, you’ll get a variety of answers from losing fat and gaining muscle to, “It’s good for my health.” For the most part the answers are accompanied by a passionless, lukewarm shrug.

Readers of IRON MAN are not those average Joes and Janes who think that exercise is some kind of prescription they have to choke down like vile cough syrup. Most of them have to convince themselves at every workout that it’s a means to an end. That’s the reason that so many people quit training: The cost-to-benefits ratio they bought into it did not include the intangible changes that every workout produces, if you are open to them.

While the enhancements may be intangible, they are real. Self-esteem is something that’s often mentioned as being enhanced by a weight workout. It is the “want” of young people as they begin their search for self, but it doesn’t end there. Over the long term, self-esteem is what we think of ourselves, and that intangible is at the heart of the way we feel.

Vince Gironda would always talk about how an exercise felt and how to maximize the focus of the movement to get the most out of every rep. Why? He knew that the feeling was important. Strength and muscle were fine, but the process was an indispensable part of the result. It may be a cliché, but it is nonetheless true: Self-esteem can only be earned. Only you can do the work, and that is what makes it literally a means to an end—and priceless. When you feel that you have had a good workout, it goes way beyond the transitory pump and has a very long half-life.

After the workout you think more clearly because the very act of focusing on the process precludes you from thinking about all of the “stuff” that is a part of your daily life. The workout is pure re-creation, a time capsule that allows rejuvenation. Along with the rejuvenation comes the positive feeling of accomplishment, which is the foundation of self-esteem. The result is that you feel better after the workout than before—more muscle, less fat. It’s not something that you can measure, but something positive has happened. Enjoy every minute of it. IM

The most memorable highlight of the ’11 Mr. Olympia competition was the postcontest emotion and character displayed by both the new Mr. Olympia, Phil Heath, and Jay Cutler, who had been the defending champion. I’ve known Jay and have observed his interaction with fans and friends, and what we all heard that night was absolutely a reflection of who he is.

I first met Phil when he won the IRON MAN Pro in 2008. My immediate and lasting impression of him was of a quietly confident and secure person. He was a gracious winner and joyously interacted with his fans.

Having Phil and Jay onstage and in a highly charged emotional state at the Olympia was a rare opportunity. We witnessed what a champion is and what he’s made of. Most of the time the champs are depicted in two-dimensional ways, all about muscle, workouts, nutrition and so on. Their “humanness” is hidden by the fantastic mounds of muscle, yet they’re not defined by muscle but by character—and Jay demonstrated plenty of that.
To hear Jay say that he was actually happy for Phil and then talk about Phil’s character and what a wonderful representative he would be for bodybuilding was to experience pure sportsmanship. Jay talked of Phil as his friend and how proud he was of him—truly goose-bump moments.

Because of Jay’s emotional eloquence, when he left the stage to Phil as the new Mr. Olympia, he did it as a champion—and to a standing ovation. Jay has so many fans for multiple reasons, not only because of his physique but also because the fans sense who he is. Phil was fighting back tears while Jay spoke, and when he took the microphone, he was equally eloquent about what the title meant to him and what an example Jay was.
Through all of this nobody left, everyone being transfixed by the emotion of the moment. Phil went on to thank all of the people who helped him along the way and said he couldn’t have done it alone. A great champ steps away and is replaced by someone who appreciates the joys of winning and friendship and understands the responsibility that goes with the title.

Congratulations to Phil on becoming the ’11 Mr. Olympia. If you want to experience the audio of these two champions at the microphone, scan the code on this page or go to IronManMagazine.com. IM

In mid-July I had the pleasure of being part of the celebration of the opening of the Joe and Betty Weider Museum at the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports on the spectacular campus of the University of Texas, Austin. Part of the pleasure of the event was being able to share the passion of the process that is bodybuilding. Some personalities express their passion in measured terms, but others simply can’t contain themselves. That leads me to Rich Gaspari, who is on this month’s cover.

I first met Rich when he was Lee Haney’s training partner. They were working out together at World Gym on Main Street in Santa Monica, and I was there to photograph the action. I didn’t know too much about Rich, but I did know a lot about Lee, whom I’d photographed many times. I was amazed at the chemistry between them. Here was someone who was training for the NPC Nationals partnered with the reigning IFBB Mr. Olympia—a measure of both Rich’s confidence and Lee’s openness. I found them to be the perfect team—Lee taught Rich what he knew about training and nutrition, and Rich drove Lee the way no one had ever driven him. They took each other to new places, and Rich went on to a spectacular pro career himself.

Fast-forward to 2011 and a crazy idea. While interviewing Rich at Muscle Beach on Memorial Day 2011—before he was inducted into the Muscle Beach Bodybuilding Hall of Fame—I noticed the vascularity in his forearms and commented on it. He explained that he was training as hard as he could, given the time constraints of running Gaspari Nutrition. I asked if he was interested in doing a cover. Rich is a perfectionist, driven by passion and an iron will, but could he possibly get into good enough shape to satisfy him? He would have to make it a priority, not easy when you’re the hands-on businessman that he is. “Let me think about it,” he said.

Two days later he sent me some casual gym photos to get my opinion of his present condition. He would do the cover only if he could do it “his way,” he said, which meant a classic contest-prep diet and laser-intensity focus on the photo shoot as if it were the Olympia. You can judge the results for yourself. It’s been 19 1/2 years since Rich appeared on the cover of IRON MAN, and now at 48 he’s doing it again in the only way he knows.

He said that revisiting this degree of intensity literally brought tears to his eyes because it rekindled memories of the many workouts with Lee. While I wasn’t in the gym this time to photograph Rich’s workouts, Mike Neveux did a masterful job of creating some memorable images. To go along with those photos, the inimitable Lonnie Teper got to the core of what makes Rich Gaspari what he is (see the interview on page 104). This month’s cover and interview are landmark efforts all around. IM

A special thank you to legendary photographer Jimmy Caruso for the unique, priceless photos of Arnold that appear in this issue. Jimmy is not only a consummate photo artist but also without peer in his ability to get the most out of every pose with his attention to detail.

Jimmy was instrumental in the creation and perfection of Arnold’s signature poses. To this day no one has displayed the twisting back pose as Arnold has. Some may show more muscle, but the elegance and flawless placement from Arnold’s toes to his head are very much the work of Caruso. Add to that the fact that Arnold is a good student. He understood that Jimmy’s talent was much more than just the ability to create a technically perfect photograph—he was a teacher as well. I saw other bodybuilders at those sessions who were reluctant to take Jimmy’s direction and never learned from him. Their attitude was, I’m the champ; who is he to tell me what to do?

That, of course, is one of the differences between Arnold and most bodybuilders—he immediately grasped that he could become better by listening to Jimmy. Not only that, but he acted on Jimmy’s coaching by practicing posing to perfection. You never saw Arnold hit a pose that wasn’t impeccably executed. If a pose wasn’t right for him, he simply didn’t do it.

I have shot Arnold many times. His posing was like the grooved swing of a pro golfer. Anyone who ever shot Arnold owes a part of the images that he or she created to the posing foundation that Jimmy Caruso built.

I had the privilege of being present at one of Jimmy’s classic studio sessions that took place in the early ’70s in New York after an Olympia contest. At the time I was a freelance photographer who shot mostly contests and the occasional outdoor session; I did not have a studio at the time. In my competition days—the late ’60s—I won a couple of best-poser trophies, so, naturally, I thought I knew something about posing. Sitting next to Jimmy as he orchestrated each pose was a revelation. While he used the finest photo and lighting equipment, those were just tools that recorded his vision. My strongest memory of watching him work that day is that Jimmy was the captain of the ship.

In 2002 IRON MAN awarded Jimmy the Art Zeller Award for Artistic Excellence. That was a privilege for me, as it honored both Art Zeller and Jimmy Caruso for their lifelong pursuits of the perfect image. IM

Up at 6, today is travel day, so Lilli and I worked out at 6:15, done at 7.

Breakfast at 7:30. I am trying to stay on a relatively low carb regimen, and limit my carbs to vegetables. This is very difficult with great breads, pastry and ice cream shops everywhere you walk. This breakfast was typical for me:  three poached eggs, smoked salmon, and sliced tomatoes. I have also brought along a large assortment of supplements from vitamin C to zinc. My backup food is Muscle Meals + my shaker.

These were the gym equipment available at our hotel, including the beautiful, winding staircase.