The Arnold Blueprint: Can a Natural Bodybuilder Survive This Iconic Workout?

Arnold Schwarzenegger is an icon of bodybuilding. In fact, no other athlete has done more to raise the profile of what has always been considered a fringe sport. Ever since his appearance in the 1970s documentary Pumping Iron, Schwarzenegger has been the face (and pecs and biceps) of bodybuilding and has seven Mr. Olympia titles to prove it.

However, Arnold wasn’t content with just being an athlete, and he soon set his sights on Hollywood. Despite his thick Austrian accent and almost unpronounceable surname, he became one of the most popular action movie stars of the 1980s and 1990s, and he’s still going strong.

Some of his most successful movies include:

• Conan the Barbarian (1982)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Commando (1985)
• Predator (1987)
• The Running Man (1987)
• Total Recall (1990)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
• True Lies (1994)
• Eraser (1996)

In addition to bodybuilding and movies, “the Austrian Oak” also held the governorship of California from 2003 to 2011 and the post of chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports for several years.

No one can ever accuse him of being a muscle-bound one-trick pony!

But, to his fans, Arnold Schwarzenegger will always be the greatest bodybuilder to ever have flexed their biceps. Many lifters have cited Schwarzenegger as the person who inspired them to start training.

And speaking of training, many people are fascinated by “the Governator’s” workouts and want to emulate him in the gym – just like my friend and personal training client, Dave.

Can a natural lifter handle the legendary volume of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training? We put one to the test to see if they could survive just one week!

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Iconic Workout Routine – An Overview

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s workouts are the stuff of legend. He trained with numerous partners, including Franco Columbu, Dave Draper, Frank Zane, Ed Corney, and Ken Waller, all of whom were bodybuilding champions in their own right.

He needed this support because, invariably, his gym sessions were incredibly long and arduous.

But, while Arnie is most commonly associated with high-volume training methods and split routines, he also created a classic full-body program called Arnold’s Golden Six, which is perfect for beginners and natural lifters.

I discussed these radically different training approaches with my client Dave, hoping to steer him toward the Golden Six routine. However, Dave was adamant that he wanted the full “Arnie experience,” so we ended up choosing the most iconic Schwarzenegger program we could find.

This comprised three workouts with each one done twice a week to give six days of training:

• Monday – Chest and Back
• Tuesday – Shoulders and Arms
• Wednesday – Legs
• Thursday – Chest and Back
• Friday – Shoulders and Arms
• Saturday – Legs
• Sunday – Rest

Workout 1 & 4: Chest and Back

Workout 2 & 5: Shoulders and Arms

Workout 3 & 6: Legs  

Of course, this is just one example of an Arnold Schwarzenegger workout routine. His actual training depended on many different factors, including which gym he was training at, who he was training with, and where he was in his competition calendar. That said, this program is an excellent representation of how Schwarzenegger trained in his prime.

A Week of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Iconic Workouts – A Natty’s Experience

Before starting any of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s workouts, the first thing I had to do was make sure natty bodybuilder and personal training client Dave was warmed up and ready to work.

Warming up is a critical part of any workout as it prepares your muscles and joints for what you are about to do. This helps lower the risk of injury while optimizing workout performance.

To that end, Dave did ten minutes of stationary cycling followed by dynamic mobility and flexibility exercises for the body parts we were about to train that day. He also did a couple of high-rep, low-load sets of the first 1-2 exercises to really get his lifting juices flowing.

Read more about how to warm up for strength training here.

Workout 1 – Chest and Back: A High-Volume Shock to The System!

Like many bodybuilders, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classic training routine starts with a chest workout. However, in the name of muscular balance, he trained his back today, too. Chest and back are both large muscle groups, so this workout was going to be tough for Dave, who usually trained these muscles separately.

We started our workout with four sets of flat bench presses, pyramiding up in weight as we went. Pyramids were one of the Austrian Oak’s favorite training methods and a great starting choice as they act as an extended warm-up.

After flat bench presses, it was time to move onto incline bench presses, dumbbell flyes, and pullovers, each exercise also done for four sets. Reps were performed briskly but never rushed, and with lots of focus on the all-important mind-muscle connection.

On completion of the pullovers, I led Dave over to the lifting platform for his first set of barbell deadlifts. Again, we did four pyramid sets, increasing the weight as we went. Many lifters view the deadlift as a leg exercise, which, of course, it is. However, it also delivers a huge back workout, so it makes sense that some people view it as a lat exercise.

Doing pull-ups after deadlifts was a real challenge for Dave, as his forearms were shot. Consequently, he used wrist straps to reinforce his grip so he could power through four AMRAP sets. After pull-ups, it was onto T-bar rows and, finally lat pulldowns, all of which were done for four sets.

After 16 sets of chest and 16 sets of back training, Dave was done in, but we weren’t finished, as we still had to work his abs. Thankfully, this involved just two exercises – old-school decline sit-ups and hanging leg raises. That said, four sets of each exercise is still a lot of work, and Dave’s abs were on fire by the end.

Workout 2 – Shoulders and Arms: Bringing the Pump and The Pain

Training chest and back one day and shoulders and arms the next means doing two upper body workouts back-to-back. While this might be fine for seven-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger, it presented a huge challenge for natty bodybuilder Dave, whose biceps, triceps, and shoulders were still tired from yesterday’s gym session.

Still, that was what Schwarzenegger’s program called for, so that’s what we did!

Today’s workout kicked off with overheard presses, which I interpreted as seated barbell presses. To ease Dave into this exercise we used the same pyramid approach as yesterday, increasing the load set-by-set.

From there, we moved onto a series of dumbbell raises to isolate each deltoid head – front, side, and rear. While not as strenuous as overhead presses, short rests meant that Dave’s shoulders were pumped and burning from the get-go. Dave’s final shoulder exercise was the Arnold press, a classic deltoid exercise named after Mr. Schwarzenegger himself.

With the shoulder workout finished, it was time to move on to every bodybuilder’s favorite body part to train – the arms. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s arms were beyond compare, and I knew that Dave was really looking forward to training his biceps and triceps.

Unfortunately, any good feelings Dave had about working his arms quickly vanished when he realized just how tired these muscles were. The combination of training back and biceps yesterday and shoulders today meant that he had very little gas left in the tank.

To accommodate this, we reduced both the weights and number of sets to ensure Dave would be able to complete the final part of this workout. While a little disappointed, Dave still got a sleeve-splitting pump, and his forearm and biceps veins stood out like fat worms!

Workout 3 – Legs: “I’m Going to Be So Sore Tomorrow!”

At the start of his career, Arnold Schwarzenegger was criticized for his lack of leg development. It’s not that he didn’t train his legs; it’s just he trained his upper body more! Under the tutelage of the “Master Blaster” Joe Weider, Arnie changed his ways and turned a weakness into one of his strengths.

Unlike many of today’s bodybuilders, who favor leg presses to sculpt their massive quads and hamstrings, Schwarzenegger built his leg workouts around squats – conventional back and front squats. In fact, this workout routine features both of these lower body mass builders.

Like most of my personal training clients, Dave has a love/hate relationship with squats. They love how transformative the king of exercises is but hate how hard they are. We normally only do one type of squat per workout and doing back and front squats together would push Dave to his limits.

As before, we used the pyramid method to ease Dave into his workout. But, even so, front squats after back squats were a real killer. Still, as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Dave was all but done after squats but still had to suffer through machine hack squats, leg extensions, and leg curls before things started to get a little easier. The workout ended with seated and standing calf raises which, despite being isolation exercises, didn’t provide much respite for natty lifter Dave who was now very short of energy.

Workouts 4-6 – And the Hits Keep on Coming!

If the first half of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic training routine pushed Dave to his limit, the second half took him way beyond that point. The latter part of the week involved repeating workouts one, two, and three while striving to maintain or even improve his performance.

That’s a big ask for a pro bodybuilder, but, for a natty like Dave, was an impossible task.

Still, Dave asked to train like Arnie, so that’s what he did, and we completed the next three workouts to bring his week of training like the Austrian Oak to an end.

Needless to say, Dave had to battle extreme tiredness and soreness to complete his challenge, and when I asked him if he planned on continuing this routine the following week, his answer was a simple, “No frickin’ way!” 

Closing Thoughts

Bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger was a gifted athlete with perfect bodybuilding genes. That’s not to say he didn’t have to train incredibly hard to achieve his many successes. Rather, it just means he was able to push himself through and recover from workouts that will crush the average natural lifter.

Dave is no slouch in the gym and has built a respectable physique. He trains hard and often, paying plenty of attention to diet and recovery. But, despite this, following Schwarzenegger’s routine for just one week left him feeling tired and overtrained.  

So, in conclusion, while it’s tempting to train like the greats, remember: Your routine should be personalized to your recovery ability and fitness goal. Instead, it’s usually best to follow a more conservative program written for recreational bodybuilding.

Have you tried a pro’s routine? How did it go for you? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Related: I Tried Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Classic Bodybuilding Routine for 30 Days — Here’s My Transformation

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