Mr. Olympia 2025

[RockyP]

it never ceases to amaze me how badly even the top professionals with allegedly competent coaches miss their peak by a mile. It’s almost as if he needed to try to fuck this up so badly. He looked much harder and less fridge-like a week out. Should’ve just coasted in. They swing for the fences and hit themselves in the ass with the bat.

One thing I will say about the rear double and the bellies...Anyone out there who competes knows this. There's a reason you practice posing so much. It's not just to nail the presentation, but you need stamina for posing. Some coaches pull cardio towards the end and just use posing to burn more calories and dry out. If you haven't tried posing rounds, I encourage you to do so. See how gassed you are at the end. These guys are lean, but they are not in good cardiovascular shape. When these posing rounds go long, they are dying... Panting, out of breath. And when that happens, we tend to belly-breathe (like infants do). If you are 285 lbs, that belly is going to go in and out a lot more than if you were a physique guy. It happens to all athletes. You see it on the football field with college guys who wear their jersey's half way up their torso like a belly shirt. You'll see the belly going in and out when they are breathing hard, but obviously its less motion than an open Super Heavy geared up BBer.

 

[dinfar1337]

you rarely see any classic competitors with a gut like that

you dont run into that problem in classic

you run into that problem eating 7000 calories abusing 20iu hgh 50 units insulin growing your organs like a motherfucker + the muscularity for longer periods of time over the years.

they simply dont need to run heavy stacks like that to push human limits in other divisions.

gi effects is just temporary.

 

[Eddie.]

you dont run into that problem in classic

you run into that problem eating 7000 calories abusing 20iu hgh 50 units insulin growing your organs like a motherfucker + the muscularity for longer periods of time over the years.

they simply dont need to run heavy stacks like that to push human limits in other divisions.

gi effects is just temporary.

Yeah no argue about that. There are a few cases of guys who manage to reverse the buble gut. Ben Pakulski did a great job, if he was able to do it i guess more pros can do it too.

 

[AlexDavis43]

Yeah no argue about that. There are a few cases of guys who manage to reverse the buble gut. Ben Pakulski did a great job, if he was able to do it i guess more pros can do it too.

View attachment 354605

Milos posted this on IG

I don't know what show this is from but it looks pretty recent

 

[desertchrome]

Yeah no argue about that. There are a few cases of guys who manage to reverse the buble gut. Ben Pakulski did a great job, if he was able to do it i guess more pros can do it too.

View attachment 354605

ben p is an amazing resource on gut health in general. definitely seems to be one of his obsessions, and this side by side is a testament to that.

i do think some guys have irreversible gut distention but i don't think all distended guts are the same. some are probably overloaded from poor diets and poor motility. ask a guy on prep how often he shits lol. also a lot of guys develop visceral fat from insulin abuse, hard to identify because subq fat dissipates and the visceral doesn't so guys think they are leaner than they really are. remember visceral fat is around the muscles/organs but also IN the muscles/organs to some degree.

a lot of talk recently around managing inflammation as well, and dieting around specific inflammatory foods. guys like ben p are preaching this stuff and peptides like KPV and oral BPC even are supposed to help with this in the gut specifically.

i truly don't believe 99% of bubble guys are literally the result of HGH "growing the intestines". if that were true the intestines would be the fastest growing muscles on these guys bodies!

 

[wp_375]

I think the gut thing is just as simple as using too damn much gear. Your waist is covered in muscles 360 degrees around. Steroids grow muscles. You flex all the muscles in your trunk constantly just by existing and if you do pretty much every exercise with weights on the planet you brace your core on every rep. So even if you do zero direct ab work they constantly get training stimulus regardless. I feel like that adds up quite a bit when you have dudes blasting 4-5g and never getting below 500-750mg on their "cruise".

 

[RockyP]

I think the gut thing is just as simple as using too damn much gear. Your waist is covered in muscles 360 degrees around. Steroids grow muscles. You flex all the muscles in your trunk constantly just by existing and if you do pretty much every exercise with weights on the planet you brace your core on every rep. So even if you do zero direct ab work they constantly get training stimulus regardless. I feel like that adds up quite a bit when you have dudes blasting 4-5g and never getting below 500-750mg on their "cruise".

I still think it's more GH / insulin - you didn't see this in Arnold's era and most of the 80's. This is all Doruan Yates' era forward. Some notable exceptions are flex wheeler and Kevin Levrone, but we are talking 0.000001% genetics now.

Ferrigno, Draper, Arnold, Sergio, Franco, those guys all had tiny waists, wide backs, thick chests, and big arms. They could also were normal-ish clothing for the most part.

 

[newguy2]

I still think it's more GH / insulin - you didn't see this in Arnold's era and most of the 80's. This is all Doruan Yates' era forward. Some notable exceptions are flex wheeler and Kevin Levrone, but we are talking 0.000001% genetics now.

Ferrigno, Draper, Arnold, Sergio, Franco, those guys all had tiny waists, wide backs, thick chests, and big arms. They could also were normal-ish clothing for the most part.

You think they are the food/carbs that guys eat today?

 

[RockyP]

You think they are the food/carbs that guys eat today?

Everything about modern era bodybuilding is much more excessive than it was pre Dorian. The dosages, the number of compounds, the food, etc. Most of Arnold's contemporaries have had normal life expectancies. The modern era guys not so much. Nasser died of multi-organ failure. Art Atwood died in his 30's. Tom Prince ended up on dialysis then died. Lots of other big guys people haven't heard of. Rich, Dallas, Luke Sandow.

 

[wp_375]

I still think it's more GH / insulin - you didn't see this in Arnold's era and most of the 80's. This is all Doruan Yates' era forward. Ferrigno, Draper, Arnold, Sergio, Franco, those guys all had tiny waists, wide backs, thick chests, and big arms.

Yeah, Golden Era dudes weren't blasting 5g a week either. In fact most of them were probably blasting less than guys cruise on now. People like to speculate "those guys used a lot of gear too" but unless all those dudes had a secret meeting together where they schemed to hoodwink everyone, their stories are way too consistent over too long a time for them all to be lying about what they were using. I think people just don't want to accept those guys built godly physiques on low doses because they might have to look in the mirror and wonder why they take 5 times as much and look half as good.

Instead of weight classes, bodybuilding should have gear classes. Under 500mg competitors here, 500mg to 1g competitors here..LMAO

 

[RockyP]

Yeah, Golden Era dudes weren't blasting 5g a week either. In fact most of them were probably blasting less than guys cruise on now. People like to speculate "those guys used a lot of gear too" but unless all those dudes had a secret meeting together where they schemed to hoodwink everyone, their stories are way too consistent over too long a time for them all to be lying about what they were using. I think people just don't want to accept those guys built godly physiques on low doses because they might have to look in the mirror and wonder why they take 5 times as much and look half as good.

Instead of weight classes, bodybuilding should have gear classes. Under 500mg competitors here, 500mg to 1g competitors here..LMAO

Most of those golden era guys didn't even use test (and no GH). It was deca, dbol, primo, and winstrol. And they had access to pharma grade. Take an elite athlete with great genetics and give them pharma grade 20 - 30 mg dbol, 300-400 primo, 200-300 deca, and some winstrol at the end, they're going to look very good.

 

[wp_375]

Most of those golden era guys didn't even use test (and no GH). It was deca, dbol, primo, and winstrol. And they had access to pharma grade. Take an elite athlete with great genetics and give them pharma grade 20 - 30 mg dbol, 300-400 primo, 200-300 deca, and some winstrol at the end, they're going to look very good.

Yep. Most of those guys in that era were a whopping 10-20 pounds over their genetic limit at most. Hardly unachievable with a few hundred mg of Deca/Primo, some orals and several years of hard work. I think the heaviest Arnold ever stepped on an Olympia stage was 235 at 6'2. And the smaller guys were in the 200ish range. I think Serge Nubret was around 190 stage weight and he looked absolutely massive

 

[RockyP]

Yep. Most of those guys were a whopping 10-20 pounds over their genetic limit at most. Hardly unachievable with a few hundred mg of Deca/Primo, some orals and several years of hard work.

There are audio recordings of Mike Mentzer's old nutrition lectures. They're gold. Some modern day coaches have circled back to pretend they are re-inventing the wheel (basically less protein than most guys think they need with a larger % of cals coming from carbs, even on a diet). You never saw the disgusting over eating that you see with pro's today. These guys never got terribly soft and like you said, they never needed to use tons of gear because they were not light years ahead of their genetic limits.

 

[adrenalytic]

nstead of weight classes, bodybuilding should have gear classes. Under 500mg competitors here, 500mg to 1g competitors here..LMAO

That's actually one of the better ideas I've heard. Too bad we don't have the tools to enforce such restrictions. Would be a cool way to see who really busts their ass and who just rides drugs the hardest.

 

[Tbaz192]

How times have changed….

 

[malfeasance]

it never ceases to amaze me how badly even the top professionals with allegedly competent coaches miss their peak by a mile. It’s almost as if he needed to try to fuck this up so badly. He looked much harder and less fridge-like a week out. Should’ve just coasted in. They swing for the fences and hit themselves in the ass with the bat.

One thing I will say about the rear double and the bellies...Anyone out there who competes knows this. There's a reason you practice posing so much. It's not just to nail the presentation, but you need stamina for posing. Some coaches pull cardio towards the end and just use posing to burn more calories and dry out. If you haven't tried posing rounds, I encourage you to do so. See how gassed you are at the end. These guys are lean, but they are not in good cardiovascular shape. When these posing rounds go long, they are dying... Panting, out of breath. And when that happens, we tend to belly-breathe (like infants do). If you are 285 lbs, that belly is going to go in and out a lot more than if you were a physique guy. It happens to all athletes. You see it on the football field with college guys who wear their jersey's half way up their torso like a belly shirt. You'll see the belly going in and out when they are breathing hard, but obviously its less motion than an open Super Heavy geared up BBer.

So . . . you are saying that he looked alternately like a bloated tick and then a thin-waisted ballerina every second or two, with each breath?

It was just breathing? His waist really is narrow, and his gut is not bloated, distended, disgusting looking?

 

[RockyP]

So . . . you are saying that he looked alternately like a bloated tick and then a thin-waisted ballerina every second or two, with each breath?

It was just breathing? His waist really is narrow, and his gut is not bloated, distended, disgusting looking?

No he looked awful. I’m saying that all bodybuilders hitting the back double will have that belly, just a matter of how big it is.

 

[malfeasance]

Yeah no argue about that. There are a few cases of guys who manage to reverse the buble gut. Ben Pakulski did a great job, if he was able to do it i guess more pros can do it too.

View attachment 354605

He had to get smaller to do it. I think he looks great smaller, but that look would not be rewarded by today's judges, and he is still too big and heavy for classic.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp8612YarVE


His size back in his prime for comparison:

 

[IndividualMan]

View attachment 354813How times have changed….

come on, comparing the bubble boy to "the gift" is not fair. Heath is clearly among the top 3 Open Physiques of all time, Conditioning, shape, even size puts him above almost anyone else.

 

[wp_375]

come on, comparing the bubble boy to "the gift" is not fair. Heath is clearly among the top 3 Open Physiques of all time, Conditioning, shape, even size puts him above almost anyone else.

Just about every single Mr Olympia from about 2017 all the way back to the mid eighties looks better than him...This will go down as one of the worst Olympias since Franco winning with obvious gyno and the "drug tested" Olympia.