![]() ![]() ![]() He helps push you through the pain periods. It's like any other sport: You have to do what nobody else can do, and the only way is to push yourself past the limit. SCHWARZENEGGER: I look forward to it, and when it starts, I tell myself that I have to go through this because damn few people can. If you can't go through that pain period, that dead point, then competitively you won't make it. That's where the satisfaction is: in going that one step further. When you lift weights, there's a certain point in the repetitions at which it really starts aching-where you can't go on any further, and the body starts shaking, and you know you have to press one more time. SCHWARZENEGGER: Absolutely not at least, not the way most people think. I had to discipline myself to learn English, but never to train. Do you have to discipline yourself to have breakfast, lunch or dinner? Of course not and so discipline-the usual concept of it-doesn't apply here. Oui: You lift five and six tons daily because you enjoy it? ![]() Discipline is what you use when you don't want to do something, when you have to force yourself. I'm constantly amazed when people ask me about discipline. SCHWARZENEGGER: No, because having a good time is not nearly so damaging as people think. Oui: Was your training affected by the drinking and screwing around? Then an American promoter wired me to come and compete in the States. I was an innocent boy from a farm town, but I grew up fast in Munich. I was living in Munich at the time, hanging out with night people-entertainers, hookers and bar owners-and I had a girlfriend who was a stripper. The title itself wasn't so important to me as the lifestyle it brought with it. Universe title-which, in fact, I did win a year later. It was my first competition and, even though it was the junior division, I instantly felt like King Kong, as if I'd already won the Mr. SCHWARZENEGGER: When I was 18 and still in the army, I entered the European body-building championship and won. ![]() Oui: When was this visionary sense of yourself confirmed? It was just like having a vision-you know, like when you hear a person say, "I saw Jesus and he talked to me, and now I'm so happy with life because I know I'm going to be taken care of," and all of a sudden he's relaxed, he's not haunted anymore-well, it was like that. SCHWARZENEGGER: A dream, yes, though not at night. I had no idea, really, of what a stage even looked like, but I saw myself standing there, posing and winning. By the time I was 15, though, I had a vision of absolutely wiping everybody off the stage. But in Austria, the mentality was the reverse winning against the Americans was unthinkable. Theirs was a mental superiority, the feeling that they owned the title. SCHWARZENEGGER: No, it was because the Americans had all the confidence. Oui: Why were the Americans so successful? Was it a question of having more money? Universe had come from America and, as it later turned out, I was the first one to break that pattern. The basic problem, though, was that the Americans had an enormous advantage. He was publicized in the muscle magazines as a businessman and movie star, and the combination of the two so impressed me that all I could think of was winning the Mr. He's an Englishman who now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and he was my idol. SCHWARZENEGGER: There was a guy named Reg Park. Oui: But, at the time, were there really any bodybuilders who were making a living from the sport? Sports, I thought, was the only way to act out. I became determined to make it without working from nine to five. My father was the local police chief and he led a very regular life. I'd look out my parents' window and see people talking over a cup of coffee for two hours or more, and I knew it wasn't for me. As time passed, I began to see it as a way out of Austria, an escape from the everyday life around me. I was just locked into the idea of winning the world championship in body building. Oui: Did you have any idea then that body building would eventually bring you fame and fortune? They couldn't see any future in the sport but there I was, lifting weights two or three hours every day. They even thought of sending me to a psychiatrist. I didn't get into body building until I was 15, and, at the time, my parents thought I was crazy to get deeply involved with something for which there was so little precedent in Austria. What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys. SCHWARZENEGGER: It means that I'm somebody special. Why? What does having the world's greatest body mean to you? Oui: You've spent most of your life turning your body into a model of excellence. ![]()
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