The Technique

In 1970, Arnold Schwarzenegger entered Mr. Olympia and won. He would win it seven times total before retiring undefeated. He is the most successful competitive bodybuilder in the history of the sport.

He won, in part, because he took ballet lessons.

(I want to be clear about what I mean when I say "ballet lessons." I mean actual ballet lessons. Classical ballet. The kind where you stand at a barre and learn to move your body in ways that require the specific muscles bodybuilding was supposed to be about. The kind of lessons the sport of bodybuilding had not traditionally considered necessary.)

Arnold's coaches recommended it. He did it. The purpose was stage presence — how to inhabit your own physique in front of judges, how to move in a way that made the muscle visible rather than just present. The judges at Mr. Olympia, it turned out, preferred the men who had learned this. Arnold was the man who had learned this the most.

Here is what happened next: the sport of bodybuilding did not incorporate ballet into its training methodology. Arnold won seven Mr. Olympia titles and then went on to become the most famous action star in the history of cinema, and the sport of bodybuilding continued to be a sport where the relevant knowledge was officially: weights.

The men who lost to Arnold also lifted weights. They had the same information. What they didn't have was the ballet.

(I have reviewed the historical record. I cannot find evidence that a single gym has put "ballet training" on the schedule next to "back day" and "leg day." The current Mr. Olympia champions train in many sophisticated ways. I did not find ballet in the literature. I found nutrition protocols. I found split routines. I found the ongoing debate about whether to train on an empty stomach. Nobody has apparently gotten to the question of the barre.)

The only conclusion available here is that the sport of bodybuilding has decided that its greatest champion's winning technique was a personal eccentricity that does not apply. This is called learning from the data. The sport has been doing it for fifty-five years.

The answer, clearly, is for bodybuilders to study ballet. This will not happen. The sport has a self-concept to maintain. Arnold has not issued further recommendations. He appears to have decided this was the audience's problem to solve.