There can be only one—the most aesthetic male physique of all time. Nearly seven decades after he last posed on a dais, Steve Reeves is still champ. In fact, as a reaction against the modern bigger-is-better ethos, he’s only solidified his status. Today, the original Hercules is the archetype for the classic physique division. Long ago and with only simple tools and food, Reeves constructed history’s most perfect body. How did he do it, and what lessons can be applied to your workouts today?
THE MOST CLASSIC PHYSIQUE
He seemed like something conjured up in an artist’s workshop. Joe Weider effused, “Steve Reeves was the male ideal of physical perfection.” After witnessing the 21-year-old Reeves shortly before he won the 1947 Mr. America, a writer in Your Physique magazine (the precursor of FLEX) raved, “I, personally, proclaim him to be the finest specimen of American manhood I have ever seen in a kid of his years. He hasn’t a single weak spot in his make-up…He seemed from out of this world, just as though a super-man had suddenly appeared on a pedestal.”
When he won the 1950 Mr. Universe over future legend Reg Park, he was only 24, but the 6’1″ 220-pounder had reached the pinnacle of bodybuilding, competitively and aesthetically. Because his face was as perfectly chiseled as his physique, Hollywood noticed. However, despite a few small movie and TV roles, American producers never figured out what to do with someone so distractingly handsome and, by pre-steroid standards, colossal. Maybe he could play only a god. In 1957, Reeves traveled to Rome to star in what he thought would be just some Italian kid’s movie. But Hercules was a smash hit in Europe and, in 1959, in America, too, launching its star to international fame.
A successful sequel quickly followed, and so did a deluge of Italian-made, sword-and-sandal flicks, some starring Reeves, some starring other musclemen. Via big screens, Reeves became bodybuilding’s worldwide ambassador, even if few fans ever heard his real voice. A generation of boys, including a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, came of age wanting to be Hercules, and many spent their allowances on barbells. In the late ’60s, Steve Reeves retired with his wife to their California ranch. Though he died in 2000, he’s still celebrated for what many regard as the prototypical muscular physique.
Here are the 12 principles that turned a skinny teen into the best bodybuilder, a superstar, and enduring legend.
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48 HOURS OFF
Reeves scheduled his full-body sessions, which consisted of 35 to 40 sets, for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We’re going to modernize his “non-split” a little and divide the body into three distinct routines.
Nevertheless, those three workouts will remain diverse—incline presses and deadlifts in one, for example—and we’ll stick with a similar workload per session and maintain his pattern of resting at least 48 hours between trips to the gym.
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PERFECT FORM
In the opinion of Hercules, cheating was not a virtue. Sets consisted of flawless reps with a cadence of two seconds up and three seconds down.
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MODERATION
Most sets were kept in the ideal growth range of eight to 12 reps. Sometimes he went higher, but he almost never went lower.
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PROGRESSION
One training tenet that preceded even Steve Reeves, who was born 93 years ago, is progressive resistance, which is a fancy way of saying always trying to get stronger.
The 1950 Mr. Universe didn’t push his sets beyond failure with various techniques (most of which weren’t even named yet), but he was fixated on racking up more reps in the eight-to-12 range. When he could get 13, he upped the weight the next time.
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ALTERNATE ANTAGONISTICS
Working his whole body in one 90-minute routine, Reeves couldn’t help but stress one diverse body part after another.
However, he still arranged exercises so that one movement often followed its antagonist, such as rows (pulling movement for back) after bench presses (pushing movement for chest).
Our routine also pairs up antagonists: chest with back, biceps with triceps, and quadriceps with hamstrings.
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LIFT LARGE LATE
Reeves saved his most taxing exercises, squats and deadlifts, for the home stretch of his routine. This had three advantages.
Second, he could put his all into those demanding lifts and not have that effort diminish his strength and energy reserves for other exercises.
Third, along with the fact that he hit an eight-rep minimum, he could go lighter while still giving his all, reducing injury risks.
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MOSTLY FREE WEIGHTS
Teenage Steve Reeves began creating his masterpiece with only dumbbells and a barbell in the garage of his stepfather’s house in Oakland, CA, and, even when he found his way into the rare gym 70 years ago, the most sophisticated machine was a primitive, plate-loaded, cable-and-pulley device.
So, needless to say, he constructed arguably the greatest physique of all time almost entirely with free-weight and body-weight lifts.
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TAKE A STAND
When Reeves had a choice between hoisting a weight seated or standing, he stood to incorporate as many muscles as possible.
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SHAPE-SHIFT
He was forever focused on his physique’s silhouette: wide shoulders, slim waistline, proportionate development. One of the elements of his workouts—rib cage expansion by supersetting pullovers and high-rep “breathing squats”—was misguided. Don’t waste time trying to alter your skeletal structure. On the other hand, another component—the ab vacuum (pulling your waist in as far as possible and holding for 20 to 40 seconds)—is a relic that deserves to be resurrected.
He avoided oblique exercises for fear of widening his waist. Similarly, he did no shrugs, believing a sloping trapezius made his shoulders appear narrower. (His traps were worked with upright rows and deadlifts.) He did, however, train his neck, on occasion, so you may want to add “necking” to your routine to seem Herculean even in a suit and tie.
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POWER WALKING
As was the norm back in the day, Reeves did only occasional cardio during the years when he flexed on bodybuilding stages or movie sets. However, in the ’80s, when he was in his 50s and prioritized fitness, he popularized power walking. This is a rapid jaunt performed with long strides and pendulum-like arm swings, ideally while holding light dumbbells. With plenty of room to roam on his ranch, Reeves went for such moderate-intensity marches year-round. Think of any outdoor legwork—including jogging—as Hercules-style cardio.
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STAY LEAN
Reeves’ diet was a product of a time when much less was known about sports nutrition. A greater emphasis on protein and more, small meals emerged in bodybuilding circles only in the ’50s in conjunction with the first protein powders. Before then, Reeves ate three meals daily, with a 60-20-20 ratio of carbohydrates, protein, and fat, and with lots of fruit. He kept his calories relatively low and correctly avoided table sugar and white flour.
As a result of his diet, he was both smoother and leaner than today’s bodybuilders. Though he never attained the peeled conditioning of modern champs, he also never bulked up and chased ever larger numbers on the scales like too many modern champs. Allow yourself to get too soft and you’ll reverse engineer what should be a work of sculpture into a big block. This can potentially stretch out your abdominal wall, and it will hinder your ability to remain focused on improving your silhouette, shape, and proportions—unlike Steve Reeves, so long ago.
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THE EVERYTHING WORKOUT
“When you work your whole body in each workout, it forces you to think about symmetry. Your focus is always on the whole and not the parts,” Reeves said.
When the future Hercules was expanding, he hit everything every time. He usually did three sets of an exercise before moving to the next. He went fast, resting only 45 seconds between sets. In a typical workout, he did the following 10 exercises, each for three sets of eight to 12 reps: upright row, bench press, one-arm dumbbell row, dumbbell side lateral, military press, triceps pushdown, barbell curl, dumbbell incline curl, back squat, barbell pullover.
Then he performed one superset of breathing squats (20 reps) and breathing pullovers (20 reps)—deep-breath exercises done, erroneously, to expand the rib cage. He wrapped it up with deadlifts and good mornings, each for two sets of eight to 12. An intense everything assault can hold you over for a week.
Keep total sets at 40 or fewer. This means you won’t have the luxury of exhausting muscles with 12 sets of isolation moves. Focus on compound exercises, and push to failure.
