Steeve Reeves

7/28/2019 Steeve Reeves

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Although his image and bodybuilding career are inextricablylinked with California, Steve Reeves was actually born in Glasgow,Montana, on January 21, 1926. His father died tragically when Stevewas only a toddler; and his mother moved with her young son to GreatFalls, Montana, where for the next eight years she worked as a cook in

a hotel. When Steve was 10, he and his mother moved to Oakland,California, and it was there that he started weight training at age 16.

He won the Mr. America contest in 1947 in Chicago; just asimportantly, a theatrical agent saw him in that show and suggested heenroll in acting school. By the time Reeves won the Mr. Universe titlein 1950, it was clear to anyone who looked at him that this stunninglyhandsome, extraordinarily built man was something beyond special.But it took six to seven years from the time he retired from physiquecompetition before he made it big in the movies. The picture that did it

for him was "Hercules", filmed in Italy. A series of other successfulItalian-made movies followed, including "Hercules Unchained," "TheThief of Baghdad" and "Morgan the Pirate." In 1959 he was thenumber-one box- office star in the world.

A shy, private man who never really sought or enjoyed the

spotlight, Steve Reeves made his last film in 1971 and returned hometo the U.S. and life as a gentleman rancher and breeder of championMorgan horses-his family on his mother's side are prominent ranchersin Montana to this day First, he operated a ranch in Oregon; now helives the good life, looking more like 49 than 69, his actual age, on a

10-acre ranch in northern San Diego county in southern California.Widowed five years ago when his wife of 25 years passed away, heand his fiance, Deborah, plan to marry soon.

On his parents, from whom he inherited his unparalleled genes

I guess as far as the physique aspect is concerned, I took aftermy father. He was 61", weighed 200 pounds of solid muscle withoutever working out in his life. He had wide shoulders and was extremelystrong. And we look quite a bit alike. I may be just a little bit more

refined looking than him in the face, but otherwise we look very muchalike. In other words, without ever working out, my father was builtlike I am now- not like I was built when I was in championship form, ofcourse.

My father's name was Lester, which is my middle name. He wasborn in Minnesota and raised in Montana. He was a rancher, butmainly his family was in the construction business. He was killed when


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part. And I would choose people to emulate-oh, I'd say, 1 want tohave legs like John Grimek, arms like John Grimek, lats like AlanStephan, definition like Clancy Ross." In other words, I would choose agroup of people to emulate, not just one person. And when I workedout, I would concentrate deeply on the exercise I was doing and the

muscle I was working. I would picture those strands of muscle workingand getting bigger. I'd put myself into almost a hypnotic trance when Iwas working out. And I never knew it was difficult to get a physique,so I wasn't held back in that respect. Nobody said, "Oh, that's going tobe difficult." In fact, in the first four months I worked out, I gained 30pounds of solid muscle. I went from 163 to 193. Of course, from 193to 203 took me a whole year.

But anyway, I was always encouraged because [laughs] I wasgrowing in leaps and bounds, and it seemed like it was impossible tofail. So I was an easy gainer in that respect. I think it was myknowledge of exercises and the deep concentration I had. In otherwords, I tried to get a real good line of communication between thebrain and the muscle. In fact, my saying is, No brain, no gain-not, Nopain, no gain. I would concentrate very deeply, so I would be workingthat muscle only and get every rep out of it possible. Also, I would domy exercises real strict, real correct. You know, slow and perfect form-no cheating.

That meant I wouldn't use any more weight than I could handlein strict form. I mean, I would use as much weight as I could and hit

every rep, but it had to be perfect form and flow. I could have usedmaybe 10 to 20 pounds more on some exercises if I wanted to, but Iwould have had to have a little push here, a little cheat there, a littlebend there. And I didn't believe in that. What I did also is, I practiceda lot of muscle control. Because if you can control those muscles andmake them flex and jump and this and that, when you go to do theexercise, that mind-and-muscle connection is already there. You seewhat I mean? You have a stronger connection than a person whodoesn't do muscle control.

On his typical routine in the late '40s

To me it wasn't the sport of bodybuilding; it was the science ofbodybuilding. I have kind of a scientific-type mind, so I wouldapproach it as the science of bodybuilding rather than the sport ofbodybuilding. In my training I would choose three different exercisesfor each muscle group and stick with those, rather than doing a largevariety of exercises. So my approach was three sets of three-three


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sets of three exercises for the deltoids, three sets of three exercisesfor the pecs, etc.

My reps would be eight to 12. I'd start at eight reps with a certainweight and work up to 12. When I got up to 12, I would add five or 10

pounds, depending on whether it was a dumbbell or barbell, and startat eight again and work up to 12. Anyway, for the deltoids I would doupright rowing, press behind the neck and bent-over laterals. For thepecs I would do wide-grip bench presses, really wide-almost to thecollars-followed by incline dumbbell presses and then a flye motion; inother words, dumbbell flyes or wall-pulley flyes. And for the back, thelats, I would do the wide chins behind the neck, seated pulley andone-arm rowing.

For triceps I would do push-downs, followed by a lying Frenchpress in which I would hold two dumbbells above me, palms in, curlthem down to my ears and then come back up again while keeping myelbows straight up and motionless. Then I would do the French press-you know, behind the neck-with a single dumbbell, holding on to theplates. For biceps I ended up doing only incline bench curls, which Iinvented. At one time I would do regular curls, but I found that inclinedumbbell curls were so effective, I dropped everything else and didthis exercise exclusively. So this is where I changed my routine.Instead of doing three sets of three exercises for the biceps, I woulddo nine sets of one exercise.

Thighs, I would do half-squats, which are called parallel squatstoday. I used to use a stool, a very substantial stool that was just theright height, so when I touched the top of the stool, I'd know it wastime to come back up again. And I'd do this exercise quite heavy. Iwould follow this with hack lifts, where you hold a barbell in back ofyour thighs. Then I would do front squats with my heels raised a fewinches and the weight held in the clean position. In other words, thebar held across the upper chest, mainly supported by the palms of myhands.

For my calves I would only do toe presses on a leg pressmachine. This is not a bodypart I emphasized very much. My calveswent from 16 1/4 to 17 1/4 just from training my thighs and gainingweight in the rest of my body. I did work them from 17 1/4 to 181/4by using the leg press. I'd raise the weight up above me and thenwork the calves by moving my toes back and forth-as high as I couldget the weight and as low as I could get it. I didn't do the standard calfraise, because I didn't like it that well. And I didn't have that


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apparatus [the calf raise machine] to begin with; that came later. Wedidn't have those in the late '40s. I'd also do good mornings-in otherwords, forward bends-for the lower back. At one time I did somedeadlifts for the lower back, but then I just went to forward bendsafter that. I didn't work the abdominal area. I figured I didn't need it.

Because every exercise you do, you tense the abdominals. Like whenyou're doing pushdowns for the triceps, your abdominals are reallytensed. I also didn't work my abdominals because I didn't want mywaist to get any bigger, and it stayed nice and lean and tense just bydoing all those other exercises.

This is the routine I stayed with for two or three years-all thetime was trying to build my body for championship form. This wasback in '46, '47, '48. I trained my whole body every workout. I'd workas hard as I could for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Whatever it took. Thesplit system of training camelater, but I don't believe in that approachanyway. I think if you really train hard, you use up everything- yournervous energy and all the rest of your energies. So you need torecuperate the next day. Recuperation is just as important as training.I'd train three days a week and rest four. I'd train the entire bodyalmost to failure, then take the next day off.

On his strength Capability

I'd say I had medium strength. I never went in for super strength,because if you get the tendons and ligaments too strong, then the

muscles are not going to develop as fast. Because the tendons andligaments will do all the work for you. That's my approach. That's mytheory. I was always as strong as I wanted to be. I could have beenmuch stronger if I wanted to be, but I wanted to have a classic-typephysique, and to get much stronger I would have had to enlarge thesize of my waist, my buttocks, my trapezius and do things I didn'twant to do. Those are the three power places-your glutes, yourwaistline and your traps. I didn't want to enlarge those to be super-strong. I was considered strong but not superstrong.

On his body measurements during his peak as a bodybuilder

I was 61" and 2l5 when I was in my best condition. My chestwas 52, my waist 29, and my calves, arms and neck were all 18 1/4. Iforget what my thighs were-maybe 26 1 / 2, 27. I don't know. I thinkmy wrist was only 6 1/4.

On his training during the time he was a movie star


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I maintained my physique by weight training only one month a

year. It wasn't difficult for me to get a physique, and it wasn't difficultto maintain it. It wasn't something that you had to pump, pump, pumpto get and you lay off for two months and it went- pssst, like air out of

a tire-back down again. It was nothing like that. It went up fast and itstayed there a long time without much maintenance.

The reason I didn't train more during that time is, I didn't haveany facilities in most of the places we were filming. But the mainreason, I guess, is that in motion pictures they don't want you too big,because the camera puts 15 pounds on you as it is. If I'd been too big,I'd only have been able to play the part of Hercules. I wouldn't havebeen able to star in "Thief of Baghdad," "Morgan the Pirate," "The LastDays of Pompeii" and other pictures. In fact, when I was in my mid-20s and I'd go to studios like Universal, they'd tell me, "Well, guy, youhave a great-looking face, but that body is just too big. We can't useyou- I mean, if you just had a normal body, with a face like that we'dput you under contract with Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. But withthat physique we might be able to find one picture a year for you atthe most." So my physique actually held me back in the actingbusiness for the first 10 years of my life after bodybuilding.

On how he got the role of Hercules in Italy

Well, I had done a couple of pictures here in the States . I did a

picture called "Jailbait" with this guy Ed Wood, There was a picture outlast year about Ed Wood-you might have heard of it. He was adirector. That's how I got my Screen Actors Guild card. I played ayoung detective, and there was only one scene where I had my shirtoff. The rest of the time I was in a shirt, tie and suit. Then after that Igot the role of Jane Powell's boyfriend in a picture called "Athena," amusical comedy at MGM. So I did that, and nothing much happened inthe States here for me afterwards. But in Italy this director, PietroFrancisci, had written a script for "Hercules" and was going to direct it.He'd been looking for an actor for five years and couldn't find anybody.

You know, in Italy he could find a guy who was good-looking, but hewasn't tall. Or he was good- looking and tall, but he was skinny. Orfat. Or something. He just couldn't find a guy who had the physique, agood-looking face, had a little acting experience and was tall.

One day his daughter, who was 13, went to the movies and saw mein "Athena." I played a Mr. Universe in that picture. And she wenthome and said, "Daddy, I think I found your Hercules." So he went to


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the movies the next day, he pictured me with a beard, a few yearsolder and things like that. Then he contacted me, and we negotiatedfrom there.

On movies vs. bodybuilding

When I started doing films at the age of 31, I told myself, "By age45 1 want to earn enough money so I can retire-I want to retire at 45and get a 20-year start on most people to do exactly what I want todo in life." And that's exactly what I did. Being an actor, being a star,wasn't my cup of tea. It was stressful for me, let's put it that way Andthe thing is, I would never have left bodybuilding if there was anymoney in it. But there was no money in it back then. If I had beenpaid to do it professionally, just work out and have a bunch ofproducts I could endorse and things like that, then I would havestayed in bodybuilding. But there was no way for me to make a livingin it.

So I thought, "Well, to make a living you have to be some kind ofactor or professional athlete or something like that." So it came downto, "Well, I guess I'll be an actor. Everybody has been telling me Ishould be all my life." And everybody always thought I was.Everywhere I'd go people would ask me if I was, and I'd say, "No, I'mnot. No, I'm not. No, I'm not." One day I thought to myself, "Well,maybe I should be." You know, you put the person in the part longenough, eventually they're going to play it.

His impressions of John Grimek and Sergio Oliva

Well, I've known John Grimek for many years, and as a person Ifind that he's always up- he's always jolly and positive about things inlife. And as far as physique is concerned, he was our idol. Particularly Iwas impressed by his legs and arms. I also admired him because of hisathletic ability. He could do splits, handstands, all those differentthings. That showed strength and agility at the same time. And he wasa master poser. He was just tremendous on stage.

He had a very rugged type of physique. Kind of a Herculean typeof physique. I would say I had more of an Apollo-Adonis type ofphysique. You know what I mean? Let's say his physique is Herculeanand rugged, and mine was more of a classic physique. He was verythick; he had a lot of muscle on him. What I concentrated on wasgetting the greatest size difference between the waist and the chest aspossible. I don't know anybody in history who's ever had more. I got


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up to 23 1/2 inches- and I was trying to get to 24, but then I had tomake a living as an actor, so I lost weight. My waist and chestmeasurements in those days were 29 and 52.

John's chest was about 50, I've been told, but with a 50-inch chest

on a person his height and a 52-inch chest on a person my height, hischest will look much bigger than mine. His chest was thick, but hedidn't have big pecs and big lats, so the size of his chest was mainly inthe depth of it. Mine was mainly in the width of it-with the lats. SergioOliva is a person I don't know quite as well. I did a tour of Europe withhim around 1977, and he was very friendly to me, always verypleasant and didn't have a bad word to say about anybody.

As far as his physique is concerned, I think he was tremendous.He had a huge chest, huge arms, a small waist and good width ofshoulders. I would say he had more muscle, more thickness thananybody I've seen other than the steroid people of today. He's verywell proportioned. An interesting thing I noticed when we were on thattour together is how different we approach our training. I got myphysique by training everything absolutely slow and with perfect style.

I watched him train, and he does half movements. Mine was fullextension and full contraction; his is half movements-half extension,half contraction. Yet he got himself a fantastic physique. So there'sreally no one way to train. He and I trained exactly the opposite way.He would train with super-eights and maybe do five to six reps. I

would train with medium-heavy weights and do eight to 10 or eight to12 reps in perfect style. So you never know which technique, whichroutine is going to do it for you.

Steeve Reeves

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