[Music] welcome to a very special edition of sa's classic bodybuilding archives in today's episode we have a chat with legendary bodybuilder and three-time Mr Olympia winner Frank Zayn so sit back and enjoy this interview with a legend well good morning Mr Zayn how are you I'm fine thanks and you I'm doing great Frank and uh I appreciate you joining me this morning and uh how's your morning been going so far pretty good just getting rolling here well I wanted to uh chat about the good old days talk about your moov to California talk about Gold's Gym uh you're talking about your teaching you know those sort of things and uh I know you came out to California in' 69 that must have been a big step for you to move all the way from uh from Florida to California well it was but it was inevitable you know I wanted to come to California and I got a job teaching in uh in Los Angeles city schools and that in abled me to do it because there was really not a way to survive other than for me teaching and so uh I was able to do that and it worked out fine yeah I remember hearing a story that uh well because you know bodybuilding didn't really pay back in those days and uh some bodybuilders became like wrestlers to to make money you know professional wrestlers or like even I read a story that Larry Scott even sold Insurance while he was a bodybuilder to make ends meet yeah he did I think think I bought a poliy from you oh wow there you go now I wanted to ask you about um Gold Gym you know I I look at some photos of Gold's Gym and it seemed like such a simple Little Gym uh but if you look around at Gold's Gym it was pretty simple there were like like uh milk crates you guys would sit on and work on uh the floor mats were like I remember they were rubber floor mats that I used to have on my back porch you know so gold gym was really just a a a simple gym but well equipped it wasn't fancy but it had all the equipment we needed you know it wasn't short on that end and so you know I trained there on a regular basis yeah and I was I was running I remember hearing an interview with you it it was a really nice place to work out you had all your guys there and uh but then when things got really popular um let's say after the Pumping Iron film um you mentioned that a lot of of the the wannabes started showing up and I guess it got kind of crowded I guess just the whole vibe of the gym changed well I'd go there early before those those people arrived so I didn't have to encounter that no they just basically take a space on equipment so I wanted to get my workout done before they showed up I remember seeing there's footage of puppy N I know you mentioned you you didn't want to appear in the film but when you look at Snippets of the film uh I can see you in the background working out you know uh so that's interesting to see you in the background doing dumbbell rows and you know that sort of thing and then of course I guess you went out and trained at at Vince's gym to get away from all that noise what what did you what would did you have any First Impressions uh when you saw the film again I don't remember I just remember talking to him and I said you know this really isn't about about you know Pumping Iron you might as well call it pumping Arnold because it was all about him right and so at that point I left and went over to vinc JY to train yeah it was sort of hard to train once they showed up with their cameras and everything and I was just interested in working out so I went to Vince's for a while and uh you know I was welcomed there but uh that it was a bit of a drive from Santa Monica and so uh you know I preferred training at World Gym which I did most of the time yeah that was one of my next questions when when the original Golds Gym on Pacific closed uh they opened up a a new gym on I believe it was on Second Street uh but so why did you choose to to work out at a world gym instead of Golds well that was the place you know that was the place in San watka Venice that everybody went to and uh that's you know that's where I was drawn to because they had all the equipment that Joe gold made and of course Joe was around and all the original guys were around so you know we all trained there after you know Pumping Iron things are are happening bodybuilding is getting popular uh I know you had some some spots like making uh acting spots like making commercials and appearing in a few movies how were those experiences they were good you know it was uh something extra that I could do and I did a few of them when you know when I got the opportunity to do it it wasn't something that uh was it something you actively pursued or you just let the calls come in I didn't actively pursue it yeah I remember uh Steve Reeves mentioned in an interview many years ago that he was happy to do those Hercules films but it really wasn't like his passion you know he because he really wasn't felt that he was an accomplished actor you know but uh it was a good exper you didn't have to be I had an agent and uh you know he he would send me all these things if there's something that I fit the fit the role so that's basically how it worked I'm gonna I'm going to pull up a picture and I'm going to edit these pictures I'm going to edit these pictures into the uh into the video and um I wanted to ask you this shot here I've I've been hearing of a location called muscle Rock and I'm wondering where is that location because there were so many bodybuilders that were uh photographed uh there on muscle Rock do you remember where where where muscle rock where muscle rock is yeah was in the Santa Monica Mountains malib we go up there to get sun usually because it would be overcast in in Venice so we would go up there and you know work on our tans I want to show you some photos of some of your contemporaries and just you know give me a few words on on uh describing them Bill Grant tell me a little bit little bit about Bill Grant Bill Grant he was one of the guys around you know he had an impressive upper body yeah he was also one of those bodybuilders that migrated uh from the East Coast uh to California yeah right right and uh I think he also dipped into a little bit of acting as well this is uh I believe you may know him or not Bill McArdle I think he CH he trained ADV vinces Jim back in the day yeah he did I never really ran into him but he sure had a good look to him he from Larry Scott and him trained together at Vince's gym Roger Collard Collard yeah I knew him he was around we were friends did you ever train with Roger did you train with these guys or did you basically own I trained with them but more mainly I train by myself sometimes we would work out together what kind of man was Dave Draper back in the day I like Dave he would show up very early didn't work out he was sort of a a loner and uh he was very strong and he made Furniture he's sort of very rustic kind of guy he made furniture out of wood from the Santa Monica pier and I know Arnold had a lot of his furniture he made a bed for Arnold made a bench for me that I had for a while how about Don donworth never knew him that well but I competed against him in 1967 he won Mr America and I got second place but I won it the next year I always admired his uh his deltoid in arm development you still have any of those uh trophies from back in the early contests I have the three Olympia trophies that's about it I also have the NABA mystery Universe trophy from 1970 I think and here's one Ed corne yeah Ed Corney was great great poser and he was from Northern California so we'd see him every now and then uh when Contest time would come around uh I've read you would train twice a day maybe in the morning and then later in the afternoon um yeah was that basically to was it to build muscle or was it basically just to burn calories to to to be active and burn calories both you know if we train twice a day we wouldn't do a lot in one workout or work a lot of body parts you know we might just do arms in the morning and deltoids in the afternoon something like that how about like did you guys do any did you run did you jog anything like that I did a little jogging not a lot but I was always a very relatively lean person so I didn't have to do a lot of a lot of aerobics I kept my body weight under control you know ate good so I really didn't have to do much of it so uh it's about conditioning not only the muscles but but the heart the cardiovascular system yeah well I always did a which generally amounted to maybe 12 minutes on the treadmill at the end of my workout amounted to getting my heart rate up to to uh up to Target you know for 11 12 minutes which wasn't hard to do what do you think are some of the most common mistakes that uh trainees make when they're when they're weight training you know it may be to try to follow a program that's too complicated for them that they're not ready for the best thing to do is use the simplest program that works for you and then make add to it as you go along if you only had let's say 45 minutes uh to exercise um let's say full body workouts uh one exercise per body part what what would you recommend I wouldn't do full body workout in one workout you know it's it's it's just too much to to attend to I would uh generally it was basically a I'd follow a three-way split it would be pulling muscles that's back biceps forms day one legs day two chest shoulder triceps day three rest day four and I do abdominal work every day and I do some aerobics too which you know was basically like I said 12 minutes or so on the treadmill at the end of my workout or or stationary bike or rowing machine a series of stretch as I do so after I do a set I immediately do a stretch hold it for 10 15 seconds so uh you have a stretch for uh for each of your muscles and all all that's all in in a lot of your books that you have that are available now sure sure so I wanted to ask you about what your opinion is on on some of these exercises that have been labeled uh maybe uh bad for you for example uh the barbell press behind the neck it's not that it's bad for you but if you have some kind of preexisting injury you could aggravate it you know so it all depends on how you do it's it's a good exercise but you know you got to do it right and you have to uh I always did a slower negative than positive I didn't go real heavy I guess it all depends on your flexibility as well that too well I always had good form in my exercises and basically my idea was to make lighter weights feel heavier by using good form and that's what I did yeah because I guess the goal is we're not we're not power lifters we're not trying to lift an enormous amount of weight no no we're not breaking records with the weights we use right we're trying to work the muscle it's all about what kind of pump you can get here's another uh exercise that has been criticized the lat pull down behind the neck I think it's good but again you know you have to warm up with that because I I always I never did much of that but I always did front pull down MH not too much behind the neck what about uh parallel bar dips what do you think of those uh I don't do them per se but I have a dipping machine parallel bar dip machine which I sit down and do dips that way that way I can regulate the weight so that works very well for me I've actually stopped doing squats like with the barbell squat even though I'm only squatting with like say 100 pound pounds or so the whole idea for me is to to exercise but not get injured so I don't want that weight on my spine even though it's not an enormous amount of weight so uh and I know you've switched years ago to your uh your squat machine your leg uh what's it called a leg Blaster leg Blaster yeah yeah and so I I kind of had the idea of doing uh cable squats where you know with the low pulley and you and you get back and and do uh uh cable squats yeah that's subject you could do for example you could clip the pulley if you're wearing a lifting belt straddle the cable and clip it to the to the top of your lifting Bill and that way you'll be able to do and then elevate your your feet a little bit so you can get into a deep squat that's a really good way to do them yeah and then there's no compression of the spine there's no weight on no not none at all well but you were uh you were I understand a pretty good squatter yeah I could handle poundage but you know it's it's it's not healthy right I agree now and and I think I even remember seeing early photos of you I think your legs were like a a a a good point for you they they looked like they grew pretty quick for you they did I was there's always a strong point for me I did a three-way split and squatting was always part of that you know it was B basically leg extension leg curl squatting those are the three things then leg press tell me about some of the um the Vintage uh machines you have in your in your studio there well I have a leg Blaster I have uh a horizontal leg press but anyway it's real good I have a a a pull down machine and low cable row that's made by the same company they're they're real real strong they've got made out of 3x3 metal uh I have dumbbells up to 60s you know starting at 25s and then a beauty Bell set that goes from Two and a Half up to to 25 uh I have a nalsa uh multi-purpose machine that I do Dunkey calf raay on I could do dips on it too if I wanted to I have a pec deck I have a rear deltoid machine which I can get in and then just push it back like this have a nless pullover machine which I like a lot then I go in the back of it and I do tricp extensions with it which I really like it's what I use it mostly for that's about it that's about it and how about uh the Zay experience you still uh taking in clients and training them on your uh at your facility I do I've been very selective with that and uh you're out at uh lame Mesa California L Mesa right we know you have your your Frank z.com and uh I have I have some of your uh booklets that you came out with back in the you know 2000s these here yeah building the body I I published that for quite a few years yeah it was and I think I probably printed about 60 issues and these are great and and uh so have these now I wanted the viewers to know that uh even these are uh in a PDF form you can get them on Barnes & Noble if you can't find the if you can't get the the hard copies you can get them on Barnes & Noble so that's pretty cool and uh I did order um I did order uh your CD one of your your videos train with Zayn uhhuh and that's really cool that you uh you autograph uh do you autograph all your items that that folks uh I do pretty much that's nice that puts a nice touch I sign everything so um tell me about some of your your books for like we have our some of our viewers out there that uh if they can't come and do a personal training with you for whatever reason uh what what books uh would you what recommend for for training that want to get the best uh return uh from their weight training experience the two main ones one is the uh Zane bodybuilding manual 436 pages with everything I know about the topic in there so this is the prime text book okay and then the main workout book is 91 day Wonder body it's it's a workbook that takes you every day workout in there every day for three months and if you have those two you pretty much have it all if you want to specialize on ABS there's 91 day Wonder ABS that's more specialized abdominal work what about the uh the uh competitive uh bodybuilder that wants to know like wow what do I do to prep for a a contest yeah 31 day Wonder posing okay and we can we can find it's on my website on my website Frank z.com yeah great great you know I wanted to talk about um you know as we get older why do you think we get we get fatter as we get older our metabolism slows down and our our diet really you know if we we we can't eat as much or we can't eat the right right enough of the right Foods you know you really have to stay more on a high protein diet and avoid junk foods and alcohol all that so if you're not disciplined you you get out of shape pretty easily some of the guys I taught to at the gym like they would go on let's say a a restrictive diet and and maybe do some aerobics to try to lose some weight and let's say some of the strategies they used the first time to lose 20 pounds or so a couple years ago those strategies aren't working now what advice do you think you would have for folks that I guess their body is just changing but how can they keep that weight under control I always kept my weight in the same range it would be somewhere around 185 to 190 and so I didn't really have a problem I really didn't have to lose very much because I was very close to it all the time I guess uh you you watched your carbs yeah so when when uh you talk about like a low carbohy carbohydrate diet uh to control your insulin uh how many grams a day are you talking about what's low it was half usually about half of my protein intake and my protein intake was one gram of protein per pound of body weight so if if I weighed 200 then I would get under 200 under 100 grams of carbs a day if keep your carbs low what I would do is keep my carbs low for three days in a row then have more carbs on the fourth day cycled them Frank I I I have a few of my viewers that uh would like me to ask a few questions on their behalf um I have one from uh Justin Riley he asked uh he goes please ask Frank about the hanging lat Rose he's the only person I ever heard of that that done that done these hanging lat R does that sound familiar that's probably hanging upside down wearing a pair of gravity boots that I clip into an overhead bar and hang straight down and then pull the barbell up upside down like that okay I've done those I don't do them now but I've done them it's pretty pretty good pretty good exercise so I would imagine that you would get an awesome stretch yeah you do you do okay uh Giovani asks uh please ask Frank uh what is the correct mindsight uh Mantra and are his most powerful mental technique to build his body well if you want resource on that there's a good book called uh mantras by John blofeld is the guy's name and they're many many mantras in there you might find one that suits you that feels right and just say that but one that I really like is that I have already won I have already won that's the secret of winning is to win it ahead of time mentally of course but you go you convince yourself that you're already won and then you go in to the competition already won so your job is to convince everybody that you're the winner so if you convince yourself and it's evident that you've already won of course you back it up by your training in photos that you can see how much you've improved and how good you are then it's a lot easier so that's it already W that's great um well we did sort of talk about this um user mv6 asked about well what is what is one of Frank's fullbody workouts what was one well I can't I can't recall but basically it would be one exercise for each body part you know whatever that might be and it might vary from workout to workout you know different movements so for example I might do a incline bench press one workout and then the next workout it could be uh dumbbell flies on the flat bench you know for triceps it might be uh pressed on on the lap machine and another one would be one I'm done with extension you just have to change it up you know use your imagination a little bit yeah keep it keep it interesting and uh even work the muscles from from different angles and right right that's one reason why I don't do it you know I work a part of my body and what works best for me is the three-way split body parts that work together you know like back biceps and forms when you work your back you're also working your biceps in forms you know uh chest shoulder triceps when you work your chest you're also working your shoulders and your triceps see things like that so that's how I organized my training well there you go from Gia is asking ask Frank what he thought about Mike mencer's uh Physique in 1979 at the 19790 if you can remember what did you think of Mike man's phys at the 790 well he was the guy had to beat and I did because my presentation was better I remember what posing what would happen is I would hit a pose standing next to him I'd hit a pose and then he'd look over at me and do the same pose and I thought to myself that's perfect it's called Follow the Leader see so in effect he's giving giving away what what's happening on stage he Following the Leader how's how's the uh let's shift gears and let's talk about your your uh your music Endeavors your music your blues music how's that all coming along uh you know it's a hobby I play harmonica have an array of harmonicas I play chromatic and dionic harmonica um I play a little rhythm guitar too oh nice okay that's basically it I have a couple guitars I tuned them all to a it could be a five string tuning but I used the six string tuning going from low to high it would be g g dgbd that's open G tuning right so basically it's like the G scale so and then you don't even have to do like well that changes the whole fingering on making cords then you could just make cords with even like one or two fingers oh yeah you can bar the whole thing for cords well there you go build in yeah so uh do you have like any home demos that you've made any any little CDs that you make with friends no not not really not really and uh who are you listening to now these days on in your Blues collection of music do you have any favorite artists uh I like Blues travel M John May Little Walter every year in the springtime there's a Blues Festival so I usually go down there and listen to them but I don't I don't perform but I could some pretty good guys around here players well Mr Zayn I think that was like the gist of my notes that I had is there is there anything that that I missed or something that anything that you want to talk talk about our Express before we we call it a day I think you covered a lot but uh further if you go to my website Frank xan.com anything you want to know is on there and if you want to contact me my website is Frank z.com awesome well Mr Zayn I appreciate you uh joining me today and uh continue to pump the weights and and stay healthy and uh continue with your uh your training and your blues music and uh just uh just stay healthy I will thank you and the same to you well thank you for joining me I hope you enjoyed today's very special episode please leave a like comment share and subscribe I would appreciate it and until the next video keep training and Chasing the Dream