How Did Steve Reeves Prepare for a Bodybuilding Show

One of the most fascinating things to me is how bodybuilders prepare for a contest. How do they tweak their diets? Manipulate their water and sodium intake and, more importantly, how do they train to maintain their muscle mass while simultaneously losing body fat? In many ways bodybuilding contests are biological warfare.

As bodybuilding has evolved the pre-contest prep has become more and more precise. In the early years of competitive bodybuilding during the 1940s, it wasn’t uncommon for weightlifters to try their hands at bodybuilding shows on spur-of-the-moment decisions. Nowadays preparing for a contest means months and months of preparation and sacrifice. Likewise the actual conditioning for athletes, be they enhanced or natural, has never been more strict. You have to show up with the lowest possible bodyfat and the most amount of muscle.

Bodybuilding today is simply a different sport from the 1930s and 1940s when higher levels of bodyfat, smoother physiques and slightly clunkier posing routines were more acceptable. Nevertheless there is a value and an interest in examining how champions of the past got in shape for contests. So with that in mind, this article looks at Steve Reeves’ preparation for the 1947 Mr. America.

Who Was Steve Reeves?

Put simply Steve Reeves is widely regarded as one of the most aesthetic bodybuilding legends of all time. Competing in the 1940s and early 1950s, Reeves won the Mr. America contest in 1947, the Mr. World in 1948 and the Mr. Universe in 1950. Despite only competing for a relatively short period Reeves’ iconic physique, and natural beauty are often brought up when people discuss the best pre-steroid physiques alongside Reg Park and John Grimek.

The competition Reeves was training for, the Mr. America, was one of the most, if not the most, prestigious bodybuilding shows during this period. Begun in 1939, it aimed to find the most muscular representation of American masculinity. Off the back of his Mr. America victories, Reeves won the World and Universe titles before embarking on a career in Hollywood where he famously played Hercules in a series of Italian sword and scandal films. It was this little role which David Chapman and John Fair’s wonderful Muscles in the Movies book cited as an earlier indicator that Hollywood action men were expected to be bulky and beautiful in equal measure.

How Did Reeves Prepare for the 1947 Mr. America?

The following information comes from Iron Man magazine Volume 7, no. 5 from 1947 and was written by Peary Rader, the magazine’s founder and longtime editor. Claiming that it was ‘unbelievable that anyone could have such muscular size and yet retain the perfect balance in proportions,’ Rader set about describing Reeves’ upbringing and introduction to barbells (which came at the age of 16).

As an aside, one thing we don’t mention enough when talking about pre-steroid physiques is that the extreme muscularity of pre-steroid legends is proof positive that some people are ‘built different.’ Yes you are responsible for your physique size etc. but there’s always someone who deadlifts 200kg first time in the gym. On that slightly somber note, lets continue on.

Noting that Reeves followed several programs ‘during his five years of exercising’, Rader detailed Reeves pre-contest full body workout which the Mr. America champion used at least three days a week.

• 3 sets prone presses with wide grip
• 3 sets of incline presses
• 2 sets of side presses
• 2 sets of front raises
• 2 sets curl and press
• 3 sets behind the neck chins
• 3 sets of Lat Rows on 45 degree pulleys
• 2 sets of tricep curls on the dorsi bench
• 2 sets of bent arm curl behind the neck
• 2 sets of triceps bench curl
• 6 sets of incline bench curls
• 4 sets of squats
• 4 sets of leg curls
• 4 sets of calf raises on leg press machine
• 2 sets of good morning exercises on roman chair

Regarding weight, Reeves worked up to 20 reps in half squats with 400 pounds,  6 reps with 70 lbs. dumbbells on incline curls and 20 reps of 450 lbs. with calf raises.

His recorded weight at the competition was 213 lbs. with a 29 inch waist and 18 inch biceps. It is worth remembering once more that this was after five years of training, three of which came under the supervision of the legendary coach and gym owner Ed Yarick.

What Can We Learn from Reeves’ Routine?

First, that old-school bodybuilding was not particularly concerned with legs. Yes they needed to be muscular but the level of definition and size we now expect from champions demands much more specialized routines. If the above routine is accurate (and skepticism is always important with fitness magazines), it suggests that Reeves had a remarkable ability to recover and also that bodybuilding was about upper body more-so than lower body during this period.

The next thing to consider is, of course, the use of full-body workouts which have become in vogue again in the past decade or so. For many years (especially during my introduction to lifting in the 1990s and early 2000s), full body workouts were only designed for beginners. After you progressed you were expected to go on a Weider-inspired body-part split so that you could blast your pecs or shred your triceps etc. There is, I believe, a great deal of benefit to full body programs, especially when preparing for a competition. Effectively you can train more without killing yourself in the process.

Finally the complete absence of any diet guidelines or preparation is important to note. As covered elsewhere on this website, bodybuilding diets were pretty straightforward for most of the twentieth century. People usually removed a food group (carbs or fats) or just ate smaller portions. It wasn’t until the 1980s that calorie counting and incredibly intricate diets became the norm. Here was a simpler time for weight loss.

Will this routine make you look like Steve Reeves? Absolutely not. He had some of the best genetics the sport has ever seen and was blessed to have trained under a legendary (but often underrated) coach in Ed Yarick. That being said there is some value to seeing how Reeves prepared for competition.

In the first instance this was a routine clearly tailored toward accentuating Reeve’s legendary V taper – that being the term to describe a physique with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Done in this way, his routine worked to emphasise his body’s strengths as opposed to being a generic plan. So lesson one is to tailor exercises and set patterns to your own physique. The second, and more important lesson I believe, is the combination of progressive weight training and volume without overcomplicating things. There is a raft of excellent information online these days about maximising your workouts. While this is beneficial for elite and advanced lifters, a great deal of beginners and intermediates would benefit from following these simple guidelines.

And who knows… maybe you will look like Steve Reeves one day??

As always … Happy Lifting!