Phil Heath Quotes

“Actually to be a champion your goal is to be a little bit better each day, making sure that every day is an opportunity to be at your best.”

“All the normal lifts that bodybuilders do, we didn't do them in basketball.”

“Arrogance is an exaggeration of the truth.”

“As Mr. Olympia, I have to go above and beyond. It's more than just showing muscle.”

“Being negative and lazy is a disease that leads to pain, hardship, depression, poor health and failure. Be pro active, and give a damn to achieve success!”

“Constant tension should be applied to the last five reps of every working set, meaning, do the first 5-6 reps normal tempo, and the last few reps should be held for at least two seconds at the peak of the contraction. This allows your muscles to have more time under tension, and you work different muscle fibers.”

“Do cardio throughout the year at least three days a week for at least 30-40 minutes, whether it be first thing in the morning on an empty stomach or after a post-workout protein shake. Cardio won't kill your gains as much as you think; you'll see how much muscle you really have.”

“Dropsets overload the muscle with shorter rest periods and increasing volume, which you need to grow.”

“Every so often, I'll look at myself in the mirror and go, 'You're a bad mother,' you know? Like, 'You're a bad dude, man, and you're gonna show the world who you are when the time is right'.”

“Everybody that wants to work out wants to feel good and look better, but I think one of the biggest problems people have is they don't want to work out with a personal trainer, someone like myself, or even a couple of buddies, because they think: Gosh, if I work out too hard, I'm not going to be able to get up the next day!”

“For me, I've always tried to be a stand-up individual.”

“Front squats have really helped my quad development, especially when I was preparing for the Ironman.”

“Get over it people, I worked my ass off.”

“I believe that if you're able to eat as much as a bodybuilder is supposed to, you're probably not going to overtrain.”

“I believe you need to take enough rest to lift heavy weights, but if it takes you 5-10 minutes to rest and get psyched up for a big lift, I don't know if that's going to be good.”

“I eat seven, if not eight, times a day. Every two hours, I'm usually eating.”

“I grew up as an only child, so I like being by myself. So I train predominantly – 98 percent of the time – by myself.”

“I never thought I could win Mr. Olympia when I started my career in 2002.”

“I received a lot of criticism early in my career, but people didn't realize that I'd only been training for three years when I turned pro.”

“I see guys who are in the gym all the time, but their bodies are not a reflection of that. They look the same from year to year, and that has to do with the fact that they're not evaluating the effect of their efforts.”

“I stick to bread-and-butter bodybuilding. I hit my muscles from various angles, work on bringing up any weaknesses, and design workouts that are always challenging and helping me progress.”

“I train as smart as I can. I'm not concerned what others think. I do what works for me.”

“I want people to realize bodybuilders are athletes. We have a very meticulous philosophy on how we are able to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously.”

“I went from 185 lbs to 285 lbs, became a 7X Mr. Olympia, tying Arnold Schwarzenegger, and competed against the most determined and fittest athletes in the world. This took hard work, tremendous dedication, and knowing what, how, and when to train.”

“I would probably lose my mind if I wasn't busy. There's only so many video games I can play.”

“I'm always the guy on tour that tries to get guys chatting and a lot of banter back and forth so I definitely feel that a lot of bodybuilders have that comedic side in them, they're just a little bit more introverted.”

“I'm not trying to be average.”

“I've actually read that isolation is the enemy, so why do that to myself?”

“If it was easy everyone would be a champion, so you've got to decide if you're that person that's going to be a champion.”

“If you can get to the gym 4-5 days a week, that would be perfect. You can still do chest/tri's, back/bi's, legs, shoulders, and make the fifth day a cleanup day, meaning focus on body parts you may be weaker in.”