Regarding Arnolds calves and implants
if he got implants, it would be in the early 70s, so my question is and i am only asking is because i don’t know…can you flex implants?
From a medical standpoint I question whether there was an established market for calf inplants in the 1970-ties? Seems to me, more of a later discovery. I tend to agree with @average_al.
It’s interesting to see how much the the chin ups appear to be hitting traps and mid back and how much the rows are blasting your lats.
A lot of times I think of chins for lats width and rows for thickess.
Don’t bullshit me with hyperbole. Show me one photo of young Arnold with “zero” calves.
The “I did this” routines cover for the roid use. They are NOT evidence about implants. As far as close-ups, check my attachment.
Calf work is easy. REAL thigh and quad work is hard – as well as systemically draining. I’d call it good Cost-Benefit analysis on his part!
As my dad always said: “If Everyone jumped off a cliff, would YOU jump off a cliff?” As some — and my attachment — have pointed out: You can’t flex implants. And implants don’t have ridges and striations!!
That may be, but he didn’t have the money to be THAT good of a cheater yet. Show me an account of where he dissappeared for 2-4 weeks and you might be onto something…
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Calf History
Young Arnold. Already the best chest ever, calves not popping.
Young Arnold stands in water in photo to hide calves.
Arnold visits Reg Park in South Africa. They get up early to do an extra workout for calves, working up over 600 pounds on calf raises.
Calves become a priority
Arnold get so good he teaches his bros.
After Years of work calves are so Poppin’ people accuse him of implants.
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The first cosmetic calf implant was done by a Canadian surgeon (Dr. Lloyd Carlsen, based in Toronto, Canada) in 1972. The procedure didn’t become commonplace until the 1980’s.
Given that Arnold’s first Olympia win was 1973, and that he had to have been competitive in the year or two before that first win, it seems very unlikely to me that this kind of surgery would have been available in time for it to save his body building career.
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For further context, Carlsen published an article about his initial series of surgeries in the Annals of Plastic Surgery in 1979 (6 years after Arnold’s first Olympia win).
It was titled “Calf augmentation–a preliminary report”
Abstract:
An operative procedure has been devised to increase the size of the calf of the leg. This method may be valuable in patients who have thin, spindly legs or disparity of leg size due to previous poliomyelitis infection. The first series of patients on whom the procedure has been carried out, and the complications encountered, are discussed. I wish to emphasize that this is a new procedure and that the best implant has not yet been found.
Arnold would have had to have been one of the first, if not the first patient to get this procedure, if it happened before his first Olympia win. And he would have had to convince a surgeon who was interested in helping polio victims to make him one of his first patients. And he would have gotten a foam implant. And it would have had to be shaped to look like a body builders flexed calf. Seems implausible to me.
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Good eye. The pull-up video was originally filmed for a bicep-focused workout demo. I have been taught some techniques to make pull-up variations more lat-focused, but when I use those, it causes a pinching pain between my right scapula and spine. And it sticks around for weeks. Super weird.
But yes my traps are overactive. They want to help with every exercise, so they even kick in with those.
T-bar row is awesome for lats, but in order to keep my traps from doing all the work, I have to go super slow, use pauses, and decrease the weight significantly.
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Traps taking over seems to be a common situation. I get the same thing, even the pinch. I think it’s a pinched nerve in the neck radiating pain down to the scap area.
And this past week my Ewe-Tube feed was full of guys doing rows, struggling to keep the work in the lats.
Anyway, thanks for the detailed info in your reply. I don’t feel like such a weirdo for struggling to hit lats now.
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Agreed.
I never believed in the Arnold calf implant conspiracy. The timeline you laid out on that kind of surgery nails the lid on the coffin.
Soon the conspiracy theorists will tell us about a ‘secret surgeon’ who was doing them with a special kind of foam method. lol
Arnold had great genetics and simply focused on them harder to further develop them over time.
I’m no Arnold, but my calves improved a lot over time when I focused on them. Early on they were poor as I focused more on upper body like many young men did.
Some people apparently need to get over the 1980 Mr. Olympia.
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Ah I just now saw this thoughtful comment from you! Sorry for the 4-month delay! 
Yes, I think you’re right. My chiro agrees too but there’s not a lot he can do about it. He does recommend regular soft tissues work from a professional who can dig into those traps. You’re definitely not a weirdo, and I bet your traps are amazing!
Reg Park is such a beast. My favorite Bodybuilder ever. On the note of Calf development, my calves were plateaued at 16” for YEARS and so were my arms, but I’ve been on a bulk since May ‘21 and my arms and calves have grown proportionally with each other. Arms up to 18.25” and 18” and the calves are now also 18.25”. I don’t hit calves directly very often but they’ve been naturally big and muscular since I was a kid, they seem to grow just from squats and overall size gain. I realize now that “maingaining” was killing my gains lol