Serge Nubret

Off Topic
1

This man has an AMAZING body. My personal favorite bodybuilder.

(in case anyone didn’t know that’s Nubet featured in the current Powerful Images)

JMB

2

I agree entirely. I remember watching pumping iron and thinking that this guy didn’t just look big, he also looked athletic and very proportional. Also my choice for favourite bodybuilder.

3

I have to agree, that is possibly the finest physique I have ever seen. (obviously iv’e seen him before but not that picture) I don’t think there would be too many people who think he is too small/too big, unathletic, or weak. I think we all have a good goal to stive for.

4

I heard that he was not very strong, and looked much smaller when not pumped/carbed up. Sorry, I can’t say where, it was maybe 10 years ago.

Then again, Arnold went from 240-200 in about 7 months of reduced training due to a leg injury.

5

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I heard that he was not very strong, and looked much smaller when not pumped/carbed up. Sorry, I can’t say where, it was maybe 10 years ago.

Then again, Arnold went from 240-200 in about 7 months of reduced training due to a leg injury.

[/quote]

Mertdawg,

I’m not sure about this. I seem to remember Vince Gironda mention this in his book (talking about weight not being the most important concern when doing a quality rep): “Witness Serge Nubret, a man who can bench press 500 pounds, but who chooses to do neck presses with 250 pounds.”

Don’t ask me why I still remember this…

6

Yes, the physiques of Nubret, Zane, Chris Dickerson, or Ed Corney, are to me much more preferable then many of the monsters today. Just my preference.

7

I really don’t remember who referred to him as a “pump only” bodybuilder. Maybe it was some of Arnold’s propoganda. If so, it worked. After hearing that I always saw him as a guy with a bunch of pumped up balloons for muscles. Funny cause he abjectively looks a lot like Arnold and maybe a narrower Haney. Although I have never found a good back shot of him.

Here’s a site with about 100 thumbs of Serge.

Anyway, we haven’t seen a perfect physique. Forget about the bloated guys today. I haven’t cared about bodybuilding for about 4 years now, but why is it that the great ones from the 70s all catch our eye when we see a new shot that we haven’t seen before, despite them being 30% smaller and having a little more fat.

I always thought that the perfect physique needed

  1. Torso, Arms, Legs in balance
  2. Front and back in balance
  3. Have a full muscle look, but also the muscular hardness of a strong guy
  4. Be able to do a real vacuum AND a narrow but muscular waist when relaxed.
  5. MAYBE have a unique signature bodypart, I mean pictures of Scotts biceps, Sergios lats, Francos complete torso, I would buy a magazine full of those pictures.
8

I’m pretty sure that it was in Arnold’s Bodybuilding Encyclopedia that he mentioned Serge as a “pump-only” bodybuilder.

I believe he was talking about how different rep schemes work for different people. The comparison was that guys like Arnold and Franco built big chests doing really heavy sets for low reps on bench press, whereas Nubret got his amazing chest doing (suppossedly) 20 sets of 20 reps on bench press.

9

Kind of reminds me of Flex Wheeler a little bit. I’ve never heard Nubret wasn’t strong exactly, but I read somewhere that he would be in the gym pumping out squats with 135, not caring what everyone else in the gym was doing.

10

Here is a great site which honors him appropriately:

http://www.schwarzenegger.it/mro/nubret.html

His symmetry is terrific.