I’m an 80-year-old bodybuilder and three-time Mr Olympia winner – staying in shape is about the ‘mind-muscle’ connection
BODYBUILDER Frank Zane has revealed how he stays focused and in shape following his bodybuilding career.
The 80-year-old trained in California alongside other bodybuilding greats like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The three-time Mr. Olympia winner explained to a fellow bodybuilder the mind-muscle connection that helps with effective training.
In a YouTube interview, Frank told Sadik Hadzovic: “I think that the mind-muscle connection is already made, you know?
“Basically [a] simple thing and we have a word or words that describe something that we’ve been doing all along.
“If you do your exercise successfully you’re focused on the movement and at first you have to sort of make that connection like learning to drive a standard transmission.”
He noted that like learning to drive, it becomes an automatic movement, requiring less focus.
“It’s automatic and that’s like with working out the first time you do an exercise you pay attention to every little thing to do it right and to feel it in the muscle, but after a while it becomes automatic you just go right into it…you do your reps and you feel the effect, you can feel what’s happening,” he explained.
“After I do the exercise I can feel the pump coming on and then I strecth in that makes it feel ever better.
“Basically if you focus on what you’re doing but it does start with focus. It’s paying attention to what you’re doing.”
Despite his age, the bodybuilder is still in fantastic shape and still helps people train all across the globe.
He has released a number of books including the Bodybuilding Manual and 91 Day Wonder Abs.
In the comments, one bodybuilding fan praised Zane, saying: “Frank Zane is the reason I started training when he had Zane Haven in Palm Springs in 1988.
“I mentioned to him that I wanted to train and he gave me his book 12 weeks to a better body.
“I haven’t stopped training since. Thank you Mr. Zane, you changed my life.”
Another said: “Les bulk but pure aesthetic, pure symmetry, pure work of art.”
As one of the few people to ever beat Schwarzenegger, he is considered one of the greats in the industry and was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 1999.