A resurfaced clip shared by Valuetainment on YouTube shows an interview between Ronnie Coleman and Patrick Bet-David, founder of Valuetainment. The eight-time Olympian who held the record for the most wins as an IFBB professional boasts of having 26 titles. During the interview, Coleman revealed that one body part that he believed Arnold Schwarzenegger did better than him.

Schwarzenegger, who himself boasts of having seven Olympia titles, is considered one of the biggest bodybuilding legends to ever live. Between the two of them and their 15 combined Olympia titles, there are a lot of similarities- and differences. That said, Coleman admitted that Schwarzenegger had the biggest chest among all the bodybuilders.

“Look at that chest. Nobody got that, even in the day. He got the biggest chest ever. And you can see our stuff, oh yeah, I look like a little boy standing next to him,” Coleman admitted with a laugh.

Furthermore, Coleman admitted that if Schwarzenegger had the tools that modern bodybuilders have at their disposal now, things would have looked vastly different.

He admitted that with today's knowledge, technology, and nutrition, Schwarzenegger would have “been by far the best thing ever put out on stage.”

Most people may be wondering how Schwarzenegger built his legendary chest. A combination of intense training, hard work, and perseverance is what it took.

Inside Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legendary chest workout

Rome wasn’t built in a day- and neither was Schwarzenegger’s chest. His high-volume training typically focused on heavy compound presses and isolation work, maximizing muscle growth and helping him achieve a fully pumped chest.

 Schwarzenegger wrote an article for Muscle and Fitness, highlighting his personal favorite chest exercises- the barbell bench press.

“I always like to start my chest routine with barbell bench presses. I'll use the pyramid principle, starting with a lighter weight and going to a heavy weight for six reps. After that, I’ll do barbell presses on an incline to hit the upper chest. These, I like to do for 10 to 15 reps and get a good pump,” he said. 

After this, he relies on dumbbell flys on a flat bench, enabling him to give a good stretch to his pectoral muscles. He ends his routine with dips, focusing on stretching out his lower pectorals.

His chest routine looked like this-

• 5 sets, 20-6 reps of bench presses
• 5 sets, 10-15 reps of inclined barbell presses
• 5 sets, 10-15 reps of dumbbell flys
• 5 sets, 15 reps of weighted dips

In the article, the pyramid loading principle he referred to focuses on starting with light weights and high reps. Gradually, as the weights are increased, the reps are lowered. This technique, according to Schwarzenegger, gave him the best results.

Do you agree with Coleman’s view on Schwarzenegger having the best chest in bodybuilding history?

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Written by

Avantika Das

Edited by

Ashvinkumar Patil