The first detailed article and photos on Casey Viator appeared in the September, 1970 issue of Iron Man magazine, just after his Jr. Mr. America win, and clean sweep of every single bodypart with the exception of abdominals.
The article mentioned that Casey had been training seven days a week, doing 30 sets per bodypart but also stated the following: "At the present time he is back on an every-other-day workout schedule, with a special program and greatly reduced workout time, and results are coming amazingly fast. However, at present we are not permitted to tell you how he is training!"
At this time no one knew why there was so much secrecy attached to Casey's workout routines. It was only as the months went by that the names of Arthur Jones, Nautilus, and Casey Viator would become synonymous.
All kinds of claims and stories circulated the worldwide bodybuilding community, rumors of superhuman feats of strength, such as full squats with 505 pounds for 14 reps, and other amazing accomplishments. Jones himself even wrote that the amazing Sergio Oliva, one of the greatest physique stars of all time, could not keep up with Casey during one of these secret workouts.
So just how was he training? How did he build those incredible arms that looked as though they were bigger than his head? The best training article that appeared on Casey during this period was written by Achilles Kallos and published in the October, 1971 issue of Iron Man.
This article listed Casey's measurements (I didn't include them in that article).
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 217
Arms: 19-3/8 (cold)
Chest: 50
Waist: 31-1/2
Thighs: 28
Calves: 18
The article also mentioned the fact that Casey trained his whole body in one workout, three times per week, and that each workout lasted between two and two-and-a-half hours. The writer then detailed the amazing workout that he claimed Casey followed during that period.
See that link to the Achilles Kallos article for the layout.
Yikes.
Yikes, alright. Even now, 42 years after it was written, this workout is nothing less than simply incredible, especially when you consider the high reps Casey was using with heavy weights.
Having already won the 1971 Mr. America shortly before that article went to print, Casey's appearance at the 1971 NABBA Mr. Universe in London was eagerly anticipated; unfortunately, it never materialized. And then Casey disappeared from the face of the bodybuilding world and its publications.
I got to know Casey well when we both lived in California, way back in 1980; it was 32 years later that I contacted him for an exclusive Looking Back article.
Q (Chris Lund): Why did you begin training in the first place?
A (Casey Viator): One of my uncles actually got me started. He was a big "muscled-up" guy from the 1950s. I was only about 13 years old at the time, but I was way ahead of everybody else in my age group on all of the strength moves, which included Olympic lifting. I gained lots of size and strength from the beginning.
However, I wasn't too pleased about the way my chest looked because, to be honest, I wasn't even training it. So, eventually, I started doing bench presses and heavy dips, which quickly fixed the problem. I also started doing heavy bentover rows and heavy wide-grip chins which made my whole upper body respond rapidly. Pretty soon I dropped the Olympic lifts, and concentrated solely on bodybuilding.
Q: When you won the Mr. America in 1971, you were only 19 years old, and suddenly became the biggest sensation in bodybuilding. How did you accomplish this at such a young age?
A: Even though I realized I had more than average genetics to build strength and muscle, I still trained in the most grueling manner possible. I mostly followed split routines in my training and I trained with as much intensity as I possibly could.
Sure, I knew back then that I was over-training, but you know, when you're a teenager your body can take a lot of punishment.
I would usually train for three hours, doing 40 sets a bodypart, five days a week. I then walked five miles back home, after every workout. I know it seems like a helluva lot, but that's what I did back then. Anyway, the walk back home was a good way to get my cardio in!
Q: What was your diet like in those days?
A: I ate a lot, man! I drank lots of milk, ate lots of eggs, and lean beef, plus milk & egg protein powder. I would say that I ate at least 250 grams of protein every day. Also, my dad used to raise cattle just to keep the fridge-freezer full of first-class cuts of beef. He was always supportive of me in that way, but he could never quite understand the many hours of torturous workouts I put myself through. You see, it was all so new to him back in those days, but when he saw my progress (and all the trophies I brought back home) he became so proud of me.
Note: Viator also ate a "pudding" made of two pounds of peanut butter, one jar of grape jelly and couple bananas throughout the day. Lots of milk with raw eggs and protein powder mixed in as well (two dozen eggs, two gallons of raw milk . . . you get the idea).
Q: You will forever be associated with Arthur Jones, inventor of Nautilus, because he trained you for the 1971 Mr. America and drastically changed your way of training. How did you meet him?
The Viator Twins, Casey and Tracy. Photos taken during the
little-known Art Jones/Joe Mengele collaboration.
A: I first met Arthur at the 1970 Mr. America contest, where I placed third. but won the most muscular award. He pulled me aside and told me how much potential he thought I had. He told me, "Casey, you have the potential to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, but you're training way too often. You need to cut back on your sets, and the length of your workouts." I knew Arthur was a much respected person who certainly knew his stuff, and he was just starting to promote his Nautilus machines at the time. So I was all ears! (Not visible in photo above, but according to all reports and legit measurements taken, they were definitely well developed).
Q: How did Arthur have you train between 1970 and the 1971 Mr. America?
A: Arthur convinced me to cut way back on my volume training, and got me to really pour on the intensity throughout every set I did. He also got me to do very short and faster workouts, which was a huge departure from the way I usually trained. This type of high intensity training worked very well for me, and I did only one set of each exercise for the entire twelve months before the 1971 Mr. America.
Q: After you won the 1971 Mr. America you did not compete for another seven years, and I can remember reading that Arthur told you that you should never compete again. I never quite understood this.
A: Yea, you're absolutely right, except that he just said, "Don't compete for a while" so I didn't. I just continued to train extremely hard, did seminars for Nautilus, and other public relations things.
Two years later, Casey's name was inserted into the bodybuilding record books. This is how it happened. During the month of May 1973 . . . if you're not familiar with the Colorado Experiment there's plenty about it available. If you're into studying and taking something away from it remember to include that grain of salt.
2002. 327 pages. 117,761 words.
-> Full PDF
In March of this year (2013), I asked Casey about his memories of the Colorado Experiment and this is what he told me.
A: I really had to diet hard to get my body weight down to 168 pounds before the experiment, but when we finished it 28 days later I had gained 45 pounds of muscle. We calculated that my diet before the experiment was less than 800 calories per day. During the 28-day experiment I consumed around 5,000 calories a day.
I can remember flying to Colorado in one of Arthur's airplanes, a single prop Cherokee Six. Arthur always flew very high in the commercial jet lanes in a decompressed cabin, which always gave me the worst headaches from flying at that altitude. Arriving from Florida to Fort Collins, Colorado, I had more to contend with than I had prepared myself for. We were actually one mile high in Colorado, and I had to acclimatize to the altitude quickly, but I knew lots of food was coming soon. All that dieting was over.
We arrived at the Lamplighter Inn, just outside of Fort Collins, where I was going to spend the next 28 days of hard work, training and eating, no fun, maybe a movie now and then, because we were there to get results. Think about it, every day for the next month - eating, training my brains out, sleeping - that was my job!
The next step was my weigh-in and body fat count at the Colorado State University, which was a very complex process.
This experiment actually showed that even at my low starting body weight, I gained muscular weight and lost bodyfat. I averaged around 12 exercises per workout during the experiment, and no two workouts were the same. Eating was quite easy for the first week, after I had been dieting down for six whole weeks.
With a healthy cash incentive per pound of muscle that I gained, I was raring to go, but the next step was to convert the physiology lab into a training facility. We had about 20 pieces of Nautilus equipment and prototypes to move to the second floor. There was even talk of the structural integrity of the second floor, accommodating all these heavy training pieces. Many tons of equipment were moved to that second floor.
We also brought a new line of negative-only prototypes that we used for the experiment. For example, you moved the weight up to the contracted position of the muscle by using the feet, and lowered it with your biceps or triceps. We even had a negative-only bench press which worked in the same fashion.
There were many other prototypes such as the single-pad squat machine, which was a great training piece, but in the end, the mechanism that locked you in and out of the machine could not be perfected, hence it never ended up as a production model for Nautilus. But all considered, it was a great machine.
The first week or so, these training sessions were very difficult. I was untrained for five months before the experiment, and my right hand had atrophied quite a bit from a finger accident. After the first two sessions I ended up on the floor, purple, with a pulse rate close to fibrillation (200 bpm). But, as they say, what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger!
I tried to keep my fat intake down during my 6-8 meals per day, and just about any type of protein source was fair game to eat. I averaged around 400 grams of protein a day. With this type of growth rate, I needed every gram of protein I could lay my hands on.
During my workout sessions, Arthur would more or less sit in a chair and read the newspaper (eyeing me the whole time). If he saw that I was slowing down my pace, he would say something insulting to egg me on. I would get mad, which pushed me even harder into the set, and made me achieve better gains.
This was a game he played for almost 10 years off and on. One thing about the man, he sure knew how to agitate someone to make them work harder through their workouts.
My workout was so intense that my body absorbed everything I ate. The majority of my diet was high protein foods such as lean beef, chicken, lots of dairy products including milk and lots of seafood. Carbohydrates were consumed to a minimum, although I did consume carbs 45 minutes before training.
My muscles were coming back rapidly. This was a true case of muscle memory, although many people have questioned the validity of this study. A lot of factors came into play, one of which was my genetics. The average man would not have been able to gain 63 pounds of raw muscle, and Arthur Jones and I have been defending this study for years. There have been a lot of questions regarding steroid use during the experiment, because many people claimed that I loaded up for this experiment.
I can honestly say that there was no use of steroids during this study, which is a very important point. I was also closely monitored in a closed-door environment.
Believe me, I would have done anything to have gained that weight, but I knew my rebound potential to regain muscle, and I also knew from my history that I would make remarkable gains, knew that before the study began. Plenty of rest is very important when a grueling entire-body workout is performed. When you work all body parts three times a week briefly, but intensely, your body has to grow. But proper sequence of pre-exhausting exercises is very important also. The safety factor is observed very closely, especially during the first part of every set. The last part of any exercise is usually not the dangerous point, because your muscles are simply too weak at that stage. Throwing a weight, or dropping a weight too fast can injure you at any time. You simply must keep perfect exercise form during every exercise.
The Denver Broncos came in for training sessions and to watch us go through my fast-paced training. Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears was also there training, and observing what was going on. I was very proud of the results that took place in Colorado, and feel that this study has contributed to the awareness of how much time is wasted in most individuals' workouts. This experiment is still being studied in colleges across America, and can also be found on the internet.
I must say that I have injured myself on many an occasion in the gym, with pectoral tears, lower inguinal hernias and many other injuries. However, I really managed to stay injury-free using high intensity heavy training.
I am 61 years old now and my current lifts are:
Squat - 550
Bench - 500
Leg Press - 900
However, as I mature, I feel moderation would have been better for my overall wellbeing. Every injury I incurred was caused by bad form or explosive movements. If I can teach one person the hazards of explosive training I would really be very happy. If any trainee is considering doing this type of training, I would make sure that they work at their own individual pace and push themselves through just enough so that they can finish the entire full-body routine.
High intensity training is not the average type of workout. People interested in reading more about the Colorado Experiment can learn all about it in my book "Articles of Mass Construction."
I asked Casey if he ever got the urge to compete again . . .
A: I sure did! The bug bit me because seven years is a long time, man, and I was eager to come back, so I chose the 1978 NABBA Mr. Universe in London. I trained mostly in high intensity fashion, but I also added a little volume training to help get me into contest shape. I followed a three-days-a-week split routine, plus a whole-body workout on Saturday.
On Monday I trained chest and biceps. On Wednesday I did shoulders and legs including calves. On Friday I worked my upper and lower back and traps, followed by triceps. On Saturday I trained the whole body with only one set per exercise in high intensity fashion. (Plenty of variations available, and this framework can make for a great layout . . . e.g., Legs, then a day off. Push, then a day off. Pull, then a day off. Full body, then a day or two off. There's lots of ways to organize something along those lines).
In 1979 Casey joined the IFBB and placed 5th at his first show, the Canada Pro Cup.
"I moved to L.A. shortly after that contest because all my friends and fans kept telling me that I was too good not to be competing in world-class bodybuilding contests. Also, I had already asked Arthur for a hefty raise in salary and when he declined I just picked up my stuff and moved to California to train with the big guys at Gold's."
Q: Was this about the time you started training with Mike Mentzer?
A: Yes, Mike and I were a fantastic team, and when we started training together we made unbelievable progress.
Ray Mentzer, Casey Viator, Larry Pacifico, Albert Busek, Mike Mentzer
We both trained with volume training as well.
Later, when Ray Mentzer joined us, our training was actually scary to watch, and we nearly always had crowds of people watching us train over at the old Gold's Gym in Santa Monica.
Casey was doing really well with the IFBB, but then he suddenly quit bodybuilding competitions after the 1982 Mr. Olympia in London. This is his explanation:
"I did win a few shows with the IFBB between 1980 and 1982, but when I was handed the 3rd place award at the '82 Olympia behind Chris Dickerson and Frank Zane, I thought, 'This is it. I've had enough.' It was the deciding factor that made me stop all the madness. Dickerson and Zane placing ahead of me was a horrible thing to encounter, because I was in the best shape of my life! It's really quite funny because I received bags of mail telling me how I had been screwed at that show. It's even funnier now, because today people are still saying I got screwed at that show, 30 years later!"
Q: And you never felt the urge to compete again after that?
A: Naw, what was the point? The '82 Olympia was either political or perhaps the judges were blind or something. It's funny because Arnold kept asking me to compete the following year in Munich at the '83 Olympia but I just turned him down and told him that I had had enough of all this craziness. I was totally pissed off so I left L.A. and moved to Arizona. I started up a personal training business, and I've never looked back. Today I do mail order personal training, which is really going very well.
Q: Do you ever go to the bodybuilding contests nowadays, and what is your opinion of bodybuilding today?
A: Not really. I only attend a show if one of my clients is competing. As far as today's bodybuilding is concerned (2013), all I can say is I wouldn't do the things to myself that the guys of today are doing. You have to think about what the drugs will do to you down the line. It's just not worth it, as far as I'm concerned.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
Improving body chemistry the Jim Park way!
1954 . . . not related.
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