My Encounter With Victor Richards

• By Ron Cecchini
• Originally posted to " misc.fitness.weights "
• Date : 28 Oct 1993 16 : 38 : 38

  I saw Vic Richards last Friday night at a seminar he gave at Vinny Greco's Powerhouse Gym in Watertown, assachusetts. I didn't write anything down, so I'm going just from memory. Anyway, I'm just going to ramble...

  First of all, Vic Richards is the largest human alive. I am now convinced of it. I've seen pros in person before ( side note: if you've never seen a pro in person, you're in for a shock. You can not imagine how big they really are just from the magazines. ), but this guy pretty much blew my mind away.

  He started off with his background and stuff, why he doesn't compete, etc. He believes that you should bodybuild for the love of it, not to win fame or trophies. If you do it for those reasons, then you'll never succeed. But if you love it, and pour your all into it, those things will eventually come.

  He said that at 15 year old, he was already 235 pounds ( 107 kg ) with 17 - 1/2 inches arms. And now, his height is 5 feet 10 inches and claims to be 330 pounds ( 150 kg ). I didn't believe it at the seminar, but the following night he guest posed at a contest and after seeing him without his clothes, I was more apt to believe it.

  He said the Barbarian Brothers are the ones that got him into training, and taught him everything for the first four years. He also says ( like someone else did around here ) that there are two of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet. He says that they always have time to talk to anyone - no matter how small you are - to talk about training, etc.

  He believes the reason they're so nice goes along with why they don't compete. They bodybuild because they love it, not to win trophies. 

  Other things ( in non-chronological order ) :

  [ NOTE : All quotes are paraphrased. Sorry - didn't have a tape recorder. ]

  He backed up his claim of eating 30,000 calories. 

  " I eat. " Vic said.

  Moreover, he still claims that they're clean calories and no fats or MCTs, and he doesn't believe in using a blender - he never drinks his calories.

  So, supposedly he gets 30,000 calories from eating the following meal 5-6 times a day ( someone should calculate the actual numbers ) : 

  Vic believes carbohydrate are more important than protein, and says that eating large amounts of carbohydrate is one of the biggest secrets in bodybuilding. He eats almost at least 15 pounds of rice a day, and says that you should never go to bed hungry.

  However, he claims that he wakes up in the morning and goes to the gym without having eaten first, and often works out for up to 3 hours.

  "A hungry man is an angry man. I like to be angry when I train. I train harder when I'm angry." He emphasized.

  So, supposedly, he doesn't get a jump on his 30,000 calories for a good long while after he wakes up...

  Being that this is Matarazzo's home town ( and Vic annoyingly called him Mazaratto the whole time ), someone asked about his run-ins with Mike.

  He claims that he has nothing against Mike, but for some reason Mike kept feeling it necessary to say things about him behind his back. Vic thinks it was done out of some kind of insecurity on Mike's part.

  And even though Vic claimed that this stuff doesn't bother him and he couldn't care less about anybody but Vic, he apparently did confront Mike ( in San Jose, I think. )

  "You been talking shit?" [ this got a laugh out of the crowd. ]

  "No no no - that's just the magazines! I never said those things. They just want to see us do battle because we're the big guys..." Blah blah blah.

  So Vic thought that they had apparently made up, but then he heard Mike was supposedly saying more stuff about him ( all through the grapevine).

  Anyway, he concluded that story with, I think the reason that Mike and Sandy had so many problems is that, instead of thinking about pleasing Sandy, Mike went to bed worrying about Vic too much.

  One young kid ( apparently with pretty big nags ) asked him:

  "You haven't qualified to compete in the Nationals. You haven't qualified to compete in the pro ranks - yet, you do. How do you get to compete with the pros?"

  "There is nothing wrong with being competent in one's ability. It's not arrogance, it's just a confidence in what I can do..." Vic answered. Blah blah blah.

  To which the kid goes:

  "No no no - you haven't answered my question! You didn't qualify for the Nationals, you didn't qualify for the pros - how come you get to compete?! "

  The crowd was laughing.

"That's what I like about young kids. They're not afraid to ask anything.  They just come right out with it." Vic said.

  "I don't have to qualify." Here he pauses dramatically.

  More pause. [ paraphrase ]

  "I believe I am very unique. And when you have a monstrous physique like mine, you shouldn't have to qualify."

  He dropped out of school after one year. He doesn't believe in following an established philosophy:

"When you go to school, you learn about philosophies started by other people. I'd rather make my own. In a way, I graduated and got a degree from the Victor Richards' School of Life."

  Said that bodybuilding was about being big, and that a little guy should never win. His list of big guys was: himself, Strydom, the Barbarian Brothers and Jim Quinn.

  Noticeably missing was Matarazzo, which everyone around me started talking about. ( I really didn't care, since I'm not a Matarazzo fan. Hey - I'm really not even a New Englander! )

  He doesn't have a pre-set schedule. He never knows what he's going to train until he gets to the gym. He never counts sets or reps. He just works until he feels like he's done.

  He also likes to go heavy and take as much rest as he needs in between sets. I'm in the gym to build muscle - not to do aerobics.

  He beat around the bush on the drug issue ( I'm not saying I do, I'm not saying I don't. ) but eventually indicated that he does do it ( duh... ).

  He wouldn't say what he did, because, as he put it:

  "I don't want to give anyone a noose to put around my neck."

  I tried asking him about cycles in a way that wouldn't be too personal, I'll try to ask this in an impersonal way:

  " What is your philosophy on the length of a cycle and the number of cycles done in a year? "

  But he wouldn't comment at all. All he said was that he could get in serious trouble if he answered my question, because what if I went out and did something and got hurt, because then I could say :" Well, Victor Richards said..."

  He said I could ask him one-on-one about it, but I didn't.

  When asked about overtraining, he goes:

  "Um, how can I put this nicely... Overtraining is a word used by the weak."

  He believes ( as I am inclined to ) that if a bodypart gets lots of rest between workouts, and you get enough sleep and nutrients, that you won't overtrain.

  I splurged and spent the $10 for his autograph. While I was up there, I said:

  " One more thing, your hams - they are so phenomenal! ( and oh man are they! ) What do you do to train them? " I asked couriously.

  " Thank you. Basically, just lying leg curls. I don't like standing curls." Vic said with a smile.

  " What about stiff - legged deadlifts? I do them quite often, but never feel my hams as good as with leg curls."

  " Me too. The deadlifts don't isolate the hams enough. I hardly do them. Stay with the leg curls - especially lying down."

  Overall, I don't know - pretty entertaining. One of my bodybuilding friends who was there thought Vic was a hypocrite ( especially about the Matarazzo story ) and said that he didn't learn anything. I told him that I never go to these things to really learn anything - I mean.

  " What are they really going to tell you that you haven't heard before? " But he said he's been to some seminars where the guys really give you some good information about dieting and nutrition, etc.

  Another friend of mine said that it really would be useless to ask Vic anything, because he probably doesn't know a whole hell of a lot because he can rely on his ( supernatural - my word ) genetics. Whatever, but it is true that some of the most huge guys you see really don't know as much about proper training and nutrition as most of the people even in this group.