Arnold from the Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding
No one is immune to being psyched out. I have to admit that I’ve been on the receiving end of this treatment as well as dishing it out. In 1969, Sergio Oliva pulled a trick on me, which taught me what psychological warfare is really all about. At that contest, Sergio walked around the whole time before we went on stage with his shoulders pulled in, looking very narrow, and wearing a long butcher’s coat. I remember thinking that his back didn’t look very big. He went into a corner to put some oil on, and I still didn’t get a good look. But then he lowered the boom: as he walked out into the light on his way to the stage he said, “Take a look at this!” and he flared his lats — and the way those lats came out, I swear to you, I have never seen anything like it since. It was his way of saying, “That’s it, it’s all over.” And it was. I was destroyed. I looked over at Franco and he tried to tell me it was just the lighting, but I knew better.
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