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Congratulations on maintaining your Mr. America
physique into your 70s -- it’s truly
inspirational and proof that bodybuilding is a
pathway to living long and living well. How have you
managed to stay motivated all this time?
Staying motivated is not a problem because once
I realized I could be as healthy as I was willing to
work for, I could never do otherwise. All the
functions of day-to-day living are the same functions that
determine the aging process, all of which are under
our control. Aging and living are one and the same
process; therefore all of the processes of living, which
we control, are controlling how we age. So staying motivated
for my lifestyle not only is not hard, I cannot
do otherwise.
Bodybuilding serves me on many levels. One is as
a refuge from life’s problems. I tend to beat
myself up over things, and the focus and dedication of
training for some goal always pulls me through the
resulting depression. It also allows me to express my
creativity from which I get the most pleasure of
anything. I have never been good at training as
maintenance. So I can relate to my clients in that respect.
There are long periods of no training, but something always
comes along to get me fired up again. What allows me
to sustain a degree of fitness during these lax
periods is my lifestyle, which is relatively
stress-free, and the vegan diet, which includes no processed
or refined foods.
From left: Jim Fraracci, Zabo Koszewski, Chet
Yorton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Gold. "There was a
lot of good-natured, although very gay, fooling
around at the original Gold's," Morris says of
this shot he took in 1969. "Here Arnold
plants a kiss on the forehead of Chet as Zabo cops a
feel. Note that Chet is holding Arnold around the waist."
This creation last year was the result of my not
knowing of anyone in their 70s who I felt could match
what I knew I was capable of. Being the first to
achieve a heretofore unseen level of development was an
attraction and challenge I could not resist. Setting a
standard also appealed to me. When people say I look
so good for my age, my response is, “I
don’t think so. I think this is what the 70s should
look like.”
I think competing and status are part of being
human, and as a child I was not coordinated and never
participated in sports, and I find through
bodybuilding I am able to satisfy my need to compete and
establish my status with other males on my terms.
Bodybuilding satisfies my need to compete for
sex and my need to be admired.
How do you deal with the chronic injuries that seem
to plague so many bodybuilders?
The body has a remarkable ability to heal itself
if given the right materials (nutrients) and care
(treatment). My joints have from time to time flared
up from overuse, but I have learned to allow them time
between exertions to heal. Now I do not have any pain or
even discomfort in any of my joints or muscles, which
is one of the major reasons I am able to train hard
enough to attain my current condition. I attribute it
mostly to my eating habits. When I dropped processed and
refined foods, all of what remained of my physical and
health problems went away completely. Most had already
disappeared when I became vegan.
Tell me a little about your exercise regimen now --
it must differ drastically from when you were competing.
Or does it?
There are three main differences. I use a
fraction of the poundage I used to use, but that is as
much because my goal is different now as anything
else. Heavy poundage is necessary to increase muscle size,
which is no longer my goal and has not been in
decades. Once I reached the maximum muscle mass for my
frame, I backed off on the poundage. After that it has
been a matter of refining and detailing.
I have developed a routine of
“flexing,” which I do at home and
devote as much time to as the actual gym workout. It is
basically the old Charles Atlas “Dynamic
Tension” method with a twist, which more than
makes up for the lower poundages I use in the gym. I can get
as intense a pump and break a sweat with this workout.
Third, I am no longer rigid about my workouts;
namely, I no longer absolutely must do certain
exercises on certain days with a definite number of
sets and reps. I have learned to listen to my body and I do
whatever I “feel” like at the moment. It can
range from not working out at all to going in twice a
day depending on my mood. It is very loose now.
In all fairness, do you think you could have won
the Mr. America title had you been a vegan back in the
’70s? I thought building muscle required
protein -- and lots of it.
Not only would I have won, I think I would have
been spectacular. I won the Mr. America with the
largest winning point margin in the history of the
contest (30 points, and the record still stands), and I know
the margin would have been even larger had I been a
vegan. What I have always had going for me is
symmetry. It would have emphasized those lines even
more by eliminating the “bloat” that comes
from eating animal products, especially dairy.
Vegetable protein is infinitely better quality protein
for humans and is available in more than sufficient
quantities in vegetables.
At his heaviest weight ever: 233 pounds
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