Phil Heath

There's no way in hell I could have achieved what I have without being a good student and listening to the wisdom of others who have been doing this a lot longer than I have.

There are days when I don't count sets at all, but then there are some days when I have to realize that I don't want to overwork because I still have an hour of cardio ahead of me or another training session later that day.

Front squats have really helped my quad development, especially when I was preparing for the Ironman.

Dropsets overload the muscle with shorter rest periods and increasing volume, which you need to grow.

I despised basketball for a long time.

You can't be around people who appease you all the time.

I see guys who are in the gym all the time, but their bodies are not a reflection of that. They look the same from year to year, and that has to do with the fact that they're not evaluating the effect of their efforts.

Every so often, I'll look at myself in the mirror and go, 'You're a bad mother,' you know? Like, 'You're a bad dude, man, and you're gonna show the world who you are when the time is right.'

I grew up as an only child, so I like being by myself. So I train predominantly - 98 percent of the time - by myself.

Constant tension should be applied to the last five reps of every working set, meaning, do the first 5-6 reps normal tempo, and the last few reps should be held for at least two seconds at the peak of the contraction. This allows your muscles to have more time under tension, and you work different muscle fibers.

Everybody that wants to work out wants to feel good and look better, but I think one of the biggest problems people have is they don't want to work out with a personal trainer, someone like myself, or even a couple of buddies, because they think, 'Gosh, if I work out too hard, I'm not going to be able to get up the next day!'

I went from 185 lbs to 285 lbs, became a 7X Mr. Olympia, tying Arnold Schwarzenegger, and competed against the most determined and fittest athletes in the world. This took hard work, tremendous dedication, and knowing what, how, and when to train.