Sergio Oliva

Remembering Sergio Oliva: 3 Times Winner of Mr. Olympia

Sergio Oliva (July 4, 1941 – November 12, 2012.
Place of Birth: Havana, Cuba.
Height: 1.78 m or 5’10”
Nicknamed “The Myth”
3 Times Winner of Mr. Olympia competition from 1967-1969.
Mr. Universe 1966 Winner

Oliva's Rise from Sports....

Sergio Oliva was born in Guantanamo, Cuba in 1941. As a teenager, after only a year of training, Sergio was able to perform clean & jerks in excess of 400 pounds.

Oliva began his training in Cuba as an Olympic-style weightlifter. But in 1962, Oliva defected and wound up in Chicago. There he formed a friendship with fellow lifter and bodybuilder Bob Gajda, who would later win the 1966 Mr. America contest. Gajda worked for the YMCA and ran the gym that Oliva would adopt in his new hometown. “He taught me weightlifting, and I taught him bodybuilding,” Gajda says.

Oliva’s weightlifting background helped him in his bodybuilding debut in an organization that included lifting as a judged element of its bodybuilding competitions. Years of heavy cleans and snatches added depth to Oliva’s back that most other competitors couldn’t dream of matching.

But Oliva’s gift for Olympic lifting was anything but—he paid the price for his talents. He had hypermobile elbows and knees, and while they allowed him to stimulate more muscle by training through greater ranges of motion than the normal lifter, his joints were regularly overstretched and strained. This nudged Oliva away from weightlifting to focus on pure physique competition, and it led to the use of partial reps—now the trademark of his workout style.

In order to avoid excessive stretching on his joints, Oliva tended to cut his reps short, sometimes performing only one quarter of the range of motion. He would lower his curls until his forearms were parallel to the floor, or do bench presses and stop the bar several inches from lockout. Sometimes, Oliva would do three to six quarter-range reps followed by a single full rep for good measure.

Oliva's Olympia Journey...

Oliva then went on to win the Mr. Olympia title three years in a row, at 5 feet 10 inches and at a contest weight of 225–245lbs.

Oliva’s 1968 Mr. Olympia win was uncontested. In 1969, he won his third consecutive Mr. Olympia by beating Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Hey, baby, take a look at this shot!” The taunt came from Sergio Oliva, and the sensitive ears that absorbed it were Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.

It was the 1969 Mr. Olympia contest, and Arnold, already victorious earlier that day in the Mr. Universe, had brazenly decided to take on Oliva—winner of bodybuilding’s top crown two years running and widely regarded as bodybuilding’s all-time greatest champion. “I said to myself, ‘Tonight I’m going to wipe him off,’ ”

In his 1977 autobiography, “Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder”, Arnold tells of their first encounter:

” Then for the first time, I saw Sergio Oliva in person. I understood why they called him the Myth. It was as jarring as if I’d walked into a wall. He destroyed me. He was so huge, he was so fantastic, there was no way I could even think of beating him. I admitted my defeat and felt some of my pumps go away. I tried. But I’d been so taken back by my first sight of Sergio Oliva that I think I settled for 2nd place before we walked out on the stage I never like to admit defeat, but I thought Sergio was better. There were no two ways about it. “

In 1972, under the High-Intensity Training (HIT) system of Arthur Jones, the designer of Nautilus training equipment, Oliva challenged Schwarzenegger for the 1972 Olympia in Essen Germany. By all accounts, Sergio was in his all-time greatest shape and completely confident he would regain the Mr. Olympia title. Arnold beat Sergio into 2nd place and was crowned Mr Olympia yet again.

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