"Ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a Professional Bodybuilder?"

Transcription

1 "Ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a Professional Bodybuilder?" Transcript of Interview with Bill Pearl, recorded March 10, 2003 on by Rob Cooper Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever the case may be in your part of the world. My name is Rob Cooper, I am the Former Fat Guy. I used to weigh 475 pounds 1989 I decided to do something about it, I decided to take responsibility for my health, learned everything I could learn about nutrition, health, fitness and started putting it all into practice. Over the course of a couple years I lost 288 pounds and now I kind of think of everything that I do as generated towards just improving my life. That s the theme of this show is to help you find a mentor, help you find someone you can relate to, whether it be a vegetarian or a body builder or a Zen monk. Anybody that you might relate to so that you could possibly duplicate their results by putting into action things you learned from them. Today s guest is we have with us Mr. Bill Pearl. A five time Mr. Universe, Bill has been involved with body building since probably Rob: Bill, how are you today? Bill Pearl: I m just fine Rob, thank you for having me on your show. Rob: Oh it s my pleasure, believe me, my pleasure. Now, I know who you are and I m sure a lot of people know who you are but I would like you just to talk about who you are. Explain who is Bill Pearl first of all. Bill Pearl: Ok, that won t take a whole lot of time Rob. To begin with I haven t been in fitness since 1930, I was born in 1930, Rob.

2 Rob: But I think you been thinking fitness since the days you were born. Bill Pearl: This is very, very true. Yes, I ve always been a health conscious type of an individual and most of my reasons for doing what I ve done has probably been caused by some form of an insecurity complex or an ego problem I was having and fortunately I had a, for me I had a, I have an older brother who is 3 years older as we were growing up every day I knew he was going to make me cry before the day was out so I got more involved in the fitness program not to for cosmetic aspects but to protect myself against my brother. And it just so happened that this sport continued to grow and I continued to stay into the sport and lo and behold, 50 years later, 60 years later I m still able to do quite well and perhaps I ve made an impact on the industry that you are also making now with your show. But I was a Mr. America winner, I then won the Mr. Universe contest in 1953 then again 1956, 61, 67, Rob: That s amazing. Bill Pearl: Well thank you, I had a run of about 20 years and all the people that are very popular today such as Arnold Schwarzenegger (yah) as an example, we could talk about Clint Eastwood whoever it may be Sean Connery people who ve been in the industry I ve been involved with them one way or another either competing against them or something that they have done. So I think the point that I m trying to make is the fact that if you take care of the sport the sport is going to take care of you. Rob: Right. That s an amazing line up. Not only of your credentials for what you ve accomplished in your titles Bill Pearl: Well thank you. Rob: But even, I didn t realize that you ve worked with Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood. Bill Pearl: Sean Connery was in the 1953 Professional Mr. Universe contest and I happened to win the contest but he was one of the contestants and so I ve known Sean for over 50 years. Rob: Was he an amateur or was he a professional? Bill? Bill Pearl: Yes? Rob: I m sorry, was he was in the 1953 Mr. Universe?

3 Bill Pearl: Yes he was, in London, England, yes. Rob: And you say he was competing as a contestant Bill Pearl: He competed in the contest and he did quite well but fortunately I was the winner. Fortunately for me I was the winner. Rob: Now that s the one where the English fellow got up and said Pearl is King. Bill Pearl: Well that happened actually in 1961 I believe it was or 1967, that happened later on in my career. Rob: I stand corrected. That s when you went back and you decided to there was some of your, I don t know if they were friends but some people were saying that you were worried about competing against younger men and decided to go back and Bill Pearl: Well that happened in 1971, Rob, that was the last contest. I had won the Mr. Universe contest in 1967 and I retired from competition. I have always trained and will continue to train till the day I day. I m not going to stop working out. That s obvious. But at the same token I was also heavily involved with North American Walk aerospace program. And my job was to keep executives of the aerospace program and several astronauts in condition for the aerospace flights. So I had my career had taken a turn and I was no longer interested competing in body building contests for the sake of winning a trophy. And then as you say there was some flak that had come down the line over the years that I was getting up a little bit and I was afraid of competing against the modern day body builders, quote, unquote at that particular time so I decided in 1971 that I would make an announcement that I would appear, compete again in the 1971 contest. Anybody and everybody who wanted to take a crack at me they had a chance, and fortunately again, I won. Rob: Now, you say you ll be training until the day you die. Bill Pearl: Yes. Rob: You were born in Bill Pearl: Yes. Rob: That would put you at coming up on 73 now? Bill Pearl: Ah yes. Yah, I am.

4 Rob: Okay. And I believe or have read that you get up at 3 am everyday to train. Bill Pearl: Well I get up at 2:30, Rob. Rob: Good Lord!! What time do you go to bed Bill? Bill Pearl: Around 7:30, 8 o clock. And people ask me, well why do you do that and I explain that we live in a little town of _ Talent, Oregon which has a little population of a thousand eight hundred people and there isn t a whole lot to do up here. Rob: Ok? Bill Pearl: So it s just as easy to get up at 2:30 as it is to get up at 5:00. Rob: So you go to bed with the sun and get up with the sun. Bill Pearl: That s right. And then we have a big barn behind our house which we ve turned into a private health club for my friends and myself. And everyday a certain percentage of people I ve loved all my life, we get together and we all train 6 days per week, couple hours per day and nobody misses and we just get along fine. Rob: Hmm. Let s go back into the history of how you got started. Now I know that eventually you were taken under the wing by a fellow in California. Bill Pearl: A gentlemen, Leo Stern, yes Rob. Rob: But what did you, how did you start? I mean there s gonna be people listening to this show who have not done anything as far as physical fitness or body building or body building Rob: I understand. Bill Pearl: I m sure a lot of them don t want to get into body building, as a cosmetic reason but we both know that physical fitness will improve every aspect of your life. Rob: Um, there is no question about it. Ok, I would have to back up a little teeny bit to make this a little more understanding Bill Pearl: I was born on a warm springs Indian reservation back in 1930 and I went to Indian school for about 7 years and those times in my growing up, being an American Indian was not the most popular

5 thing to be. And so when I had gone to public schools after my time there was a certain amount of degradation that went along with this, I had an inferiority complex because perhaps didn t dress like the others had dressed. I had some psychological problems that I was attempting to overcome in conjunction with my brother pounding on me constantly Rob: (laughs) Bill Pearl: the fact that I thought that if I could get big and strong that I may not be able to handle everything, but if anyone gave me a bad time I could control what was going to do through some sort of a force rather than a psychological aspect Rob: OK Bill Pearl: So it was a means of survival for me Rob: Ok Bill Pearl: But then as I continued on with my fitness program as a young kid growing up I found that the better I got, the more muscular I got, the bigger I got, I became more of a mentor to other people and me mentoring other people. And so it was kind of a status thing which I truly enjoyed and I liked and it gave me a reason to be slightly different than most people so I just continued doing it. Rob: People came to you for your knowledge! Bill Pearl: That s exactly right, yes Rob: What did you do? Bill Pearl: What did I do when I began training? Rob: Yes, you say you wanted to get bigger to protect yourself Bill Pearl: Well, Ok, Yes, I ordered a, what they call a York Big 10 Special barbell set from York Pennsylvania, I ordered this set back in 1941 just at the beginning of the second world war, just before it broke out. And I got delivery in SO I actually waited 3 or 4 years to get my barbell set, from York, but in the interim I began doing all sorts of pushups and sit-ups and doing all types of exercise with makeshift equipment until my barbell and dumbbell set came along Rob: So you just did what you had to do?

6 Bill Pearl: That s right, and it was all trial and error Rob, there was no one telling me what to do, I just knew I had to do something and what I was doing, Anything was better than what I was doing. Rob: Right, now, what about how often did you train. Bill Pearl: How often did I train then? Rob: Ya? Bill Pearl: I trained 3 days a week, and now I train 6 days a week. And I train a couple of hours per day and I realize that s not necessary, but, physically it s not necessary, but psychologically it is necessary. So I probably overdo, on everything that I do do in my life, but that s just me, I have a type A personality and I can t back off. Rob: I m the same way, whatever I do, I do 100% Bill Pearl: Alright, well then, I cant get away from it. And so, I could probably do better physically and perhaps even healthful wise if I did less, but I can t back off. Rob: Do you think being a type A and doing everything 100% would be, Um, are they any experiences of that being a negative part of your life? Bill Pearl: Probably so, because I think that other things in your life, such as your family life, people you surround and associate with suffer because of this, yes, I do Rob: I d have to agree with that. Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: How old would be when this was happening? Bill Pearl: I started weight training doing some form of an exercise with the understanding of improving myself when I was a ten year old kid, so I ve actually trained on a regular basis for 62 years. Rob: Wow, You got into the navy in, what year was that? Bill Pearl: I enrolled in the navy in That s where I met this gentleman Leo Stern, he was in San Diego California, fortunately for me he kind enough to take me under his wing and he became my mentor. And without this gentleman Leo Stern there would be no Bill Pearl the bodybuilder. Most of everything I ve done in the industry

7 I ve attempted to emulate what Leo has taught me or by following what he has currently he himself done. Rob: What did he teach, what did he tell you, or how did that even come about? Bill Pearl: Well, he had a health club, and I liked the health club, and I liked the way he controlled the club, the way he controlled the people who came to his health club, he was his own person, he didn t have to bow to anybody, he was self employed, if he wanted to close the gym he did, if he didn t, he didn t have to, and the whole aspect of how he conducted his life was something I felt I would like to do so, virtually everything Leo did, I tried to emulate him. Rob: I see, so you found a lifestyle Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: Did you have time to train when you were in the navy? Bill Pearl: Well I trained, in fact, I won the Mr American contest, the Mr Universe Contest, Mr California and Southern California while I was in the Navy, Yes Rob: In 1953 Bill Pearl: Yes, and I also became very involved in wrestling, I was a relatively good wrestler and I had won several Navy championships and so on, I was an alternate for the 1954 Olympic games so, I had a background in wrestling as well as bodybuilding at that time. Rob: Right, you tried track and field but you excelled at bodybuilding and wrestling Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: But before you were stationed in San Diego because you actually got stationed there and that s where you found your mentor, you were I guess in a few different places, did you have time to train before you got stationed in San Diego? Bill Pearl: Yes, I always found time to train Rob, it was a part of my life, it was so ingrained in me that that s what I had to do to get me where I wanted to go, nothing in the world bothered me, I would train under any circumstances, if I had to go out and start picking up things that were heavy, in a field, rocks, or God knows what all, I was going to do it Rob, I was adamant as to what I wanted to do.

8 Rob: Good for you, that s exactly what I wanted to hear Bill. Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: It s so important for people to know that if you re going to get results, you ve got to be committed and you ve got to do whatever it s going to take to get the job done. Bill Pearl: This is true Rob: It doesn t matter whether you can find a gym to train in or picking up rocks like you say Bill Pearl: Or actually, perhaps your listening audience can identify with is the fact that if you just get up and do anything Rob, if you just get up and down out of a chair five times in a row, that is a form of exercise Rob: Right Bill Pearl: And nobody in the world has to carry it to the extent that I have or you perhaps that you have to become very very healthy. Rob: I agree Bill Pearl: And I honestly feel that most of us in the world today, if we just get involved in a walking program. GO down to your local mall and start walking two or three days a week and keep at this thing and get some activity going in your life, that perhaps to be enough exercise that all of us have to have to carry us through for the type of lifestyle we currently want to live. Rob: Very good advice. Bill Pearl: My problem is that I ve carried it to a giant extreme but I m an extremist in everything that I do but I fully understand, nobody in the world who could be so stupid to do what I do. Back from a short break Rob: We were talking about people taking any sort of action to get get some kind of fitness. Bill Pearl: Well, the comment that I made when you mentioned that I train six days a week to keep fit, I believe it goes further than that

9 Rob. I could stay fit on a great deal less than I do physically but I can t handle it psychologically because of the way that I ve played th is game over so many years that it s a difficult thing to do, but if we could get the average Individual out there in your audience to just do some type of a program rather than just parking your car several feet away from the front of where they re going to work each day and walk the stairs and into the building rather than taking the elevator, things such as this and rather than just sitting all day at your desk, get up and walk around and get a drink at the cooler and come back. Anything such as this where you add additional activity to your life is a form of exercise. Rob: When I started my own program I was 475 pounds and I didn t know anything about nutrition or health, but, at 385pounds I made some changes in how I was eating food, and I started having enough energy that I wanted to get out and do something, so I started a walking program. I was 385 pounds and I started walking 20 minutes a day. And that was my thing. At the time, I remember I couldn t do any pushups obviously, I was 475 and try and do a pushup! Good Lord! So I started doing pushups on a stairwell so I was doing like an incline pushup and I could do I think 5. And I remember thinking that well, you know I m 22 years old, I can do 5 pushups, but 10 years from now, if I did 5 pushups every single day, at some point, obviously I going to be able to do 6 Bill Pearl: There you go Rob: I ll be able to do 10, I was at least taking action. I remember thinking that I could do 5 sit-ups. But if I did 5 sit-ups in the morning and 5 sit-ups in the evening and I did that every single day at some point I d be able to do 50 or 100 Bill Pearl: It s true Rob: It was the compound effect of doing this all the time Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: We talked a little bit about how you re a type A personality and how you need to work out, that you need to do this and I m similar that I need to do something. I need to be physical in some manner. We ve got a lot of listeners listening to this who are sitting in front of a computer, they could be office staff, they could be athletes themselves, we ve got an entire range of people. The important thing is that people do something like you said. I started parking my car farther away from the front door of the supermarket. Exactly what you said is what I started doing. Anything I could do just to get

10 moving, I started using the stairs instead of using the escalator, simple simple stuff. Bill Pearl: I hate to interject this and I certainly don t want to cut you off, but the bottom line is.. I seriously doubt anybody whos on a quote unquote diet regime, if they re not on some type of an exercise program in conjunction with the changing of their eating habits they will not continue to change their eating habits, they ll go back to the same habits they had. Your success when it comes to losing weight or getting in better condition is all 99% revolved around your fitness program, not so much of what you eat, but your fitness program. Once that goes away everything else will go away accordingly. It ll be gone. Rob: Now why do you say that? Bill Pearl: Well, its been proven. IF you go to the Pritican institute as an example down in Santa Monica California and pay someone five or $10,000 for a week to get you on some type of nutritional program, they know that if they don t get you involved in some type of exercise program, you will not stay on the Pritican diet. This has been proven over the thousand upon thousand of people that have gone through there. If you were to talk to Rob Pritican himself, he ll tell you that without the use of some sort of an exercise program to get these people on, I cant keep them on their diet changes. Rob: Do you think that s a psychological thing? Bill Pearl: Probably so, Yes. As you mentioned to me, all the success that you had was the fact that if you re walking and getting better, you re willing to change other parts of your life, but because you could see the benefits that were derived from the exercise program more so than your diet program. Rob: Absolutely Bill Pearl: So you re a prime example of what I m talking about. You went through it yourself. Rob: Thank you. I found that it got to be a kick! Bill Pearl: Sure Rob: You start to get stronger, I was 385 but my back was getting stronger, I could hold myself up longer. Bill Pearl: Yes

11 Rob: I notice that as I was walking my lungs were clearing themselves out and I could breath better, I just saw that my body worked better and it was just so much fun just seeing this all take place. Seeing the body regenerate itself and heal. It was really amazing. Bill Pearl: Well the nice thing about the body and people might forget this but it s true. Its constantly trying to stay totally fit, 24 hours per day. Mother nature never gives up on you till the very very end. Rob: What was it like on stage? What was it like being with these people? Bill Pearl: Well on stage on the competition side, I was never a big fan of competing for the sake of competing. I m still not the type of individual who likes to go out and take off his shirt and pose, those types of things. I ve always attempted to cover myself up and be try to be known better for perhaps what I was on the inside rather than on the inside. SO I don t honestly think I ve been classified as a chauvinist. I took bodybuilding as a part of another job I had. I was always in the gym business. I was always promoting something to do with fitness and so my overall appearance dealt with what I was attempting to get across to the public that I dealt with. Rob: Ok Bill Pearl: But the cosmetic effect this thing getting on stage and thinking this is the greatest thing that s ever happened to me, this is not the case at all. I did it because I had to do it. Rob: Your body was your selling feature. Bill Pearl: That s exactly right, Yes. But I use it as a profession. And I treated the job as if I was a professional, not a chauvinist Rob: Lets talk about that. What did you get into? You got out of the Navy and what did you start doing? Bill Pearl: I immediately went into the gym business Rob and I stayed in the gym business for over 30 some years. I ran health clubs in the California area and at one time we have a large contingency of health clubs called Bill Pearl fitness clubs. We had 69 of them scattered throughout the United States and we were very involved in any aspect of the health club business as you can imagine, I ve gone through Rob: You might want to go to my website and see some photos of Bill. You can go to and click on Bills picture, you ll see

12 him on the top of the page there. Now Bill, I don t know if you ve been to my website? Bill Pearl: I haven t Rob, I m sorry. Rob: There s a photo of you, I believe it s fairly recent. It s a front double bicep pose, you re quite well tanned, it s got to be fairly recent. Obviously you re in fairly good shape. Do you find that anything s changed these days from your training? Do you find it harder? Do you find that it s harder to keep your muscle? Do you find it s harder to train at all? Any changes in your training program? Bill Pearl: I m shaking my head up and down about everything you ask. My heads popping up and down, saying yes yes yes Rob. I don t think anything is really, I don t find a whole lot in my life as I grow older as much fun as it used to be Rob. I mean, I wake up every morning with an ache and a pain and if I waited until I was pain free before I had another exercise program under my belt, I d probably never exercise again until the day I died. So the bottom line is that things become more difficult and I don t know anyone who went out looking as good as they did coming in Rob. Rob: You have a lot of people coming over to your barn train in the evenings, or whenever it is you train. You train in the morning? Bill Pearl: Yes we do, we start our training program at four am. Every morning, six days a week. Rob: And who s there? What sort of age groups? Bill Pearl: Not a whole lot Rob, it s a private thing and I don t charge for people to come there, Rob: I understand Bill Pearl: It s my friends and I ve had for years, my close friends, we come together and it s a way for us to socialize by the same token we get in contact, and when people come to the little area that we live in, they stop by and visit. Arnold Schwarzenegger s trained in my barn, this big guy Lou Ferrigno has trained in our barn, we ve had Chris Dickerson a former Mr Olympia winner trained and won the contest while working out in our barn. Rob: Wow Bill Pearl: So it s been one of those things were it s kind of a Mecca type deal where people can come to if they re invited Rob.

13 Rob: Sure, I understand that. What I was getting at was Bill was the age groups Bill Pearl: Oh I apologize, ok Rob: Your friends who train there Bill Pearl: We have neighbors who are 60 years old who use the facility and we have young kids who are 10 or eleven years old use the facility as well. Rob: I remember when I was in grade 7 or grade 8 I bought a.. I guess it was the first introduction to me waning to do something about becoming bigger. I guess I got picked on a little bit as well. I remember getting a pink belly when I was going from grade six to grade seven a bunch of kids got a hold of me and held me down and slapped my stomach and I got a pink belly. I wonder if that was one of the changing things where I decided to do something? Anyway.. I had a bench, and I had it in my bedroom of my house and my dad was about 45 years older than I am and he would come down occasionally and he would just do a bench press and incline press and that s all he did and then he d just leave the room. He did this for months and months and months and I remember at one point that he would begin blowing the buttons of his dress shirts. I realized that even at his age, he would have been almost 60 years old or 55 years old that the body has the ability to do something, it has the ability to grow stronger. And I quote this quote all the time I say the body is the only machine that becomes stronger the more you use it. Bill Pearl: This is true. Rob: In your experience, what would you suggest to people say who are 55 or 60, who ve maybe got some health challenges or just want to be a little more fit. And again I tell people that being fit at 55 has a lot to do with playing with your children, pardon me, playing with your grandchildren, picking them up. I mean it takes strength it takes energy just to bend over and pick them up so you can start it in later age. What would you recommend to people? Bill Pearl: I would recommend that anybody that really wants to improve themselves in any way, shape or form to spend some quality time on themselves every day Rob. Now I mean by that, even if you want to get in a yoga program perhaps you want to sit and meditate and concentrate through meditation, anything where you are spending quality time on yourself everyday, I think it s going to have positive effects and positive benefits. If you want to take it one step further

14 and become more physical, become involved in a walking program. But do something that you know you can do on a regular basis and regardless of the weather or regardless of what, you are not going to stop doing that. You ve got to get control of your life and keep control of your life and then do not let anything or anybody take that time away from you again. Rob: What do you say to people who say they don t have time? Bill Pearl: Everybody has 24 hours. Everybody in the world has the same amount of time Rob, that s not true. We only get 24 hours per day, it s how you regulate that 24 hours that counts. Perhaps we re the same on this, I absolutely refuse to give mother nature 24 hours of my day. I might give it 22, but I am not going to give it 24. I m going to spend some time out there for me. I love me more than anybody and if I don t have a good attitude towards myself, how in the blazes can I have a good attitude towards anybody else or anything I m around the rest of the day? Rob: Absolutely. Here s another good quote: Your greatest duty in life is to become the greatest you can be and share it with others Bill Pearl: Ok, there you go Rob: Ok, so having not enough time, that s not a good enough excuse. What are some of the popular excuses that you ve maybe heard. Bill Pearl: I have a thyroid problem or I have a problem where I cant do this or I have a bad back and I can t do that, I ll say is there anything with your arms and legs and he ll say no, so I ll say then exercise your arms and legs and your back will eventually go away. The best way to get over an injury is to hurt something more than you currently have Rob. IF you ve got a really bad knee and it s killing you just go out and hurt your elbow and all of a sudden your knee doesn t feel half that bad. So a lot of this stuff, 99% of these things you hear is all psychosomatic, it s not necessarily true. Rob: I agree Bill Pearl: It s what you re psychologically gearing yourself to be or do. Rob: What do you say to people who are in the gym. They ve taken the step and they re in the gym. You see them and they re maybe curling, I don t know, 10 or 20% of what you think they should be doing. Why do people do that?

15 Bill Pearl: Well, there again, they ve have probably a different aspect toward training, or psychological aspect towards this than we do but there again if they re putting any stress on the muscle at all, that the muscle has to recover from this stress they are still going to make some progress from this Rob. They make not make the cosmetic effects, or have the cosmetic effects that perhaps I ve had but they can stay relatively healthy by doing just that Rob. Rob: What was the first book you wrote Bill, The Keys to the Universe? Bill Pearl: Well actually the first book I wrote Rob, we had some small little booklets that we wrote, Leo Stern and I wrote back in the 1960 s and 70 s which literally sold thousands upon thousands like a best arms and big chest and so on, then in 1978 I wrote a book called keys to the inner universe Rob: In 1978 Bill Pearl: Yes and what it was it s a big book, over 5 pounds its 648 pages and it almost describes every fitness exercise you could possibly ever do and we use it as a guide book for personal trainers and so on. It s self published, and we have distributed, my wife and I over a half million copies since 1978so that means that, my wife s name is Judy, she and I have touched probably half a million copies of that thing. In fact when I got the call this morning, I was downstairs packaging the keys book to send out to different places all throughout the United States. Rob: So you still selling lots of copies of that book? Bill Pearl: It still sells extremely well and then we were very fortunate enough to write another book called getting stronger and that book has sold over a million copies worldwide so it has been a real good seller but we had a distributor for the book whereas our other one is self published book, we have a distributor Random House, they ve done extremely well with us. Rob: So Keys to the inner Universe was an amalgamation of notes and papers of your experiences over all the years? Bill Pearl: Not necessarily all the years, but all the exercises that can virtually be done with barbells and a dumbbell Rob and there s just literally thousands that can be done with a barbell and a dumbbell and if I m not mistaken we ve had 1800 of them illustrated in this book and the strange thing of it was Rob is throughout the last 25 or 30 years,

16 most people had become so involved exercising on some type of a machine rather than free weights people forgot to do what they could do with barbells and dumbbells, so weight training with free weights has almost become like a lost art like tiffany glass, no one knows what to do with it anymore or how it was designed. Rob: Right Bill Pearl: So luckily this book has stayed very very current because if anybody is looking to get free weights back into their weight training regime and they have to find a guide book or something to do this, they automatically turn to the big keys to the universe book. Rob: Awesome. I like your future thought on bodybuilding in the year 2050 and how you figure barbells and dumbbells are going to work. Bill Pearl: Well they re going to continue on Rob because it s the cheapest way in the world to stay physically fit because of the variety. Most people are run out of an exercise program simply because of boredom. People become bored at what they do so consequently they quit. And once they quit, they never go back again Rob. So anytime you can get on an exercise program where there s a certain amount of variation involved even if it s like riding a bicycle then running on a treadmill or walking stairs, God knows what all, the more of those things you can add to a fitness program the better chance you have of staying with it. Rob: When you get bored, change. Bill Pearl: That s exactly right Rob. But if you re locked into an exercise program where you only do nine or ten movements, you theoretically become fit doing those nine or ten movements then you slip off the curb and sprain your ankle because the ankle wasn t able to support your weight because you didn t do what you normally do 99.9% of the time. So variety is the spice of life when it comes to a fitness program. Rob: I agree. There s no question, experts are showing that it takes six weeks and the body adapts to the program you re doing. Bill Pearl: This is true. Rob: You talk about how important free weights and barbells are but what about, you do machines? Bill Pearl: Yes, our barn is full of all kinds of machines. I work as a consultant for a company called Life Fitness. They make the life cycle,

17 the life rower, huge line of exercise equipment, they probably sell 80% of all professional exercise equipment sold in United States and Canada. It s a huge company out of Chicago. I ve worked with them since 1986 and so my barn is filled with their equipment as well but under no circumstances will I take my barbells and dumbbells and throw them out the door Rob, they re going to say there. Rob: We talked a lot about fitness and training, and you did touch on the fact that no matter what you change in your diet, that if you do a weight management diet, and don t add in the fitness you re not going to stick to it, you re not going to get the results. Well the opposite is true as well isn t it Bill? Bill Pearl: Yes it is. Rob: So lets talk about diet for a bit, now when I say diet, I certainly do not mean as a calorie reduction thing most times the word diet has this misnomer about cutting food out of your diet, out of the foods out of your day, what I tell people is to increase the amount of food, increase the nutrition, increase the fruits and vegetables and whole foods in your diet Bill Pearl: Ya, your complex carbohydrates is what you re referring to I m sure Rob: Right, now what do you do? What did you do? What did you find? If I could guide you a little bit, I d like to know what you did initially. Bill Pearl: At one time because I was involved and my biggest desire in life was to get big and just as strong as I possibly could be, of the three fuels that we consume each day, protein was probably the most important in my life, now I attempted to get 150 to 200 grams of protein per day when I was competitive bodybuilding and some times as high as 300 grams of protein per day because I wanted everything possible I can to hypertrophy my muscles as best I can so cosmetically wise I was getting what I wanted but perhaps health wise this was not the case. And then about 35 years ago my wife and I became lactoovo vegetarians which means we keep dairy products in our diet but we don t eat any red meat, fish or fowl and we have followed a lactoovo vegetarian diet for the last 35 years and I do not deviate from that diet. Rob: That s amazing. Now most people are going to say that to be a bodybuilder you need to eat meat.

18 Bill Pearl: This is true, but I also come back to there s nothing that can t be found in a piece of meat that cant be found in some other food source Rob: Ok, so why did you change to a lacto-ovo vegetarian? Bill Pearl: I was working for North American Rockwell I told you as a consultant for the aerospace program and Dr Richard Morrison was a smart man and he decided to draw blood on everybody and check their LDL s and HDL s and the cholesterol levels and so on and lo and behold of all the people out there I looked the best but I was in probably the worst condition of anybody in the program. My cholesterol was well over 300, my triglycerides was sky-high. In fact Dr Morrison became so concerned about me regardless of how nice I looked and how great I looked that he thought I may become a statistic and die in this program. So he made a comment and said Bill, I want you to either square yourself away and get your cholesterol and stuff under control or I m going to have to let you go. And I had worked for the company for several years as a job I truly loved so I had gone to visit a very good friend of mine who was a seventh day Adventist, a medical doctor. He then prescribed, he said Bill, we can do one of two things, I can put you on some type of medication to pull your cholesterol down but I strongly suggest you change your eating habits. So we took red meat out of our diets, my wife and I did, and then I would bring home buckets full of chicken, Col Sanders Kentucky fried chicken. I would eat the chicken just like you would not believe and one day I popped open a big ole chicken leg and there was a big old kind of a growth on the bone of the chicken. And I asked my wife Judy I said honey what is this? and she said well that s because of the amount of testosterone, not testosterone rather the estrogen, which is a female hormone, that they re feeding the chickens. I m thinking to myself, I do not need estrogen in my diet at this particular time, perhaps more testosterone but certainly not estrogen so there again the chicken went out the door. Then maybe about a month or two later the big mercury scare came when If you eat fish you ll die of mercury poisoning so fish went out of our diet. So that s about the only thing left was some dairy products and fresh fruits and fresh vegetables and we haven t deviated from that diet. Rob: Interesting. What do you weigh now? Bill Pearl: This morning I weighed 237 pounds. Rob: And how tall are you? Bill Pearl: I m 5 10

19 Rob: You re 73 Bill Pearl: I ll be 73 in October Rob: I m sorry. You re 72, 5 10, 237 pounds and do you know your body fat percentage? Bill Pearl: Yes, I do, it was taken just recently at a clinic I had gone to and it was just a little over, just right at 10% Rob: Congratulations Bill Pearl: Thank you. Rob: That is an amazing physique. I don t think there would be anybody who would not want to achieve what you have achieved. So you re 237 pounds, 10% body fat, you train 6 days a week and you re a vegetarian. Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: The obvious question, and I have to admit I ve been vegetarian for 10 years myself and the question I get asked all the time is where do you get your protein from. I have my traditional answer to that but I d like to hear yours. Bill Pearl: I think that anybody who is a lacto-ovo vegetarian or they keep dairy products in their diet, I seriously doubt that they ll ever going to lack from a protein deficiency. You ve got to understand as well most every food you consume, almost all carbohydrates have some form of a protein in it even some of your fat foods that you re consuming, they too have a certain amount of protein in it so, I think that this philosophy needing hundreds of grams of protein per day probably is not necessarily true Rob. Rob: Right, and you re living proof. Bill Pearl: Well, thank you Rob: 35 years you ve been vegetarian Bill Pearl: Yes Rob: And you ve kept your muscle Bill Pearl: Yes

20 Rob: Living proof right there. I have John Robbins going to be a guest of mine in March, are you familiar with John Robbins? Bill Pearl: Yes I am Rob: I saw John in Calgary back in the mid 90 s, read his book Diet for a new America, Diet for a new world and I quit eating chicken because of what I read and what I saw and I ll hold that thought while we go to this break. Back from a short break Rob: It s obvious with Bill that you don t need to have animal products in your diet to retain muscle mass. Bill s a living example of that. What I d like to do Bill is talk about your day in day out schedule, what is a typical day like for you? A typical week? What kind of thoughts do you go through, what motivates you? What drives you? What is your day like for food? How many meals a day do you eat? Just sort of lay out how somebody could maybe emulate what you do. Bill Pearl: You re making me smile Rob because I don t think I d want anyone to emulate what I do because really I live a very very boring life Rob. But it s a life I enjoy. I m a victim of habit, I enjoy doing the same things day in and day out. I don t need a lot of entertainment to make me happy. I m kind of a loaner in many respects. I work in an office by myself all day. My wife and I work together. She s in one section of the building and I m in another section of the building, we go to work together, we have lunch together we go home together. She does her little projects and I do mine. I truly love her and she truly loves me but we get along just fine and all the kids are married and gone so it s just the wife and I all of our animals so it works out just fine. Rob: What kind of animals do you have? Bill Pearl: We have 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 yellow Amazon parrots, three desert tortoise s and a whole bunch of coi fish so.. and Judy my wife takes care of all of them, but I love them equally as well. Rob: Lets go through a typical day Bill Pearl: I start my day at 2:30 in the morning and you asked me why, it s because I travel so much Rob. I travel maybe 200,000 miles a year so I m some place in the United States all the time, but regardless of where I go I DO NOT MISS my training program. I will quit the job before I do that. I will quit the job before I do that. It s imperative that I do not stop my weight training. I get up at 2:30

21 each morning and I sit and read or meditate until around 3:15, 3:30 at the absolute latest and then I go out to the barn which is on our property where we train. I sit there again and do some form of a stretching exercise for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and the people that I train with are there at 4:00 and we religiously begin at 4:00, our training program begins at 4:00 in the morning. This could just as easily be 7:00 in the morning or 7:00 in the evening Rob, it makes no difference, but when 4:00 comes around, we get started. I don t wait until 5 minutes after 4:00, who s ever there, if they re not there by 4:00 they re just flat late, that s it. So we start training and we exercise from 4:00 to around quarter to 6 or 6:00 six days per week, but during the week after we have exercised my wife and I, she trains in conjunction with me, and not because I force her to, but because she wants to. I never suggest Judy train or she not train. If she misses a workout that s her business, not mine. If she s getting along very well, I do my very best to compliment her as I can to keep her with the program but if for some reason she backs off and is not training or is not watching her eating as close as she likes, I do not comment on this Rob. Rob: Ok Bill Pearl: If I can comment on what she s doing then she can comment on what I m doing. So if she s kind enough to leave me alone, I ve got to be kind enough to leave her alone. But at any rate, once we through with our training program my wife and I go down and we shower. We eat out in a restaurant every morning. Simply because I don t want my wife to have to cook and then clean up all the dishes and so on, it s just not fair to her to go through that much trouble because if she has to train, I have to give her the time to train. Every morning we eat our breakfast at a certain restaurant and they know who we are and they know the same thing we re going to eat every day before it began so we walk in and they throw it on and ready to go. We get to work around 8:30 in the morning, we work from 8:30 to 5:00 five days per week. We go home, we sit and have another meal at home, my wife cooks a meal. We sit and may watch a slight amount of television or read or perhaps listen to music, come 7:30 or 8:00 each night my wife and I are in bed. I get up at 2:30 the next day and my time starts over again and it goes that way day in and day out unless I m on the road traveling. Rob: Ok, what about food? What exactly do you eat for food? What s your breakfast? Bill Pearl: As an example I could maybe just share with you what I had this morning for breakfast. I had four poached eggs this morning one piece of toast, whole grain toast. I had some low fat cottage

22 cheese and I had some fruit. Fresh fruit. And that was my breakfast and I actually had a cup of decaffeinated coffee. Rob: How many times a day do you eat? Bill Pearl: Rob you re going to die because you know this isn t right, I only eat 3 meals a day Rob. I probably consume less than 2000 calories per day. Rob: Get out! Bill Pearl: This is true, seriously Rob. Rob: It s funny you say that because earlier a day I was thinking I m sure he started with three meals a day and I m sure he s eating six now. Bill Pearl: No Rob: Three Meals a day. Do you recommend that to people? Bill Pearl: No, I d recommend it because personally Rob I don t want my whole day of my life to revolve around food. Rob: Ok Bill Pearl: If I have to have a meal at 8:00 and have to have another one at 10:30 I have to have one at 12:00 one at 2:30, one at 5:00 and one at 7:30. Food controls my life. I don t want to do that. Rob: You ve got enough in there weight training. Bill Pearl: Yes, but the foods I eat, I try to keep them as wholesome as I possibly can and I am concerned my carbohydrate intake, not so much the amount of calories I m taking in food carbohydrates but I attempt to get most of my calories from complex carbohydrates. Fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, things such as this. Rob: Grains. Bill Pearl: And I am a relatively firm believer in this Barry Sears Zone diet Rob: Ok Bill Pearl: 30 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrates and 30 percent fat and most of the fat I attempt, well I do, I get it all from a vegetable source.

23 Rob: Well Bill, what I d like to do is conclude today with you talking about responsibility. What is your philosophy on responsibility? Bill Pearl: I think responsibility is an individuals thing. I don t want to rely on someone to keep me happy or healthy, I think it s my responsibility to do this. My biggest fear in life is that I m going to end up being a burden on somebody other than myself which I do not want to happen. So I m going to attempt to be as self sufficient as I can until the day I die. And if I was to be thought of anything when this whole episode of my life is over, I would perhaps rather be noted for not necessarily who I was or necessarily what I was, but perhaps what I am. Rob: Excellent. Bill, thank you so much for being on my show today Bill Pearl: Well Rob, it was my pleasure and I know one thing for sure. You re going to be successful. That s obvious. You are a true gentleman and you have a tremendous message and I m sure you re going to have a tremendous impact on a lot of peoples lives and that too is the biggest payday any of us can have Rob Rob: Thank you very much Bill Bill Pearl: Alright and have a great day and thank you very much for calling me. Rob: Mr Bill Pearl, 5 time Mr Universe a wonderful man, a wonderful gentleman. People have quoted him as being the best built man in the entire history of the world, Mr Bill Pearl. Listen to the interview at For More Interviews of Bodybuilders, Fitness personalities, Nutritionists and anyone involved in wellness or personal growth, visit