Nubret Serge

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Nubret Serge - Profile

Born: 6 October 1938
Died: 19 April 2011

Size: 1,80 mt
Arm: 55 cm
Chest : 145 cm

Off Season Weight: 100 kg
Wettkampf Gewicht: 96 kg

Everyone who has seen the bodybuilding documentary “Pumping Iron” knows the groundbreaking moment that comes after about three quarters of the film. And although director George Butler couldn't have guessed it back then, this moment became a lasting homage to Serge Nubret ...

Up to that point, the film successfully describes the preparation of the then reigning champion Arnold Schwarzen­egger and its imposing challenger Lou Ferrigno on the Mr. Olympia 1975.

Sie sollten die Einzigen sein, die in der Schwergewichtsklasse des Wettkampfs konkurrierten, denn sie waren angeblich die besten Bodybuilder der Welt, die über 200 Pfund (90 Kilo) wogen. Während Butlers Kamera zeigte, wie sich die beiden Männer an den entgegengesetzten Küsten der USA mühselig auf ihr historisches Duell vorbereiteten, war die einzige Frage, die den Zuschauer beschäftigte, ob Arnold seinen Titel angesichts dieser enormen Bedrohung verteidigen konnte.

Then, at the change of scene to Pretoria, South Africa, where the Mr. Olympia was to take place, spokesman Charles Gaines announced an "unexpected starter" in the difficult category: Serge Nubret.

While Nubret stands relaxed for the judges, the camera moves close to his abdominal muscles. They are so shiny, firm, and sharply defined that they look more like the pavement of an irregular car test track after a fresh rainy rain than an area of ​​human anatomy. With each of Nubret's breaths, the individual subdivisions of his large abdominal muscle rise and fall. They drift apart very easily, only to reunite afterwards - like floating pontoons on the waves.

It is an amazing sight, also in connection with the muscular bodies that can be seen in the film up to this point. While Schwarzenegger, Ferrigno and Franco Columbu Showing the best of what bodybuilding had to offer in 1975, their bodies looked - more or less - like variations on the same theme: muscles. Nubret, on the other hand, stood alone in its crystalline perfection. It was he who evoked far more than the "rugged" Columbu - that granite-hard look of a living sculpture that all bodybuilders strive for. In short: Serge Nubrets Appearance in the last act of “Pumping Iron” is probably the biggest aha experience of the film, the ultimate “Oh, you holy bimbam” moment among the many moments that the film has to offer.

The French-born Nubret finally took second place behind Arnold in this competition (with which he confused “Big Lou's” idea of ​​his painstakingly built body). While Nubret never became Mr. Olympia himself, the influence he has had on the bodybuilding world is based more on something "heavenly" than on trophies or titles.

CLASSIC COMPARISONS

Without looking on the internet - can you name Serge Nubrets won competitions? Probably not.

Nubret Serge - successes

1985
Mr. Guadeloupe 1958

1960
IFBB World Most Muscular Man 1960

1970
NABBA Mister Univers 1970 2nd
IFBB Mr. Europe 1970

1972
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1972 (3rd place)

1973
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1973 ( 3rd place)

1974
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1974 (2nd place)

1975
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1975 (2nd place)

1976
NABBA Pro Mr. Universe 1976
WBBG Mr. World 1976 (2nd place)

1977
WBBG Mr. World 1977
WBBG Mr. Olympus 1977

1981
WABBA Pro World Champ. 1981

1982
WABBA Pro World Champ. 1982

And that's not because the title of the NABBA Pro Mr. Universe und WABBA professional world champion are irrelevant, but that the Nubret body has exceeded the limits of such statistics.

The fact is: that Serge Nubret made it to fame and prestige in the bodybuilding community without having the résumé of a Schwarzenegger, Zane or Columbu, serves all the more as evidence of his innate greatness as a bodybuilder. In fact, it's safe to say that even if he had never won a competition, he would still have been just as adored by bodybuilding fans. But why?

Bodybuilding is by its very nature a subjective endeavor. And that means it's hard to gauge what makes one bodybuilder better than another. Variables like body weight and arm circumference are out of the question when we make artistic calculations about the excellence of a body. But as metaphysical as judging a body is, it is hard to deny that Serge Nubret owned one of the best bodies of all time. There was something incredible about his body that made it as a whole even greater than the sum of its impressive parts.

"It reminded me of a racehorse," says Arnold's former training partner Ric Drasin, who had the opportunity to see Nubret train several times at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California. “With the sheen of sweat on his black skin, he looked like a highly polished statue. Every single wave in his muscles reflected the light, and with every movement you could see them twitch under his skin, almost like a racehorse "It was great to look at!"

Natürlich war selbst Nubrets Körper nicht perfekt. So könnte man einwenden, dass gemessen an den Standards wettkampfmäßigem Body­building sein Rücken nie die nötige Breite und Dichte erreicht hatte, um der Vorderseite zu entsprechen; und dass der Ober- den Unterkörper überschattete. Betrachtete man Nubrets Körper jedoch eher unter künstlerischen als unter sportlichen Aspekten, so war er eine Schönheit!

Take a look at Michelangelo's statue of David. Here you won't find a body with drooping lats and a heavy vastus medialis on the quadriceps that lies over the kneecap. Likewise, the famous Doryphoros statue (the "spear-bearer") by the Greek sculptor Polyklet shows strong legs with a muscularly detailed torso, but which are designed for function rather than form. And so was Nubret's body: muscular and strong-looking, but of a grace and aesthetic beauty that spoke not only for the physique of a bodybuilder, but also that of an athlete. His body was in a unique way his own creation, which he had built with his unique training system.

SERGE NUBRET TRAINING:

40 SETS OF BENCH PRESSES

As unmistakable as Nubret's body was, so was his training style. Other bodybuilders of his generation, such as Schwarzenegger and Columbu, were known to train regularly for two to three hours at a fairly fast pace, often twice a day. In terms of workload, however, Serge left his contemporaries far behind. While his program, which he advocated in later years, was daunting enough, his workouts in his peak years were supposedly much more extensive.

"There were times", remembers his former competitor Frank Zane,

“He literally trained all day. He came into the studio at eight or nine in the morning and worked out until noon. Then he went to lunch; and then he came back to the studio to train for a few more hours. At five o'clock he had dinner and came back for his evening workout. So he had a twelve-hour day that was all about training. "

Other stories tell of his marathon bench press sessions. Nubret was a fan of this exercise. His personal best in a repetition, he claimed, was 225 kilos. In his endless bench press workouts, he completed 40 sets of 25 reps each! Usually he trained with relatively light weights. He rarely used more than 100 kilos, sometimes even less than 90 kilos. He scoffed at the thought of having to lift extremely heavy weights to make muscles grow. In the bench press, he gripped the dumbbell with a very wide grip, a technique, some claim, that contributed to his wide, perfectly developed pecs.

His competition rival and good friend Lou Ferrigno notes that Nubret's tendency towards excess was not limited to his outstanding chest muscles: "Before the 1975 Mr. Olympia, Serge invited me to train with him," remembers Ferrigno. “We trained our legs and he wanted to do 25 sets of leg extensions alone! Many other exercises followed after that. I told him I couldn't train like that. Normally the workout would have been over for me after this one exercise. "

Then there was his abs program. The word "overtraining" was obviously not in Nubret's vocabulary because he trained his abdominal muscles daily - for an hour without a break. And that in addition to the hours he spent every day on the other muscle groups! While some may be ahead of time

zurückschrecken, die er mit hängendem Knieheben verbrachte, kann niemand die Resultate seiner Mühen be­streiten. Dieses Trainingssystem funktionierte für ihn nicht nur in körperlicher, sondern auch in mentaler und psychischer Hin­sicht. „Eines Tages fragte ich ihn, woher er die Energie habe, um so lange zu trainieren“, sagt Ferrigno. „Er antwortete, ,I love bodybuilding "

SERGE NUBRET NUTRITION:

NO CARBOHYDRATE MAN

As for nutrition, Serge Nubret followed what we now call the “keto diet”. Most of the time, he avoided carbohydrates and relied mostly on red meat. “The first time I was at my best was with Mr. Olympia 1971 in Essen, Germany, where I surprised Arnold and Franco with my appearance, ”Nubret once described. “I ate red meat (about six to eight pounds a day) and low carbohydrates like rice and beans. I drank about three liters of water and ate one or two meals a day, but the larger one in the evening. ”That means he ate over three pounds of meat for dinner! Often it was horse meat, which he found was particularly anabolic.

On a normal day, he consumed few, if any, carbohydrates. In the last week before a competition, however, Nubret did exactly the opposite and consumed extremely high levels of carbohydrates between 4000 and 5000 carbohydrate calories, most of them fast-burning carbohydrates.

Sure, he was a genetic miracle. Not only could he do those grueling, marathon workouts that would ruin less muscular men. He also ate in a way that would cause digestive failures in most men. However, while it would be presumptuous to seek progress as Nubret did by following his exercise and nutrition plan, both worked for the "black panther" of bodybuilding.