SERGIO OLIVE

Born: 5. July 1941

Born and raised in Cuba, began Sergio Oliva his athletic career as a young and not particularly strong weightlifter. In years of regular training, however, he worked in the three disciplines of weightlifting at the time
– Pushing, tearing and poking - up to the title of Cuban champion and winning the Pan American Games in middle heavyweight up - up to 90 kg.
His brother Diago was also an exceptional athlete, a heavyweight with a personal best of 476 kg.
Blessed by nature with good facilities for bodybuilding needed Sergio Oliva never worrying about overdeveloping his waist, lower back, or hips, all parts of the body that weightlifters often become too pronounced with training returned in 1962 Sergio Oliva the communist regime in Cuba and finally settled in Chicago.
He started to train at the "Duncan YMCA", which had the reputation of being the top gym for real strength athletes in the area, and it was there that he met Bob Gajda. Gajda and others told him that he had great potential for bodybuilding.
Sergio was skeptical at first, but quickly found that bodybuilding was much more popular in the US than in his old homeland.
With Gajdas' help posed Sergio Oliva changed his training and from then on built primarily muscles instead of strength.

Oliva Sergio - Competitions

1985 IFBB Olympia – 8th
1984 IFBB Olympia – 8th
1981 WABBA World Cup – 1st
1976 WBBG Olympus - 1st
1972 IFBB Olympia – 2nd
1969 IFBB Olympia – 1st
1968 IFBB Olympia – 1st
1967 IFBB Olympia – 1st
1967 IFBB Universe – 1st
1966 IFBB Olympia – 4th
1966 IFBB Mr. World – 1st

Oliva Sergio – Training

DIE PHA-PHASE
It was only natural that Sergio should seek advice from Gajda, who was then director of the "Duncan YMVA" and the leading bodybuilder in the near and far area. Gajda had developed a unique training method that he called the “Peripheral Heart Action System” or PHA (= Peripheral Heart Action). The core of this concept was as follows: You did a set of at least six exercises - one for each part of the body - with no breaks between exercises, then rested for a minute and repeated this sequence for a full 10 rounds.

This system had worked so well for Gajda that he recommended it to Sergio.
Having not done bodybuilding before, Oliva literally thrived on PHA, making tremendous rapid progress in mass, weight and endurance.

Here are two examples of his programs:
PHA-PROGRAMM1
(Monday, Wednesday and Friday)
1) Neck press 1 x 10
2) Wide pull-ups 1 x 10
3) Beinheben 1 x 25
4) One-legged calf lift 1 x 25
5) Concentration curls 1 x 10
6) Leg stretches 1 x 20

PHA PROGRAM 2
(Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday)
1) Squats (hard) 1 x 8-15
2) Flying movements 1 x 10
3) Latziehen 1 x 10
4) Seated calf raises 1 x 25
5) Rumpfdrehen 1 x 25*
6) Trunks 1 x 12 * each side

A sentence like this with all exercises without a break is like a so-called mammoth sentence made up of six parts. Sergio only rested for a minute between series, did a total of six laps, then switched to another series of four to six exercises and completed four more laps.

That was an enormous amount of training and an extremely strenuous program. But thanks to his solid weightlifting background, Oliva was able to train with Gajda without missing anything. Sergio was the first to train some of his muscles directly and for a while he was very successful. Then his development stopped and his body weight stagnated at 90 kg.

Sergio then studied the training methods of the top stars of that era - Larry Scott. Dave Draper and Harold Poole.
Oliva's program was a direct, concentrated attack on every part of the body that was maximally trained with it. Sure, PHA had proven itself for Gajda, and he was ultimately Mr. America and world champion, but Sergio recognized that everyone is different and, depending on bone structure and metabolism, possibly different techniques.

SERGIOS - MR.OLYMPIA PROGRAMM

Oliva is on five days trained per week and his training was so hard that it took him two days to recover on the weekend.

Monday and Thursday

Brust
Bench press
60 x 10, 100 x 5 140 × 5, 160 × 3 170 × 3, 180 × 1 172 x max. Repetition 162 x max. Repetition

Latissimus
Pull-ups to the neck 6 x 10 **
Chest pull-ups 14 x 10 ***

Shoulders
Superset
Neck press 60 x 1 x 10; 90 x 5 x 10
Breite Dips 5 x 10
Triceps extension down 70 x 5 x 15

Back and trapezius muscles
Superset
Row standing 80 x 5 x 10
Bent over row 70 x 5 x 10

Tuesday and Friday

Abdominal muscles
5 x 20 situps
Waden
Calf raises on machine 200 x 5 x 50

Arme
Superset
Dumbbell curls 30kg x 5 x 15
Standing barbell curls 70kg x 5 x 15

Superset
Triceps extension with barbell 70kg x 5 x 10
Pushing down with one arm 40kg x 5 x 15

Superset
Biceps i triceps
Scott curls with barbell 45 x 5 x 10
Sitting triceps extension 45 x 5 x 10

Wednesday

Bauch
Situps 25 × 15

With this incredibly hard training Sergio has increased his body weight from 94 kg to 101 kg, a good 2 cm more upper arm circumference and 5 cm more chest circumference
and reduced his waist size by 5 cm.
He has built up 7 kg of pure muscle mass and has become even sharper and harder.
Arnold once told me that Sergio worked for a while in a foundry, then he would come home and eat, then exercise for two to three hours, and afterwards he would take his wife out to dance ...

already read..?