Samir Bannout - Mr. Olympia
My very first weight workout and I’d injured my back! It wasn’t a very propitious start to a bodybuilding career. But the pain soon went away and I set about learning correct exercise form so I wouldn’t injure myself again. Soon I was training regularly, growing stronger and progressively more muscular each passing week.
Because my brother-in-law was my role model, my first interest was in weight lifting. Whenever I couldn’t accompany him to the gym, I’d work out in a makeshift home gym that I installed on the roof of my parents’ house. After about six months of training, I won the Lebanese Junior (under 20) Weight-lifting Championship in my weight class, which only made me more enthusiastic about pumping heavy iron.
Noting an improvement in my health and fitness, my parents soon allowed me to go to the gym by myself. It was the Strength and Health Gym, which was owned by Malieh Alywan, then the International Federation of Body Builders’ (IFBB) Vice President for the Middle East. Malieh was a former bodybuilder and still very enthusiastic about that sport. When I was 16, he and his brother Mounir (the gym’s trainer) predicted a great future for me as a bodybuilder, because I had naturally good body proportions and muscularity. By then I weighed only 110 pounds, but they still recognized that I had the correct genetics for bodybuilding.
The Alywans also published a magazine called The Star of the Sport, which was the bodybuilding journal for Lebanon and the Arab countries. I was greatly inspired by the photos and stories of famous bodybuilders in their magazine, but was still interested only in competitive weight lifting. Bodybuilders, I felt, weren’t true athletes, a belief that was soon to be challenged.
In April 1973, I was killing time at a newsstand, waiting for the start of a film I wished to see. Just by chance I noticed the cover of Muscle Builder & Power, the forerunner of Muscle & Fitness. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the cover and I was totally awed by how huge and muscular he looked. The magazine was imported from America and extremely expensive, but I forgot about the movie and purchased it anyway.
Even though I couldn’t read the English text of the magazine, I was tremendously inspired by the photos of America’s greatest bodybuilders, men like Schwarzenegger (who soon became my lifelong hero in bodybuilding), Franco Columbu, Dave Draper, Frank Zane, Ken Waller, and all of the other greats who trained at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California. The magazine convinced me to forget about weight lifting and concentrate solely on bodybuilding, so I went back to the newsstand every month to purchase the new issue and reaffirm my love for bodybuilding.
I’d never seen a bodybuilder in Lebanon that compared with the Americans, and one glance through the magazine gave me incredible inspiration for each of my workouts. I progressed rapidly in my new sport. I even went to the magazine distributor’s warehouse to see if they had back issues of Muscle Builder & Power. I was such and enthusiastic and polite kid that they took pity on me and gave me about 20 old magazines. I was so excited by this gesture that I wouldn’t have taken a million dollars in exchange for my new hoard of muscle mags.
Gradually I added to my collection of magazines - still unable to read them - and purchased used weights and other equipment to upgrade my home gym. At first I trained totally incorrectly, though. I’d work out in the morning before school, again during my lunch break, and then again after school. By all rights I should have become overtrained, but I loved the sport so much that I actually continued to improve my physique.
In school I had learned French rather than English, and so decided to teach myself English so I could actually read the articles in my magazines. It didn’t make sense to look at the photos every day without being able to read the articles, so I bought an English dictionary and set to work, I was so fanatical about bodybuilding that I learned functional English in record time. Unfortunately, I ignored my school studies in the process.
My parents noticed my declining grades and my father tried to discourage me from spending so much time on bodybuilding. He encouraged me to keep up with my schoolwork so I’d have something to fall back on if I didn’t succeed as a competitive bodybuilder. I didn’t take his advice very gracefully at the time, but now I understand how right he was. There are thousands of bodybuilders who don’t have the genetic makeup to become successful professionals, but unwittingly throw away everything in life in their futile attempt to reach the top. When they fail, they have only hollow lives to sustain them. This is a good lesson to learn to avoid making the same mistake.
more of Samir's story
My very first weight workout and I’d injured my back! It wasn’t a very propitious start to a bodybuilding career. But the pain soon went away and I set about learning correct exercise form so I wouldn’t injure myself again. Soon I was training regularly, growing stronger and progressively more muscular each passing week.
Because my brother-in-law was my role model, my first interest was in weight lifting. Whenever I couldn’t accompany him to the gym, I’d work out in a makeshift home gym that I installed on the roof of my parents’ house. After about six months of training, I won the Lebanese Junior (under 20) Weight-lifting Championship in my weight class, which only made me more enthusiastic about pumping heavy iron.
Noting an improvement in my health and fitness, my parents soon allowed me to go to the gym by myself. It was the Strength and Health Gym, which was owned by Malieh Alywan, then the International Federation of Body Builders’ (IFBB) Vice President for the Middle East. Malieh was a former bodybuilder and still very enthusiastic about that sport. When I was 16, he and his brother Mounir (the gym’s trainer) predicted a great future for me as a bodybuilder, because I had naturally good body proportions and muscularity. By then I weighed only 110 pounds, but they still recognized that I had the correct genetics for bodybuilding.
The Alywans also published a magazine called The Star of the Sport, which was the bodybuilding journal for Lebanon and the Arab countries. I was greatly inspired by the photos and stories of famous bodybuilders in their magazine, but was still interested only in competitive weight lifting. Bodybuilders, I felt, weren’t true athletes, a belief that was soon to be challenged.
In April 1973, I was killing time at a newsstand, waiting for the start of a film I wished to see. Just by chance I noticed the cover of Muscle Builder & Power, the forerunner of Muscle & Fitness. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the cover and I was totally awed by how huge and muscular he looked. The magazine was imported from America and extremely expensive, but I forgot about the movie and purchased it anyway.
Even though I couldn’t read the English text of the magazine, I was tremendously inspired by the photos of America’s greatest bodybuilders, men like Schwarzenegger (who soon became my lifelong hero in bodybuilding), Franco Columbu, Dave Draper, Frank Zane, Ken Waller, and all of the other greats who trained at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California. The magazine convinced me to forget about weight lifting and concentrate solely on bodybuilding, so I went back to the newsstand every month to purchase the new issue and reaffirm my love for bodybuilding.
I’d never seen a bodybuilder in Lebanon that compared with the Americans, and one glance through the magazine gave me incredible inspiration for each of my workouts. I progressed rapidly in my new sport. I even went to the magazine distributor’s warehouse to see if they had back issues of Muscle Builder & Power. I was such and enthusiastic and polite kid that they took pity on me and gave me about 20 old magazines. I was so excited by this gesture that I wouldn’t have taken a million dollars in exchange for my new hoard of muscle mags.
Gradually I added to my collection of magazines - still unable to read them - and purchased used weights and other equipment to upgrade my home gym. At first I trained totally incorrectly, though. I’d work out in the morning before school, again during my lunch break, and then again after school. By all rights I should have become overtrained, but I loved the sport so much that I actually continued to improve my physique.
In school I had learned French rather than English, and so decided to teach myself English so I could actually read the articles in my magazines. It didn’t make sense to look at the photos every day without being able to read the articles, so I bought an English dictionary and set to work, I was so fanatical about bodybuilding that I learned functional English in record time. Unfortunately, I ignored my school studies in the process.
My parents noticed my declining grades and my father tried to discourage me from spending so much time on bodybuilding. He encouraged me to keep up with my schoolwork so I’d have something to fall back on if I didn’t succeed as a competitive bodybuilder. I didn’t take his advice very gracefully at the time, but now I understand how right he was. There are thousands of bodybuilders who don’t have the genetic makeup to become successful professionals, but unwittingly throw away everything in life in their futile attempt to reach the top. When they fail, they have only hollow lives to sustain them. This is a good lesson to learn to avoid making the same mistake.
more of Samir's story
