Eat like a Strongman

Dr. Franco Colombu, former Mr. Everything and costar of ‘Pumping Iron,’ on what really works. By ANNETTE STARK

Franco Columbu, former Mr. Everything, says, “Hey, you, eat a bagel!”

ack when he was considered one of the World’s Strongest Men, renowned bodybuilder Franco Columbu would bench press 520 pounds, dead lift 750, and squat 655. He bent a bar across his face in one contest, carried a refrigerator on his back in another, power-lifted a car, and blew into a hot water bottle ’til it exploded like a party balloon, spraying water all over the audience.

Photo by Max S. GerberHe hasn’t carried a refrigerator in years, but his imprint on body culture is indelible. Today, at 54, Dr. Franco Columbu is a Los Angeles chiropractor, nutritionist, and trainer who has cowritten several health and fitness books, including Weight Training and Bodybuilding: A Complete Guide for Young Athletes (with Richard Tyler, D.C.); Franco Columbu’s Complete Book of Bodybuilding (with a foreword by Arnold Schwarzenegger); and The Bodybuilder’s Nutrition Book (with Lydia Fragomeni).

Most people will recognize Columbu as the muscleman posing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of the greatest guy flicks ever, the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. That body-fetish classic followed these guys through daily workout regimens that included five hours a day in the gym, ballet classes for posing techniques, and humongous mounds of ground beef and egg-and-tuna omelets.

A lot of cholesterol went into the making of that film. Even now, it’s not uncommon for serious weight-training programs to include as much as 200 grams of protein per day, and nearly all of it from animal sources. As a key figure in the culture since the ’70s – (he won Mr. World, Mr. Universe, and Mr. Olympia titles) – Columbu has seen the 200-gram protein diet, as well as every other extreme food fad, come and go. Click here for complete article