Craig Monson – Bodybuilding Legends Podcast with John Hansen [S7E5] Part 1

Bodybuilder Craig Monson joins OSL Ambassador John Hansen’s Old School Labs Bodybuilding Legends Podcast to talk about his life as a bodybuilder. In Part One of the interview, Craig talks about how he started working out at 12 years old, his time spent in San Quentin Prison, and his training at Bill Pearls Gym and Gold’s Gym as well as some of the crazy weights he lifted in his peak.

The Intro

John Hansen:

Season seven, episode five of the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, Old School Labs. All right. Welcome, everybody to another edition of the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast, where we are talking about old school bodybuilding.

Today we’re going to have an interview with a guy you may or may not have heard of, because he wasn’t a professional bodybuilder, and he wasn’t really even featured that much in the magazines back in his heyday. His name is Craig Monson. He was one of the biggest bodybuilders around Gold’s Gym in the 80s, early 80s, late 70s, early 80s.

So, today, we’re going to have part one of a two-part interview with Craig where he talks about how he got started in bodybuilding. Craig actually spent some time in prison when he was younger, and he lived in the California area.

Then when he got out, he started training first, at Bill Pearls Gym and then at Gold’s Gym. As I said, he was one of the biggest guys around, he would go out to Muscle Beach, and he would spend his weekends training there. So he was probably a legend for all the people that saw him back in the day.

Craig had 23 inch arms, he was about 270 pounds at six foot two. So you can imagine back in the 1980s, he had to be one of the biggest bodybuilders ever. Craig’s a very personable guy and we had a really great conversation, and we talked for so long.

As I said, this is going to be part one of two interviews that we’re going to be doing with Craig. In part one, he is going to be talking about how he got started into lifting weights, and some of the earlier competitions he saw. He saw this one contest that Frank Zane where Arnold and Dave Draper were guest posing.

Then he’s going to talk about his stay in prison and his experiences with that and then when he got out, he’s going to talk about training at both Bill Pearls Gym and at Gold’s Gym. So we’re going to have a really, really good conversation with Craig Monson. So here is part one of our interview with Craig Monson. You guys are really going to enjoy this.

The Interview – How It All Started For Craig Monson

John Hansen:

All right, welcome back to the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast. My guest this week, is Mr. Craig Monson. Craig was a big part of the bodybuilding community over in Venice Beach in the late 70s and the 80s.

He was known as one of the biggest bodybuilders around and a lot of people don’t know about him, so I got a chance to know him a little bit over the last couple of weeks. Larry Jackson was talking about him when we did our interview about the old school days of bodybuilding. So Craig, how you doing?

Craig Monson:

Oh, I’m hanging in there. 67 years old now and still trying to stay in the gym.

John Hansen:

Well, Craig, tell us a little bit about how you got involved in bodybuilding and how old you were and everything and all about your beginnings out in Los Angeles.

Craig Monson:

Well, I started working out, playing around with the weights at 12 years old. 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, when they announced it over the PA system, I had dumbbells in my hand in junior high school, doing curls. I was working out, 1963.

At 14 to 15, you could really notice my body improvement or the development. I’m walking around the neighborhood, a young kid, and I had nice arms. They used to call me the missing link, because I started developing arms, big old back arms and my chest.

Craig Monson:

In the 60s, you didn’t see guys walking around like that, no, no. I started building my benches in the backyard out of milk crates, two by fours. My mom, she bought me my first set of weights, which were encased in plastic, a cement weights, back in the day. I hit my junior high school, periodically, they would go into your lockers.

When they went into my locker, I had 50, 60 bodybuilding magazines, the old Iron Man Magazines. They called my parents up for a conference saying that something was wrong with me, in my locker that I had all these bodybuilding books, and I had drew… I used to like to draw. So, I had all these drawings taped up inside of my gym locker of gladiators, with leopard skins on, swords and whatever. Big guys, big buff guys.

Craig Monson:

My mom said, “That’s all he talk about is getting big.” He had his load of stuff in the backyard.” They said, “Well, this is unacceptable behavior.” Back then. She said, “No, he wants to do this.” And she was going to encourage it. We came from Arkansas, when we came, there was three of us, three brothers, my mom and we came on the train. Where my family ended up growing to the …, but I introduced working out to my brothers, and then the neighborhood guys, we all started working out. Sequentially, we became a gang called the Avenues.

Craig Monson:

We all worked out with weights until we brought all these youngsters running around all buffed up. Danny Boy, he and I started working out together in ’63. In about ’66, he took me to Venice Beach, Muscle Beach. At 16 years old, boy, all the big guys walking around, white guys, white kids. I didn’t know a place like that existed. It was three to four dollars to work out a day.

They wouldn’t accept our money, nope, we couldn’t work out. But we wanted to work out in there. Nope, they wouldn’t take our money. We jumped over the fence anyhow to workout. We jumped over the fence again, they put us out. Finally, they took our money. Finally, they said okay. I loved it, and I was just a kid.

Craig Monson:

Well, that was 16. I kept working out over the years. I got in some trouble in the early 70s, went away for a while, came home in ’75, and went back out to Venice. I was 25 years old, I kept working out there. I went to my first bodybuilding show, Danny Boy took me there. He’s the same guy who took me to Venice, he took me to see my first bodybuilding show.

That’s when Frank Zane won, Frank Zane won Mr. California, that was in ’79. He went up against Leroy Colbert. He was the first guy with the 21-inch arms. So, here we were sitting in the Grand Hotel downtown LA watching this bodybuilding show Arnold Schwarzenegger and the brown bomber, I think that’s what they called… either it was the brown bomber or the blind bomber…

Craig Monson:

Yeah Dave Draper, they guest posed, they guest posed together and they had on leopard skins wrapped around them and laced up Roman sandals that laced up their calf. They both had long hair to their shoulders, remember Arnold had long hair at one time. He must have been 21, 22, I think then.

The biggest guys I’d ever seen in my life. They were all … they were pudgy, they weren’t all ripped up or nothing. No, they were … They had to make their money. They did this posing routine, I got up out of my chair and walked up to the stage, i had to see that. They were so huge, and from that point, that’s when I wanted to compete, after watching them guide.

John Hansen:

And how old were you at that show, Craig?

Craig Monson:

I was 19. I said, “I want to do this.”

John Hansen:

You said, you got a chance to see Arnold and Dave out in the lobby then, after that?

Craig Monson:

Yes, yes. After the show, they were out in the lobby, and Frank Zane was selling his pictures on one side of the room, Leroy was on the other side of the room. Now, mind you, Frank Zane won the show, but Leroy Colbert, he got like six trophies, best back, best arms, best chest. He leaned over in a joking manner like, I can’t carry all my trophies. You know what I mean? They were lined up in front of him. But Frank Zane stood next to him with the overall trophy, the tall one. He won the show.

Craig Monson:

Now, I’m not understanding this. The politics in it. Well, first, Zane was all cut up, he was ripped up and he was shredded, he was really shredded, but Leroy was a big boy, he was huge. So, I came out of there with a funny feeling, but in the lobby, I spoke with Arnold briefly, Dave Draper briefly. Went over and got me a signed autograph, whatever from Leroy Colbert. He’s standing here with his tank top on, huge. Across the lobby, Frank Zane, he put on his workout suit already. His like, a jogging suit or whatever back then. I’m not going to his table, I’m going to the big boys table. This is what I wanted to be, the big boy.

Craig Monson:

Arnold and Dave Draper, they’re out, and they had on Hawaiian shirts, those summer shirts with shorts on, huge legs. I’m so impressed with these guys. But now, this is-

John Hansen:

You said Arnold was laughing, joking around with everybody, yeah?

Craig Monson:

Arnold was, how would you say very cordial. He was a young man. Very happy go lucky nice guy. Now, I always thought, to be a giant, you had to be the big bully. You know what I mean? But these guys were smooth, they were cordial. Well, I’ll remind you, I’m coming out of South Central LA, and this is back in the 60s, and you had the black movement going.

You had the Black Panther Party and all that stuff, and Martin Luther King just got assassinated. Then, the early 60s, John F. Kennedy got assassinated, then Bobby Kennedy got assassinated. There were all these troubles going on in America. In my school that I went to, there was no white kids, black and Hispanics.

Craig Monson:

Here, I’m standing in the lobby with the biggest men, two guys I’ve ever seen in my life, and they’re talking with me. Arnold put his hand on my shoulder. They’re talking with me, it’s like, whoa, it made a great impression.

John Hansen:

Yeah, that’s cool.

Craig Monson:

Very cool. I had been raised, kind of to be prejudiced, but I had nothing really to put my finger on why I should be other than what I was taught. You know what I mean? Then, with the police, now, the 77th police division in LA, they had a bad reputation because they were really that hard on the black kids.

It’s kind of changed, now, mildly hard on the Hispanics, back then it was blacks. So, I go to jail, I come home, I’m a big kid. Well, that’s all I did was worked out up there, I got my high school diploma in there. When I came home, I was so big, I went straight back into the gym.

What I Learned In Jail

John Hansen:

Wow. You said you went to jail, if you don’t mind talking about that, what happened with that and how long were you in jail for?

Craig Monson:

I was 20 years old, 19 going on 20. I’m standing at my mom’s house. They had converted the laundry into my bedroom, which was adjacent to the house, I had my own private door. Anyhow, my family went to Disneyland. I’d never been to Disney, but I was 19, 20 I wasn’t… I’m too big to go to Disneyland with the family.

They went to Disneyland, and I went over to my little girlfriend’s house, Vicki. Anyhow, make a long story short, when I came home, I come to the back gate, I see the light on in the house. I come through the back gate, the dog is going crazy.

Craig Monson:

I come in, and there’s a burglar in the house. I catch him in the act. He turned around, I thought he had a gun in his hand. I break to run, I turn to run, but the man don’t shoot. When he don’t shoot I turned back around, and I see, I focused on what he had in his hand and it was a ball peen hammer.

You know what that is, without the claw. I tell him, you got to come through me, and you got to come through me to get out. I’m on the doorway blocking the way. He did hit me upside the head, I have a knot on my head to show where he hit me way back then. I did go down, so I’m just like a big hickey.

Craig Monson:

Anyhow, he banged me upside the head, I almost go down. I grabbed his pants leg on the way down and he was dragging me to the door. I shook it off. You know what I’m saying? I regain my composure and I pull him down to the floor. I took that hammer from him, and I don’t like reliving this, it’s been years, and I don’t really… Then, I did kill him, right there in the house. I call my godmother, she’s 42 years old at the time. She lives around the corner, and I told her what had just happened.

Craig Monson:

She says, “Don’t worry, I’ll come, we’ll take him out of there. So she came over, we wrapped him up in the carpet, and we took him out of there, putting some in the alley, wait and watch. We drove him down, whatever. Now, mind you, when he came into the house, he had somebody out in the car waiting on him to come out. His partner, right? So two, three days later, they came to my house because his partner said, well, he took him over to my house, you understand?

Craig Monson:

So, my house was supposedly the last one where he was seen alive. They gave me the involuntary manslaughter back then. The judge said, I used too much force. He said, if I had a gun, and I shot him two times, I was told, it would have been okay. But if I had shot him six times, it was a bit too much force, and so that’s what they gave me. I used too much force. Well, I went berserk, how they say that, you see red. I didn’t notice, but I went berserk. Anyhow, so when I came home, I was-

John Hansen:

How long did you go to prison for?

Craig Monson:

For four and a half years.

John Hansen:

Four and a half years, okay. Where did you go? What prison was it?

Craig Monson:

First I went to Tracy, and then I stayed in Tracy for three months, they had an incident there. Then I went to the chow hall they had an incident. There was Mexicans against Mexicans, so they locked the prison down, and after three or four days, they’d let you out of your cell to go have a hot meal. So, when we’d go to have a hot meal, it’s like all the blacks are hanging together and the Latins are hanging together, you know…

Craig Monson:

Mind you, I’m only in the prison like two three months and they’d give us this food and it’s so nasty. After I’d take a couple of bites and I’m going stare crazy in this cell, it’s just a room with a steel door, no bars in Tracy. I stood up, I took a couple of bites and I didn’t want it. I stood up, slammed my tray because you got a metal trays. Slammed the tray on the table and got up to walk out. When I did that, every black guy in the chow hall got up with me.

Craig Monson:

I had no control of that, I wasn’t doing that for them, I was just leaving the chow hall. They took me to the committee and asked me, did I think I was Al Capone or what? “Do you think you could control… You can’t bring this gang mentality here.” “No, I didn’t do that for that. I just was mad at the food and leaving the chow hall.” That sent me to San Quentin.

John Hansen:

Wow.

Craig Monson:

Yes, yes. So, I end up doing… I get to San Quentin and I’m one of the youngest men there. At that time, there was 5,000 men at San Quentin, but I carried a big stick. I was a big boy. I was a big boy, and there was a real big guy, they called him Boom Chuck.

He was a Samoan man, and he was benching 500. He banged it on his chest, and he hit his chest so hard his chest split right down the middle. It went side to side. You know what I mean, like slingshot, like it was a rubber band. In my videos, you see me putting towels on my chest.

John Hansen:

Right. Right. That’s why.

Craig Monson:

After I witnessed that, I never benched without nothing on my chest no more.

John Hansen:

Yeah, I was going to ask you, if you had a chance to work out in the prison, but you did. They had weights there and everything.

Craig Monson:

Yeah, we worked out, Oh Another story. After I had been in prison four years, four and a half years almost, the board gave me a date to come home. They said, “Well, big Craig, you’ve been inside of San Quentin so long, we going to let you go to a camp center where you can sleep in dormitories and air out, because you’re going home now.

They gave me a 90 day date. I was so glad to get out of San Quentin, but when I come out of San Quentin to get on the bus to go to the camp center. Which it was James Town up in Oregon, they couldn’t handcuff me. They had to put the leg irons on my hands. You know what leg irons was the thing they used to put around your legs.

Craig Monson:

My wrist and forearms had got so huge, the handcuffs wouldn’t fit. So they put these leg irons on me. When I get to the camp center, they give me a bed roll and my bunk number and I run to my bunk, I made my bed up. It’s a dormitory, maybe 50 people in the dormitory, something like that. Two stories, and the balcony ran the length of the dormitory.

It was enclosed with about three football fields in the middle. Yeah, it was nice. It was like a campus or something. I was so glad. Anyhow, the weights were out on the field, outside in the grass, and the guys were working out and they were working out with old york plates. The weights tingling, tingling, tingling, you picked and it was rattling.

Craig Monson:

I came out of my dormitory upstairs and I see the guys working out, I rush to the iron pile, and one guy, it was a group of the work out team. They have on their prison attire, with their caps and they’re jackets, but it’s very hot where we are, 112. I asked the guys, can I go next, can I get down with you, and they said, sure.

They had five quarters on each side, 25 pounds on each side, and I am standing in the back of the bench like I’m going to spot but I’d lean over and I rack the weights with both, extending my arms and I rack it to tighten them up. There’s no colors on the weight, you understand? This five plates, so this is 250 pounds, right?

Craig Monson:

I lean over to tighten it up and then I proceeded to curl it. I started curling that weight, I did about 10 times. They were like, “Man, who you come from?” I said, “Quentin.” “What’s you’re name?” “I’m Monson, Craig Monson.” The police were leaning over the rail on the second.

They said, “Hey, big man, where you live?” I said, “You standing right in front of my dorm.” “What bed?” “J14, J17.” Whatever it was, I know it was the J dormitory. They said, okay. Three o’clock in the morning, they came, kicked my bed and put me in the hole, and sent me back to San Quentin.

John Hansen:

Really? Why?

Craig Monson:

They said I was too big be on they prison yard

John Hansen:

Oh, damn. Unbelievable.

Craig Monson:

They had a running joke among the correctional officers in San Quentin. They said, “Big Craig, too big for the prison, huh? They had to send you back home.”

John Hansen:

God, unbelievable. How big were you?

Craig Monson:

I had 23 inch arms. I was a big boy. 23, but I wasn’t cut.

John Hansen:

Yeah, just big.

Craig Monson:

I had good shape, I had abs. My waist was like a 29, 30, then I flared up, up to a 50. I was huge.

John Hansen:

Yeah, and you’re tall too. You’re a big guy. You’re a tall guy.

Craig Monson:

Yeah, at 6’2″. Then, coming home, in prison when I weighed out, when I came home, I was 235 pounds, 235, 238, like that, but I was lean, I was very lean. I had an old Japanese fellow that was in prison, and he was showing me how to do the vacuum. I would visit him all the time.

John Hansen:

Oh, really?

Craig Monson:

Yeah, he showed me how to do the vacuum as a form of yoga. Yeah, yoga to pack your intestines, to pack all your guts up on your rib cage. To do this, he would tell me, do this breathing exercise in the morning 10 times and in the evening before you go to bed 10 times.

Different things, plus I was practicing the art. So, this is my instructor and had me doing that kind of stuff. That gave me that a good vacuum, and then small, small waist. So, I come home, I’m training hard. I have a goal, and that is, I want to compete. I used to tell my mom, they’re going to call me the biggest man in the world.

She said, “And I’m going to feed you.” So, she was feeding me. My brothers would get mad because my mother would say, “That’s Craig’s food there. Don’t you touch his food.” I’d get a whole chicken, she’d bring me a whole pot of greens. Mother was good, mother was very good.

Bill Pearl’s Gym and Craig’s Training Routines

John Hansen:

You were going to Gold’s too, right? When you came home?

Craig Monson:

No, no, uh-uh.

John Hansen:

Oh, you weren’t?

Craig Monson:

I went to Zach’s gym, it was on 68th and Broadway. I went to Zach’s first and then he closed his gym down and he added on a room in the back of his home on 82nd in McKinley, which was right down the street from my mom’s house.

So, from California gym, I would go to his gym over there, but it wasn’t fully equipped and it was so tight, I ended up going to Bill Pearl’s gym. This was on Manchester and St. Andrew. This gym was there from maybe the late 50s, early, early 60s. Bill Pearl also had another gym in Pasadena where he would really be at.

John Hansen:

Yeah, I heard about that one.

Craig Monson:

He would be at that one, yes. The other one, it just had his name up on the Billboard, but I think he just sold it out. That was where I trained as far as being in the gym. I didn’t become a member of Gold’s Gym until the early 80s, I would say. After I started competing, and I moved, I moved to Venice. I lived in Venice for a while, and Gold’s was very close to me, so I could go there then.

There was a time when, I’m real big now and I’m very strong, I’m benching 500 pounds and I’m playing with a 200 pound dumbbells on the bench. I’m in Gold’s gym, and back on the 315, and I’m curling five plates, and I’m making my noises like this. I was told that I had great sound effects.

John Hansen:

Yeah, Larry Jackson said that too.

Craig Monson:

Yes, I had great sound effects. When I joined Gold’s, Mike Christian, if you knew Mike also. I knew him longtime, longtime buddy. He came over to me, he said, “Big Craig, we don’t have to train like that no more here.” I’m like, “What?” He says, “No.” He says, “Nobody trained to kill it like that.” They were … in and plus, I really wasn’t juicing, but the other guys did the juicing, they wouldn’t work real, real hard. I was still calling the …, sort of speak.

No cursing, no profanity, none of that, no, but like the sumo wrestlers. The grunts and the moans, I would do that kind of stuff.

John Hansen:

Tell us what kind of weights you were using Craig, because Larry was talking about how you were so huge, and you were like the strongest guy in the gym.

Craig Monson:

I’d go up to 585 on the bench press, and I could do five reps with it. They said, “Big Craig, you could do six for one.” I said, “Nope, until I could do 585, 10 times, I didn’t want to do six.” And I never arched my back, never came… They used to put a belt with a two and a half pound weight tied on one end, and stretch it across the bench, and I’d set my butt on it to make sure that my butt wouldn’t come up off the bench.

You know what I mean? Arch, no arching. No, you can’t arch. When I would first get to the pit in this beach, I’d warm up with 400 pounds. I would do three sets of warm ups of 25 reps with 400 pounds. Unbelievable, right? I would warm up with that. I would go up to 500.

John Hansen:

You were freaking everybody out.

Craig Monson:

Yes, yes. Even in my gym, after I had left Venice, years later, it’s the present gym I’m in now. This must be in like 1998, I was doing some security work at a nightclub, on a Friday, we had 16 to 19 security guards there. My workout partner was the head of Security.

My stats at that time, I think I was like 46, 47. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, so he had the whole security squad come to the gym, form a circle around the bench. Emily, which is the owner the gym, she’s a Russian lady, “Craig, what’s going on?” I said, “Oh, they just want to watch me do something.”

Craig Monson:

I did four sets of three plates for 50 reps, four sets, and I was 46 years, 46, 47 years old. They had to watch me because when Big Pete was telling them, they didn’t believe it. Now, just like I’m telling you now, when you hear stuff like that, you’re like, that can’t be happening, that’s unbelievable. It just so happened, I had my friend take his video camera, and you had to carry that big battery pack at the end of that.

Yes, yes, not like today, and a lot of my guys didn’t like to take pictures in Venice Beach. I used to tell them, “Man, this is going to be our record one day.” Now, they’re asking me, the ones that are still around, they asking me, “Big Craig, you got any more pictures? You got any?” “Don’t you remember you didn’t want to be in the camera?”

Craig Monson:

In Venice Beach, I have a video and that was a bad day. Now you know, we always did that on Sunday. Well, I partied on Saturday night. I did have a life, I did go out, I partied, and I played around. So then, I got to get up and go out to Venice, and Venice was my show off day. You know what I mean? We called it the high sign day.

In the gym, I would never really want to work out with 500 pounds because in the gym, the bench press, the rack of the bench, it was for, I like to put my hands. I liked to go collar to collar…But in the gym, they have the bench where they don’t tip over. In Venice, the brackets would be right beside your head.

John Hansen:

Yeah…

Craig Monson:

Yes, yes. So, the guy could spot you real good from the back, but in the gym, you have to take the weight out the rack to hand it to me.

John Hansen:

Yeah, because the stands were at the end of the bar.

Craig Monson:

That’s right. So, it was hard to get somebody to spot me in the gym. Yes, they have to lift this 500 pounds out, and let me get it and then take it off me, no one. Yes, yes, it was easier for me to take it out the rack and put it back in the rack at the beach. I didn’t like to trust nobody, with no 500 pounds lifted above me. No, no, no.

John Hansen:

Larry used to say that you used to do the arm workouts you used to do, the soul crushers, the line tricep extensions you used to do in three plates. You used to take it off the ground yourself, nobody leaning with you.

Craig Monson:

Yes, I had my workout partner back then was Big Will, and Will was 200 and some odd pounds. He would hold my knees down or even sit on my knees. I would reach down from the back of my head and feel, I’d tell somebody, “Line my hands up, get my hands even.”

Because I’d still for the groove ins, but they would line me up even, and I would pull over. I’d pull that three plates over, up to the air. Go to the air first and then proceed to do skull crushers.

John Hansen:

Then right after that, you’d do the barbell curls, right?

Craig Monson:

Then I’d stand up and have a bar already prepared, had 300 here, I had 200 here, 250 there, walk right to that part and curl it. Then I would have a circle, then I’d go over here and do, I called them Supermans with dumbbells. You do seven curls with the dumbbell, then you do seven crossovers, and then you do seven hammers.

Then I’d go back to lay down and do skull crushers. I wore out, buffed up, wore out, I would carry… this is at Venice, I would carry my backpack, and I would have my… I had to replenish. I have my honey butters, that peanut butter we used to eat with a spoon. I don’t know if you guys did it in your days.

Craig Monson:

I’d take my honey butter, and I’d have my bananas and some kind of fresh fruit. All day while I’m training out here, I’d stay out here three hours in the sun training. I can’t stand the sun 30 minutes now. It’s turned on me now. I have a open air Jeep, Jeep Wrangler, because I got it all souped up. I love it. No top on it. Last week it was so hot here in LA, we had hot weather, right?

John Hansen:

Yeah….

Craig Monson:

Man, that heat tore me up. I drove from the gym home, my blood pressure was so high when I get home, oh, my god. My doctor tell me, “You know better than that, you got…”. I like the shows in Venice, I like to go out and sit in the bleachers, watch. I can’t do it no more, sun’s too tough for me. The last show that I went to, my partner had to help me up, and I have to walk. I have to get up out of that sun. I was stumbling, and I haven’t been to a show since.

John Hansen:

Oh, really? Wow.

Craig Monson:

Yeah. I’m still right now, I’m like 287, 290. That’s too heavy for my age. Okay, 2016, I had my gallbladder removed. I was in the hospital for 12 days, the nine days I was on the big oxygen, the big oxygen, because I couldn’t breathe because I was out of here. But after they get my breathing under control, they took my gallbladder out. Well, in 12 days, I lost 47 pounds.

John Hansen:

Wow, unbelievable.

Craig Monson:

Yes. Now, you know when you lose that kind of weight, that kind of fast to an illness, my body was deflated. Now, just imagine Craig’s big old arms, and you deflate it in your chest. Man, I had titties sagging.

John Hansen:

Yeah, loose skin.

Craig Monson:

My back arms were like kimono gowns or something, all this loose skin. My forearms expel, loose skin down around my wrist. So, for a year, that was ’16, I came home New Year’s Day ’17. All of ’17, I’ve been convalescing, training in the gym, trying to…

John Hansen:

Yeah, try to get back to normal.

Craig Monson:

Trying to get back to… Then, just recently, three, four months, I’m able to do push ups and I’m able to hold a pump. My chest had started to fill a little tighter then.

John Hansen:

Right, getting back to normal.

Craig Monson:

I’m starting to get another outlook on life. Every morning I got to get up and put this sheet on the floor and do my planking and my stretching. I have to remember, I am 67. Now, when I got out of the hospital, I was really 67. When I went into the hospital, I was still in my 40s. I could still go in the gym and feel comfortable and train, put on seven to eight, nine plates on the leg press. Then after that surgery, man, and then look, after I’m home for a week, I had to go back and have a second surgery.

John Hansen:

For what?

Craig Monson:

I had hemorrhoids with a cyst up under the hemorrhoid. So, they had to cut the hemorrhoids off to drain the cyst. So, I was in the hospital another five days, and then with this going on, I created a blockage. I couldn’t go to the bathroom. Now, you know a blockage can kill you.

John Hansen:

Oh yeah, for sure.

Craig Monson:

That could take you out of here, and they was going to let me come home and I had to tell the doctor, “Hey, I haven’t been to the bathroom in 10 days. No, you can’t just put…” So, they had to make sure I went to the bathroom. They’re giving me all this stuff, and I finally went. God has been good to me, all this go with the territory of growing older. So, I don’t want to be 290 at 70 years old. No, but my body is so used to carrying the heavy weight. I’m on salads. I’m on celery, and salmon, salad and chicken, chicken breast…

John Hansen:

You’re just genetically big.

Craig Monson:

I’m just genetically big, there you go. My mom stood 6’2″, my grandfather weighed 500 pounds. He was Cherokee Indian, yes, yes, he was a big guy. I had two brothers in my family that stood 6’5″. So, this is genetics.

John Hansen:

Yeah, genetically big, yeah.

Craig Monson:

Genetically big. So, when I touched the weights, my body responded, my family, my brothers, they responded the same, they started growing. We were blessed with that genetics.

John Hansen:

All right, thank you for listening to another episode of the Bodybuilding Legends Podcast brought to you by our sponsor Old School Labs. Thanks to Craig Monson for that great interview and next week we’ll be joined with Craig again for part two of our interview.

Where he talks about, when he started competing and also competing over in Europe with bodybuilder John Brown, so it’s going to be a great interview. Again, if you want to be a Patreon, you want to donate to the Bodybuilding Legends podcast please go to bodybuildinglegendsshow.com, you click on the Patreon link in the upper right-hand corner. All right, we’ll see you guys next week. Have a great week, everybody. Take care.