Boyer Coe’s Workout and Diet

Boyer Coe is a real class act and one of the best personalities to grace the sport of bodybuilding. Boyer Coe started his bodybuilding journey like many young men did – as a kid lifting a pair of dumbbells in his parent’s garage.

Eventually he outgrow the old dumbbells and joined a local gym that opened near his home.

Boyer knew he wanted to be a bodybuilder the moment he saw a muscle magazine at a local corner store. He was awe-struck by the He-man on the cover. Young Boyer made up his mind right then and there that THAT is what he wanted to be when he grew up – a strong man like Hercules.

Since he was a youngster and had no money, he took the magazine from the shop without paying for it or asking permission. He kept the muscle mag in his room and looked at it everyday. He studied the bodybuilders’ physiques and etched into his impressionable mind the image of himself being a muscle man.

The Archetype: Steve Reeve’s Hercules

Another defining moment in Boyer Coe’s life was when he saw the movie Hercules, staring Steve Reeves. He watched as Hercules broke the chains of his oppressors and crushed his enemies with his might.

Boyer was so fired up after the movie that he ran home 5 miles and did push-ups all through the night and into the next day. He did so many pushups that 24 hours later it felt like someone “hit his chest with an axe.”

(As you may or may not know, pain is part of the muscle building process. The pain is especially intense when you first start training. So yeah I get what Boyer is saying, and if you’ve experienced that deep splitting muscle soreness, you do too.)

Boyer Coe Mindset: Competitive from Day One

Boyer Coe was born competitive. He was always trying to run faster and one up the other kids in the neighborhood.

His first bodybuilding competition was the Mr. Louisiana contest when he was 15. He found out about the contest just 7 days before the event, so he only had a week to prepare. He admittedly had no idea how to pose and just winged it. His plan was to just watch the other contenders pose and do what they were doing.

Funny story about Boyer Coe’s first competition: He was backstage pumping up and he realized that everyone else was gone. They were called up to prepare to go onstage. Everyone cleared out and Boyer was missing the show.

He had an “Oh shit!” moment and ran out a side door in a panic. The door locked behind him before he realized he was in the alley. It was January and he was outside in the cold wearing only posing trucks and oil. He ran all the way around the building and went through the front door. He got inside just as soon as they called his name to come up to the stage. Then he ran through the crowd, hopped on stage and started posing. The crowd loved it and he won the contest. They thought his grand entrance was part of the bit!

On the way home his dad said it was pretty neat how he came up through the crowd like that. Boyer didn’t have the heart to tell him it was by accident!

Moral of the story: Just roll with the punches and always look for a way to make it right. Those mishaps might work out in your favor.

Boyer Coe’s Background: The Come Up

Boyer was born in Louisiana to a blue collar family. His dad was a sheet metal worker who later opened a successful grocery store. His father and mother instilled the values of hard work and discipline into his upbringing.

Boyer’s parents supported his bodybuilding and were happy for him because he seemed to enjoy it.

From a young age, Boyer Coe was determined to be as strong as possible. His goal was to bench press 400 pounds before graduating Highschool.

He became obsessed with achieving with a big bench press. He would write “400” on everything, trace and retrace it constantly. He wrote 400 on everything – paper, notepads, and textbooks. When he got in trouble at school for writing on everything his teachers took his pencil and papers away, so he carved “400” into his desk with a paperclip.

His obsession paid off. He reached his goal and bench pressed 400 pounds before getting his diploma – A testament to his commitment, focus and drive, even as a teenager.

When Boyer was a young teen, Ray Roy’s health club opened up in town. Young Coe spent every minute he could at the gym. He stayed there all day he didn’t talk to anybody. He just watched and did what the big guys did.

There was no internet. No blogs. No YouTube.

You had to watch what the strong guys did and try it for yourself.

That’s how Boyer Coe learned how to lift. Back in those days the men and women trained at different times. women trained from 6am-12pm, men from noon until 7pm.

Boyer Coe got to the gym at 11:59am and stayed all day until they closed at night. He was a sponge – watching, learning and trying things out for himself.

A quick side story: Ray Roy’s has an interesting part to play in Boyer’s story. Roy’s brother was the strength and conditioning coach for the LSU football team. LSU was the first team to train with weights and hen had them training with weights.

LSU was the first weight training team in the country. They went on to crush opponents going undefeated in 1958 season. A testament to the power of weight training and it’s correlation with athletic performance. Weight training was totally misunderstood before LSU mopped the floor with the competition. People thought weights made you slow and clumsy. They some discovered how wrong they were. Now every athletic organization weight trains to gain strength and speed. Anyway I digress. Back to the main point…

Needless to say, his body responded very well to weight training. Bodybuilders back then didn’t have the infinite information available at their fingertips like we do today about training and nutrition.

They had to learn from others. Or through trial and error. Boyer worked with the best built guy in his gym and learned as much as he could from him every single day.

Boyer Coe’s Bodybuilding Victories

All the study and hard work Boyer put in over the years paid off. His list of bodybuilding victories is a mile long. He’s cemented his place in bodybuilding history by becoming one of the most winningest bodybuilders and collecting the most prestigious bodybuilding titles.

Boyer Coe’s career spanned 4 decades, including through the Golden Era of bodybuilding – a time when men looked like status of Zeus carved from granite. These were the days of when Franco Columbu, Frank Zane and Serge Nubret were in top form. Coe competed against the best in the business and still placed highly or flat out won competitions.

He competed at every show he could and eventually won Mr. Texas, Mr. Junior America, Mr. World, won the Mr. Universe four times, and even took home the coveted Mr. Olympia title in 1973.

His consistency across four decades of bodybuilding championships is a testament to his training philosophy. The ability to compete at the top level for 40 years takes will, dedication, heart and brains.

You’ve got to train smart to play at an elite level for that long. (To be fair, Boyer Coe did take a few years off from competitive bodybuilding. And he came back in the best shape of his life. He never stopped training.)

Boyer Coe’s Training Philosophy

Winning starts in the mind.

Boyer knew he was a champion. He trained accordingly. And thought of himself as a champion and nothing less. He had high standards in the gym and in life. His laidback personality evaporated as soon as he stepped foot in the gym. It was all business – Intense, gut busting training. He worked his ass off to get better each and every day.

Bulletproof Mindset

Coe would say to focus on the task at hand and push your limits and commit 100% to your training session.

Boyer had a burning desire to improve and become his absolute best. When asked about what his secret is to building a legendary physique, he responded: “I always simply trained hard and put forth the effort.”

Put everything you’ve got into every single rep!

Train with razor-sharp focus and do it day in and day out, on repeat. That the secret to success.

In addition to that there were a some training principles Boyer applied during his workouts.

Full Range of Motion

When it comes to training, use full range of motion every repetition. That means full muscle contraction and full extension. You must train the muscle through the entire range of motion. This mobilizes ALL the muscle fibers and trains them at their weakest points – a must for full growth.

“I have always believed in complete range of motion in all exercises, full contraction and full extension. That is the best way to prevent injury. I see a lot of guys doing partial reps and really using a lot of momentum in their exercises – their joints just won’t last doing it this way.”

Correct Form is Key

Use correct form when doing each exercise. Training is hard work not because your physically move heavy weight again and again but because you have to MENTALLY FOCUS on your muscles working. This is the real hard work. To discipline your mind to stay completely focused on your training is the hardest part. You need to WILL YOURSELF TO GROW WITH YOUR MIND POWER.

Every iota of your energy should focus on the exercise you are performing. You build a body with your mind. The weights are a tool, but you are the sculptor.

Analyze the each set and try to make the next one better. Learn the finer points about how to get the most out of the exercise – Tweak and tailor it a bit so it provides the most benefit for you.

Slow and Controlled Movements

Don’t use too much momentum. All effort should be deliberate. Focus on the negative, very slow and deliberate. And also focus on making the muscle cramp at the top of each rep. (maximum contraction)

Warm Up Appropriately

Perform 2-3 warm up sets before moving on to an all-out heavy set.

One Heavy Set

Leg extension sets to failure with 350 pounds and follow that up with 4-5 negatives. someone lifts the weight for you and then you resistance and fight it.

3-5 Drop-Sets

Reduce the weight a little bit each subsequent set.

1-5 Negative Sets

After your 3-5 working sets, increase the weight and perform negatives. Do this with the help of an experienced and uplifting training partner for best results and to avoid catastrophe.

Like many bodybuilders of the time, Boyer Coe incorporated powerlifting into his training. Not for any particular reason other than back in his day the bodybuilding and lifting competitions took place at the same event. The bodybuilding show was preceded by powerlifting, so Boyer started powerlifting so he had something to do while waiting for his show to start.

Boyer Coe’s Workout Routine

Boyer Coe’s preferred style of training is what he called Work Capacity Training. The point being you overload your muscle with a ton of volume in a small window of time.

Every workout took the same approach. It didn’t matter if he was training shoulders, biceps, chest, back or legs. His approach was the same. Begin each workout with 2-3 warm up sets to get your muscles nice and ready for the heavy lift.

The point here is to prepare your body and mind for the onslaught to come.

The first working set is 12 repetitions using the maximum amount of weight you can for 12 STRICT reps.

Rest 60 seconds after the first set, then drop the weight by 5-10% and perform 10 STRICT reps.

Rest another 60 seconds and drop the weight again by 5-10% and perform 10 reps. These are called ‘strip sets’ today.

As far as exercises go, stick to the usual suspects – all the bodybuilders trained using the basic exercises. They got creative, sure, but mainly stuck to the basic barbell exercises. Once they master the basics they tweak exercise until they are tailored to their individual body mechanics.

Now let’s get into the more specific stuff about Boyer Coe’s training methods.

This section is a bit of a mishmash of Boyer’s workouts broken into muscle groups.

Every Workout

Abs and Core Warm Up

The first thing Boyer Coe did was train abs and core to kickoff his workout. He thought of abdominal exercises as a warm up – it got his mind focused, his abs, to him, where one of his weaknesses so he made extra effort to focus on them. This get his body temperature up and warmed up his lower back. Boyer Coe is a big believer in warming up. A proper warm up is a main reason why Coe was able to avoid injury over the course of his career.

Abs and Core exercises: Seated Twists, hanging leg raises, hanging knee ins and Sit ups.

Just pick an exercise or two and do a few hundred reps.

Calves (As needed)

Calves were trained as needed. They were trained very often by many of the Golden Era bodybuilders. That’s because Calves are a very tough, dense muscle that can take a beating. Calves require frequent and intense training in order to grow to their full potential.

Boyer opted for Seated Calve Raise and Laying Calve Press. Usually working up to multiple heavy sets of 10-15 reps. Major focus on the stretch at the bottom of the reps and go all the way up to your tippy toes on each rep. Give it a ‘kick’ at the top of the rep to really contract the calves fully.

Chest

Boyer Coe’s chest workout typically began by warming up with Incline Bench Press. Start with a moderate weight and go until you reach failure with 12 perfect reps. Then lower the weight a bit and do it again. Then increase the weight to MORE than what you started with and do 8-6 reps with very slow negatives, taking 6 seconds to complete the rep.

Then load up with a heavier weight than what you started with and perform negative reps. Negative allow you to overload the muscle which builds strength. By loading up the muscle you work the muscle’s deep fibers in a ways you cannot do with the positive portion of the rep, (the weight would be too heavy to push or pull. And if you could push or pull it it would defeat the purpose anyway.)

The second exercise was the Vertical Bench Press Machine (A.K.A. the Seated Bench Press Machine) After a few warm up sets, perform your first working set with 8 reps using a weight that allows you to achieve failure on Rep 8. Then lower the weight a bit and do 6-7 reps to failure. Followed up immediately by 8-10 heavy negative reps.

The Vertical Chest Press was followed up quickly with 3 supersets of Dumbbell Pullovers (for 10 reps each) and Serratus Pulls for (15 reps each) using a Pull Down Pulley Machine.

Next he’d move over to the ‘pec contractor’ aka Pec Deck Fly Machine, and finish off chest with the same triple set approach.

Boyer Coe Biceps Training

His trademark bicep split. Which apparently is all genetics. Since his dad had it too but nobody else did.

Like I mentioned before, Boyer Coe looked up to Steve Reeves. He read that Steve Reeves did seated incline bench curls to grow his Herculean arms. So that’s exactly what Boyer Coe did – lots and lots of incline bench curls. Somewhere to the tune of 8 sets (or more) per workout.

“I remember reading a copy of Joe Weider’s MUSCLE BUILDER magazine and seeing an article by Steve Reeves on biceps training. He wrote about doing dumbbell curls while sitting on an incline bench. That advice was good enough for me, so the first exercise I ever did for biceps was that incline dumbbell curl. As a matter of fact, it was the only biceps exercise I did for almost five years. All I did was eight to 10 sets of the good old incline curl, then I’d move on to triceps.” — Boyer Coe

Triceps

Triceps Extensions – Heavy with the E-Z Bar for a bunch of sets. Then he’d polish triceps off with Serratus Pulls.

Leg Day the Boyer Coe Way (Boyer Coe Leg Workout)

“Besides man’s brain, what else makes him so unique as compared to the animal kingdom? He walks proudly upright supported on two pillars of strength – his legs.” – Boyer Coe

Leg Workout 1: Consists of 4 exercises done in superset fashion. The first superset was Heavy Leg Presses with Thigh Extensions.

In Boyer’s words, “We did all movements in a very slow, smooth style, never jerking. Especially, in the thigh extension we tried to hold each contraction a second or two at the top.”

After super-setting these two movements the thighs were really burning. He kept the reps about 10 to 15 for each movement, and performed 4 sets of each exercise.

Next up for legs were Sissy Squat superset with Leg Curls. Boyer really gets into those Sissy Squats. They are a KILLER quadriceps exercise.

If done properly you need little or no weight to get massive results from Sissy Squats. Boyer got so proficient at this movement he can actually touch the back of his head to the floor, giving the quads an extreme stretch (and workout in general). Without a doubt, this is Boyer’s favorite leg exercise. If given the time he would do this movement all day – He’s crazy about it.

After the mentioned, this was done along with leg curls.

This exercise was also done for the traditional 10 to 15 reps for four sets, along with the Sissy Squats. Sometimes the Sissy Squats were performed holding a weight across his chest or you can wear a weight vest so you can keep your hands free.

Leg Day 2: The second leg day of the week consisted of the following: Back Squats on the thrust machine superset with with Front Squats on the thrust machine. Leg Presses superset with Leg Curls, followed by one good set of full, deep back squats done til exhaustion.

“We did these very strict and probably they were the hardest of all the leg exercises. We did these on a special machine built by Bob Clark and it is the best leg machine we have found for overall leg development. Every gym should have one. Again, this was done 10 reps each for 4 sets.”

Leg Presses (Bob Clark machine) superset with Boyer’s old favorite, Leg Curls.

“We could not handle much weight on the leg presses because of the two movements previously done, but the pain was sheer agony. We did these non-lock style and kept this up for 15 burning reps and then on to the leg curls. We finished off each leg workout with one set of full squats for 20 reps (A.K.A. Breathing Squats) with as much weight as we could handle, just to put the icing on the cake.

After this routine, I was always dying of thirst and wanted to make a mad dash for the drinking fountain.

However, I usually had to be content with sitting on the floor for a few minutes until I could get up sufficient strength to walk over to the water fountain under my own power.

I think that you will find this routine not only interesting to do but very result producing. It has worked well for us and we continue to use it.”

Always trained 5-6 days a week when he wasn’t going all out with HIT.

Wake up and hit the gym at 5am.

Train early prioritize it. He’s trained his whole life and still does to this day at the ripe age of 74. He simply loves to train.

Training partner have friendly competition. Go through a whole workout without talking because they are so focused on their training.

Boyer Coe’s Bodybuilding Secrets

There are no secrets other than hard work 100% effort 100% of the time is the way to get it done. Section complete.

Follow your own nature, not the crowd.

The weights are no more magic than a sculptor’s chisel and hammer. Put them in the hands of a novice and you get novice results. Put them in the hands of an artist and you get the results.

Boyer Coe Diet

Boyer would slonk raw eggs and eat beef, chicken, fish, turkey and pork. Steaks and chops and lots of green vegetables.

He had a muscle builder shake which was his special recipe raw eggs, milk powder, and oats for extra quality calories and nutrition.

Generally he kept carbs low.

Simple.

Closing Thoughts on Boyer Coe

II didn’t know where to fit these in but I think they’re worth mentioning:

Boyer Coe’s thoughts on aging gracefully and training in his 70’s:

“Again, I would have to say genetics; that along with always training hard on a regular basis, a good diet, and a positive outlook. I always like to use the quote by the great baseball player, Satchel Paige. “How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you were?” I never think about age.”

To this day at the ripe age of 75 he gets his ass out of bed and to the gym to train like a savage at least 5 days a week. Therefore wake up early and attack the weights. Up and at ’em at 5am every morning to take care of business.

In 1977, Coe opened his first health club, Boyer Coe’s BodyMasters. That same year, Coe would form the commercial exercise equipment company, BodyMasters Sports Industries with co-founder, Mike Luquette.

Coe would appear on over 100 covers of strength, fitness and industry magazines such as, Sport & Fitness, Muscle Digest, Iron Man, Body Building, Muscle & Fitness, FLEX, Fitness Trade Journal and Get Flexed Magazine.

He didn’t care for the limelight – he used competition as a way to push himself to be better than last time. In fact he didn’t care much about winning the competitions. Boyer Coe outspoken distain for bodybuilding judges is well know.

Outspoken distain for the bodybuilding judges, especially the AAU. They treated the competitors like pigs.

Judging is subjective, political and the judges treated the competitors with disrespect. Boyer set out to better his best and win in spite of what the judges thought. He enjoyed the atmosphere and camaraderie of the bodybuilding community and didn’t care much of what the judges thought.

Although Coe trained with incredible intensity, he wasn’t a fan of Arthur Jones’ High Intensity Training.

Except back in 1994 he trained 2 days on one day off while doing HIT training with Dorian Yates.

Loved music.

Bodybuilding advocate. Speaks to groups about the benefits for physical training and a healthy lifestyle.

Boyer Coe was introduced to drugs early in his career. By happenstance, he trained with a guy who new the coach of the European weight lifting team. They had access to a This blue little pill is partly responsible for helping the bodybuilders of the Golden Era reach their Herculean proportions. Now, that isn’t meant to take anything off their accomplishments. They are still incredibly focused and dedicated individuals. But hey, just keeping it on the level with you so you young guys don’t get unrealistic expectations. Learn how much muscle you can build naturally.

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