“Every year, in the spring, a stone-lifting contest is held in Munich. This has been going on for decades and has a lot of prestige in sporting circles. You stand on two footrests that look like chairs and pull the stone up between your legs by a metal handle. The stone weighs approximately 508 German pounds (about 560 English pounds). An electric scale on the wall of the auditorium shows how many centimeters you lift the stone. You do it cold; there’s no warming up. You just lift it up as far as you can. That year I entered the contest, broke the existing record, and won. The press picked it up and wrote that Mr. Universe was the strongest man in Germany—which may or may not have been true, but it was good for bodybuilding. At that time, along with all the other misconceptions about the sport, people still thought bodybuilders had muscles but didn’t have any power, just big useless muscles.”