che ne pensate di questo "vecchietto"?

[master wallace]

dai vi posto qualche altra fotina

metti anche quelle quando gareggiava. . .

[EGMario86]

una ina gara e una attuale

[Hulkhogan]

Onestamente nn lo conosco proprio...

[master wallace]

sei giovane. ..eh. .

[master wallace]

una ina gara e una attuale

a parte gli anni . .dal viso non sembra proprio lui. .mah. .

[EGMario86]

Onestamente nn lo conosco proprio...

eheh non ti biasimo, non penso abbia mai gareggiato ad alti livelli...

sei giovane. ..eh. .

anche io lo sono, l'ho conosciuto casualmente tramite facebook non ne avevo sentito mai parlare prima...

[EGMario86]

ultime due, veramente artistiche

[master wallace]

eheh non ti biasimo, non penso abbia mai gareggiato ad alti livelli...

anche io lo sono, l'ho conosciuto casualmente tramite facebook non ne avevo sentito mai parlare prima...

veramente gareggio anche ai massimi livelli IFBB. ..

[master wallace]

ultime due, veramente artistiche

bello. . .

[EGMario86]

veramente gareggio anche ai massimi livelli IFBB. ..

olympia? e com'è che non riesco a trovare praticamente nessuna informazione su di lui? nemmeno una pagina su wikipedia ci sta eppure c'è per praticamente tutti i BB pro...

[Sean]

olympia? e com'è che non riesco a trovare praticamente nessuna informazione su di lui? nemmeno una pagina su wikipedia ci sta eppure c'è per praticamente tutti i BB pro...

Ecco qua una biografia scritta dallo stesso Richards, in cui ricorda gli anni eroici del BB e la sua amicizia con Arnold, del quale è stato compagno di allenamento:


Frank Richards' Story - a History of the Lionheart

Some of you weren’t around when I competed in the sixties and as an IFBB professional in the eighties, so I think that I ought to give you a profile of myself, a synopsis of my life and my career in bodybuilding. Of course, the seasoned bodybuilders amongst you will have a pretty good idea who I am and what I did in the sport, but there will still be things that you don’t know about me, so hang on in there and you might find out other things about me that you didn’t know.

This potted history of my life and bodybuilding career will, hopefully, fill in all the gaps and give you all a better understanding of whom you are listening to and my credentials for saying the things that I do.
I guess that it can be said that my bodybuilding career started when I was fourteen years old, although I didn’t truly enter the bodybuilding environment until I was eighteen years old.
I went to what, in England, was know as a Grammar School. They were schools of higher education, for which you had to pass a scholarship exam in order to be accepted as a student.
At my school, as well as being successful in my studies I shone at athletics in various disciplines but my specialist event was sprinting, both on the flat and over hurdles. I went on to represent my town in the county championships and then my county in the All England Schools Championships. We had a sprint coach who was years ahead of his time. He allowed me to perform thigh extensions and leg bicep curls, using weighted boots, in order to build up leg power for sprint starts, unheard of in 1960 - 62. That was my baptism into the world of weight training and even though I loved athletics, and still do to this day, I liked the feeling I got from weighted exercise.
I continued as a sprinter for another couple of years after I left school and then, due to a lack of facilities in England at the time, I slowly drifted away from the sport. Even though athletics was no longer a viable thing for me I still wanted to take part in some form of sport, as all forms of exercise always gave me a buzz and I loved spending my spare time exercising, contrary to how most teenage boys utilised their time in those days of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the Beatles and dance halls.
Weight training was at the forefront of my mind and I looked around for somewhere to train, but again, there was a dearth of facilities in the town where I still live to this day. Then, in 1964, a new boys club that had various sporting facilities, including a weight training gym, opened a mile from my home.
I walked into the club on the 1st of September 1964. I can remember it like it was yesterday, it is so vivid in my mind. That is the day that my bodybuilding career started and I can honestly say that that day that was the start of some of the most exciting times of my life. I worked-out there for around eleven months but I was slowly becoming dissatisfied, it lacked something which I have come to set great store by in gyms - ATMOSPHERE! I had to find somewhere else to pump iron, as I have said, they weren’t thick on the ground in my home town. In my search I met a guy who asked why I hadn’t tried a gym that was near my home. Near my home? I’d never heard of a gym near my home! The guy gave me directions and the next night I went in search of this elusive gym.
Well, the gym turned out to be about a half mile from where I lived, well within walking distance. The ‘gym’, and I emphasise that word because it was but a wooden shed on a property named Elm Farm, behind the farmhouse. I knocked on the door and it was opened by an enormous guy, who asked if he could help me.
I said that I had come to see if I could start training at his gym. I was expecting a, “Come next week and I will have a chat with you”, kind of thing, but instead he said, “Yep, come in, you can start now”. That was my introduction to a man named Harry Catterall. I mention his name because he became, and has remained, my dear friend andmentor since that night in 1965. From the moment I walked into that old wooden hut I could smell that magic ingredient – ATMOSPHERE! I knew I had found my bodybuilding home.
I have trained at Harry’s place, Catt’s Gym, from then until the present day. He is no longer in the wooden shed, although it is still there on the farm. Each time I pass it in my car I look at it and smile, thinking of past years and happy times. Harry came with me to my first contest and continued with me on my journey, all the way until I won the Mr Universe. He guided and supported me through those formative years, pushing me when I was tired, literally kicking me up the backside when I was being lazy and straightening me out if I didn’t perform exercises right, before showing me how they should be done.
Eventually I started to travel the world in my career as a bodybuilder, as well as holding down a full time job, and my training and nutritional knowledge evolved. I was lucky to meet and learn from some of the great nutritional masters in the sports world.
I applied the knowledge I had accumulated and adapted it to suit my genetics and metabolism to give me the optimum benefits in my striving for muscle gains. Bodybuilding is a constant learning process and sometimes an exercise doesn’t work. Don’t worry if it doesn’t, dump it and move on, or change it slightly until you start to progress again.
Bill Pearl told me that whenever the day arrives when you think you know everything about bodybuilding and won’t take advice from anyone, hang up your workout belt and move on to something else, because you have closed down intellectually. He said that bodybuilding is an evolving sport and you are always learning until the day you die.
I’ve always kept that advice in the filing cabinet in my brain.
On my journey through the ranks, from beginner, to Mr. Universe, then to IFBB professional, I met, competed with some, andbefriended many, of the most famous names to grace the sport of bodybuilding during my two ‘Crusades’, as they became known to devotees of bodybuilding on my second time around.
1st Crusade 1964 - 1974
During this first period of my bodybuilding life people I was privileged to meet and befriend were; John Grimek, Reg Park, Marvin Eder, Leroy Colbert, Bill Pearl, Larry Scott, Don Peters, Don Howarth, Eddie Giuliani, Irvin (Zabo) Koszewski, Dave Draper, Len Sell, Joe Gold, Al Beccles, Bertil Fox, Roy Callender, Sergio Oliva, Dennis Tinerino, Boyer Coe, Jim Haislop, Chet Yorton, Vince Gironda, Franco Columbu, Frank Zane and many, many other great bodybuilders. Also, I mustn’t forget a guy who was one of the greatest physique photographers who has ever graced the sport andwho became a dear friend of mine – Art Zeller. We had many laughs together.
The most notable person I met and befriended at that time is a very special man, known to people all around the world – Arnold Schwarzenegger. I first met Arnold in 1966, at the NABBA Mr. Universe contest, and through some mutual friends spent some time socially with him, chatting bodybuilding and having a few laughs at our friends’ house in London. Meet-ups became a regular thing and whenever Arnold was over in London I would go down to stay with our friends, Wag and Dianne Bennett, and workout with Arnold.
We became good friends over the next few years and worked out together many times at Wag’s gym. In 1968 Arnold went over to America at the behest of Joe Weider, returning in the Fall of that year to win the NABBA Pro Mr. Universe. As before, we all had a get-together at the Bennett house and I stayed for a few days to workout with Arnold.
Unknown to me, Arnold had mentioned me to Joe Weider and after I won the IFBB Class 1 Mr. World, in Bruges, Belgium in 1969, Joe contacted me and asked me to meet him in London, at his hotel. We had dinner and over our meal he asked if I would like to come over to America and work for him. After I had nearly choked on my food, I was completely speechless with shock. Joe Weider was asking me to become one of the Weider bodybuilders. Something that any bodybuilder with any ambitions at all dreamt of. I, of course, said yes and in October of 1969 I flew to New York and once again met up with Arnold, in New York.
I had been told to get a cab from the airport to an address in Manhattan, New York to meet Arnold and Joe. The address turned out to be a movie producers office where Arnold and Joe were negotiating Arnold’s contract for his first movie, ‘Hercules In New York’ I am honoured to be able to say that I was there when Arnold put pen to paper and started on the journey that was to make him the megastar that he is today. I remember that the three of us went out for a meal that night to celebrate his movie contract.
Frank and Arnold at the top of the Empire State Building - New York 1969

On this site you will see a photo of me and Arnold together at the top of the Empire State Building. It was taken just a couple of weeks after I arrived in New York. I spent the next few months in New York and went on set most days with Arnold, in the evenings we used to run through his script for the next day’s shooting, at the apartment we shared, after we had worked out in a nearby gym. One night after all the work was done and we were relaxing in front of the TV, we were talking about our ambitions, I related mine and then Arnold told me his; He said that he wanted to be the best bodybuilder there had ever been in the world, then go into movies and make lots of money, so that he could then go into politics. Politics? Boy, didn’t that come true! Don’t forget, this was the late 60s, Arnold knew what kind of future he wanted back then.
Frank and Arnold at a friends birthday party (Arnold signing the photo above)

Over the years we have remained friends and on this site you will see photos from the early years and the later years of me and Arnold together. Friendships like ours do not fade out due to absence. This is also true of my friendship with Joe Weider, a man that I have much to thank for and who gave me an opportunity that a multitude of bodybuilders dream of. He has done untold good for the sport of bodybuilding, for without Joe there would be no such thing as a truly professional bodybuilder.
When the shooting of the movie had finished Joe asked me to his office in Union City, New Jersey and gave me another great surprise. I was flying out the next day to California. Wow! Next stop Gold’s Gym, every bodybuilder’s dream.
Frank, Arnold and Frank's son Dean.

After a while of living in America, the pressures of being separated from my family, I was married with two children at that time and they were still in England, started to bear down heavily on me. I had been separated from my family for too long and my love for them became too strong to ignore. It had taken too long to arrange my family’s move to California and I had to return to them. I arrived home in time to compete in the 1970 NABBA Mr. Universe I London, where I won the Class 1 title, losing the overall title by one vote. After I won the Class 1, NABBA, Mr. Universe, I didn’t compete for four years, although I was active doing guest appearances at contests around Britain and Europe for two years more years. Then, in 1972 I started to increase the intensity of my training schedule and stopped doing appearances in order to concentrate on an attempt to win the 1974 IFBB Mr. Universe.
All was going great when one day at my job, (12th of May, 1974), my whole world came crashing down, literally. I was a leading overhead lineman (supervisor) in the overhead lines department of British Railways. I was on top of a support structure when, through no fault of my own, I fell and landed across one of the rails on the track.
I felt, and heard, my leg break. The initial pain was horrendous, but for some reason the pain subsided and I lay on the floor unable to move – I was later told by one of the surgeons that sometimes when the body suffers a serious trauma it can’t handle such severe pain and literally switches the pain off. Maybe that is so, because I wasn’t in any real pain until later.
The first thought that crossed my mind, as I was lying on the floor, was, “There goes the contest”! Crazy, huh? After the initial feelings of disappointment I thought, “What the heck, another few weeks and I will be back in the gym again, there’s always next year”. How wrong I was!
At the hospital they prepped me for surgery and, as they moved me around, that’s when the pain hit me in great waves. I have never felt pain like it and hope I never will again. The doctors heavily sedated me down for a few days after surgery and it wasn’t until I started to return to a full state of awareness that they told me the extent of my injuries. It was then that I realised that even the following year might be out, as far as contests were concerned.
It transpired that I had all but severed my left foot, only the Achilles Tendon was holding it on. I had also broken my left leg just below the knee, my left arm was in splinters from half way down my forearm to the tips of my fingers, three of my left ribs had broken and punctured my left lung – that explained the coughing and the blood coming out my mouth.
I also had a broken neck, the second and third vertebrae were fractured through - a very lucky escape. As I lay on the floor I couldn’t see properly, everything being as if in a tunnel. It turned out that I had detached retinas in both eyes, a remnant of which I still have, but on the periphery of the retina in my left eye.
Well, my year out of contests lasted for another eleven years. When I had my accident I weighed 245 pounds, when I left hospital I weighed 200 pounds. I was in hospital for six months and in casts for a further thirteen months. The months and years marched on and I had more and more bone surgery and more and more casts, on top of pins, plates and screws to keep everything together.
But, I look back at my accident with some gratitude and a sense that someone was watching over me that day. How come? When I hit the floor I landed diagonally, between two rails. My head missed one rail by about three inches and my ankle hit the other one. Had it been the other way about I would not be here now, writing my story.
Do I think that I am lucky? You bet your bottom dollar I do! No regrets and no sadness. It is no use looking back on things and saying,” What if?”. Always look for something positive out of adversity. Arnold sent a message to me some years later, when I was recovering from another serious illness, that says it all, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. How true.
After a few years it seemed to me that my bodybuilding career was over and I decided to drop my body weight. It was silly to carry heavy body weightwhen I was walking around on crutches. I went on a weight loss diet andover a period of twelve weeks I dropped my body weight from 200 pounds to 168 pounds. I stayed at that weight for five years, all the while having more andmore surgery. I had a total of twenty two orthopaedic procedures over the ten years from my accident until my rebirth into bodybuilding began.
During what I jokingly call my mere mortal period, (after all, aren’t all we bodybuilders built like Greek gods?), I still worked my abdominals hard. Let’s be honest, sit-ups, leg raises and crunches aren’t hard to do, even witha cast on. During this period I never once did any weight training at all. But, at the start of 1984 an old friend of mine started to push me to do a little iron work, just to keep in shape. I wasn’t in bad shape, in spite of all the surgery I’d had, in fact I looked more like a gymnast than a bodybuilder. I decided to giveit a go, only to keep in shape, you understand, ahem!
The gym I went to workout at was on the outskirts of town, because I didn’t want anyone to know that I was training again, at least until it became so obvious that I couldn’t deny it.
Within a few weeks muscle memory had started to rear its head and the muscle began to fill out. After three months I was back up to 224 pounds, without really trying. Of course the muscle wasn’t defined and I still had a way to go to get into true gym fitness, but the fullness was returning very rapidly.
During this time I came back into contact witha childhood friend of mine who was now a carved in stone, diehard bodybuilder. We agreed to workout together and thus began my fight back. I can honestly say that at this time I had no intentions of once again competing, unfortunately my new training partner, Bill Clark, decided to enter a qualifying contest for the IFBB British Championships. I told him that I would diet withhim, so that he wouldn’t feel the pangs of hunger alone. We would both suffer together.
As the weeks went on I started to notice a difference in myself and I liked what I saw. A local contest was being held in my home town and the organiser had seen me in the gym working out, and the condition I was in. He asked me if I would consider doing a guest appearance on the show. I immediately said no, that I wasn’t ready. I think, for the first time in my bodybuilding career, my nerve gave out when he asked me.
After a heart to heart with my training partner, who I knew wouldn’t give me bad advice, I agreed to appear, but on one condition – No one had to know that I was appearing, it had to be a complete surprise. As a pretext for my being at the contest it was said that I was handing out trophies. As long as I stayed fully clothed we figured that we would get away with it. Well, we did!
I had, by then, decided that if I got the right kind of reception from the audience I would consider making a comeback into contests. It would all depend on that audience. I have never been nervous on stage, I love to be up there in front of a theatre full of people, but that night there were extremely large butterflies zooming around my stomach. I had practiced and practiced my posing routine but I was as scared as hell that I would mess up. The wait for the music to start and for those large black curtains to open was the longest couple of minutes I have ever spent at any show.
The music started and the curtains opened, with all the stage and house lights out, then, as a crescendo at the start of the music sounded, the overhead stage lights came on, onto me standing in an abdominal pose. I don’t know who was the most shocked, me or the audience. I was shocked because there was no noise from the auditorium and, I later found out, they were shocked because there was I, a guy they had never expected to see back on stage again, back where I belonged and shredded to the bone.
It took what seemed like an eternity, standing there looking out at them all, before the next crescendo sounded and I moved to the next pose, and flowed into my routine. That’s when the wall of sound started and hit me with hoots and hollers, whistles and screams, and my name being shouted out from dozens of people, many of whom had never seen me on stage before.
The MC, a seasoned bodybuilding contest veteran, said that it was the first time he had ever seen a complete theatre full of people stand up and applaud a guest poser. I guess some of that was because I was a home town boy and some because they liked what they saw. The feedback I got from the audience after the appearance makes me think the latter. Well, I would, wouldn’t I?
It still brings a lump to my throat when I think about it, even now as I type this account of it. My Mom was crying, my wife was crying, my three kids were crying, my sisters and brother were in floods of tears. But when I saw my rock hard, rugged training partner, Bill, all dewy eyed, I knew that it was time to start my second crusade. Some of the audience had been shouting, “Richards the Lionheart”, and it kind of rung a bell.
I contacted the IFBB, submitting photographs of me on stage, and applied for a Professional competitors card. As I had won the IFBB Mr. World before my accident my request was granted andI started the comeback. Thus started my second ‘crusade’. I decided that the contest I was going to get ready for would be The Night of Champions in New York in May of 1985, because I thought that it was, after the Mr Olympia, the most prestigious contest on the calendar. Some people said that I was stupid to go for the NoC as all the big guns, apart for Lee Haney, would be competing. I said that if I wanted to prove myself I would have to take on the best sooner or later. Better sooner than later, huh?
The word soon got out in Britain and I was asked to make a number of guest appearances prior to my trip. In the spring of 1985 my wife and I, and four friends flew to New York. I love America and particularly New York. Isn’t New York beautiful in the spring? Publicity had preceded me because some of the magazines had published articles about me and my comeback. My training partner’s brother, a brilliant artist, had designed a T-shirt logo for us. Not at my insistence, I might add. It was my training partner’s idea. The design featured me in the archer pose and the title, ‘Richards the Lionheart – Second Crusade’.
The magazines got hold of the title and ran with it. Not that I am complaining, it worked well for me. So, Richards the Lionheart I became and still, to this day, many people in the bodybuilding world know me as ‘The Lionheart’. I had set my sights on placing in the first ten in the NoC. If I did I would enter another contest, then call it a day, having proved my point – that I could make a comeback and compete with the new generation of bodybuilders. As it happened, I placed fifth and received an invitation to compete in the 1985 Mr Olympia in Brussels, Belgium.
Now, I had to do it all over again and get ready for the Mr. Olympia in October of 1985, which would be exactly fifteen years since I had last competed in 1970. I flew to Brussels with my son, Dean, and two buddies, but unknown to me there were quite a few from my home town there also. They reckoned that not many towns have Mr Olympia competitors in them and they were going to go and watch their guy mix it with the world’s best.
Mix it I did and I came tenth, competing against such formidable champions as Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari, Al Beccles, Mike Christian, Sergio Oliva, Tom Platz, and Bob Paris, to name but a few of them. Again I had proven myself and picked up prize money, and the Mr Olympia medals to provemy being there. My second contest back and it was the Mr. Olympia. Whew, what a year! Icing on the cake time again – because I placed in the top ten I automatically qualified for the 1986 Mr. Olympia.
How many bodybuilders can say that they have competed in not one but two Mr Olympias? I would be competing in the 1986 Mr Olympia at forty years of age.
In 1986 I placed 3rd in the Night of Champions , 3rd in the World Pro Championships and 3rd in the Los Angeles Pro Championships. I joked that maybe they should call me ‘Richards the Third’! But, I was happy with my placings.
At the Mr. Olympia I placed a disappointing 14th. I had picked up food poisoning and I was really ill, but I think that it was partially as a result of competing in so many contests that year. I was tired, I needed to rest, and my body needed to recover, unfortunately as a professional I couldn’t, it comes with the territory. Too many contests and too little recovery time between. No-one makes you compete, it is entirely up to the individual. I chose the wrong course that year.
I still hadn’t fully recovered by the time I started my contest diet for the next NoC. By the time the Night of Champions came around in Spring of 1987 I still hadn’t shrugged off the effects of the food poisoning and I didn’t get into the high positions. I later competed in the World Pro Championships and placed 9th, Okay, but not good enough by my standards. Something would have to be done.
I still felt tired and run down and so I decided to take nearly a full year off, eating, training and resting, letting my body recover and adding extra muscle. My training went extremely well during 1987 and I felt fit and ready for the NoC of 1988. I had gained around ten extra pounds of quality muscle and so looked much fuller. My condition was as sharp as it had been in the early part of 1987, before I got ill, but with added density. I felt confident that I would do well and qualify for that year’s Mr. O.
Little did I know that fate was about to deal me a crushing blow yet again.
Three weeks before the contest, whilst at a bodybuilding event, My wife and I, and four friends, went into a café for a coffee. Unknown to us, in the cafe were two guys who had upset some major drug dealers and they were about to be paid a visit by some of the gang members. In the pitched battle that broke out, as we tried to protect our wives from being hurt, I was stabbed in the back and my right bicep was severed. Once again my ambitions had been dashed.
I was rushed to hospital and the surgeons set about saving my life. I had lost four pints of blood by the time I reached E.R. and for the only time in my life I really thought that I was going to die that night. It took 147 stitches to close up the wound in my back and a good few more to re-attach my bicep. The doctors also found that I also had a broken jaw, which they wired up for me. I remember thinking, “Great, how the heck am I going to recover if I can’t eat solid food?” “Oh well, I guess I’ll have to start from scratch again”. You have to keep smiling, don’t you?
Over the next few days I began to ask myself, “Why?”. Why had it happened to me again? I figured that it was all part of the plan, but what that plan is I have yet to discover.
Eleven weeks after the attack I walked back into the gym and did a set of light dumbbell curls with my right arm. Eleven months later I walked on stage at the Arnold Classic in Columbus, Ohio, where I placed 12th. One week later I was in Australia where I competed in the Melbourne Grand Prix, placing 8th and after another week I placed 7th in the World Pro Championships in Sydney.
I then stayed with friends in Australia for three months and whilst there I gave seminars in Sydney and Canberra. Again, I needed to rest. There are only so many times that anyone can make a comeback, especially after the horrendous injuries that I had suffered on both occasions. Now it was all taking its toll. It was whilst I was in Australia that the first ideas of retiring began to enter my head.
I returned to Britain and settled back into my normal routine – gym, rest, eat and at weekends travel to make appearances and give seminars. As I recuperated I started to get more and more thoughts of retirement and whilst I was in California in the Fall on 1989 it all came to a head and I knew what I had to do. I had just completed a long photo shoot in World Gym, with a great friend of mine Chris Lund. Normally I was always chilled out on photo shoots and no amount of work ever got me down, but on this occasion I was really tetchy and I’m afraid that I behaved abominably with him. For that I sincerely apologise to Chris.
The reason I was tetchy was because I wanted out, out of the stress of competition, not out of the sport, and it was really gnawing at me inside. I told Chris what I had decided and, as ever, he gave me his advice and wisdom, then I said, “To hell with the diet”, and we went and ate Sushi and drank strong Japanese beer. Boy, did it feel good. I had finally made the decision. I had done all I could do, I had proven myself more than I could have dreamt of in 1984 at that local contest, but I had made one too many comebacks. I informed the IFBB Professional director of my decision and made it formal by mail. My life as a bodybuilder in the limelight had ended – or so I thought! During my journey through my 2nd ‘crusade’, once again I met and befriended the world’s premier bodybuilders and organisers, this time of another era, making friendships that have endured to this day.
Friends of my 2nd Crusade 1985 - 1990
Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari, Jerry Scallese, Mike Christian, Ron Love, Dan King, Bertil Fox, Roy Callender, Al Beccles, Berry DeMay, Mike Matarazzo, Jim Quinn, Robby Robinson, Gary Strydom, Bev Francis, Sean Jenkins, Rachel McLish, Nicole Bass, Steve Michalik, Jim Manion, Ed Kawak, Samir Bannout, Chris Dickerson, Sergio Oliva, Tom Platz, Bob Paris, Mohamed Makkawy, Lou Ferrigno, Jusup Wilkosz, Bill Grant, David Hawk and many more famous bodybuilders. This list of names would not be complete without the Bodybuilder in Chief, Joe Weider. It was so good to see Joe again.
As a professional you build up a camaraderie with your peers that lasts forever. You may only seldom see each other, but when you do there is an instant smile and a handshake, coupled with complete respect for all you did together as rivals who will always be friends. The professional’s club is very fine club to be a member of. I will always miss those days of competing with my friends, very much.
The first workout I did when I got home to England felt so special, I couldn’t stop the thought running through my mind, “This one’s for me, no-one else”. It was good to be back where I started, back with Harry, back with the guys, back in that ’atmosphere’ that I had first felt as a young guy in 1965.
Well, the word retirement became a bit of misnomer because I continued doing seminars and appearances for the next four years, until 1994. I always kept myself in good condition so doing appearances wasn’t a problem and I have also been articulate, so seminar presentation isn’t hard for me. Consequently, I have tried to completely retire a few times since 1990 but friends in the bodybuilding world would come along and get me on the seminar circuit again. I continued doing seminars until 1997, then I stepped back and took what I thought was my retirement. Two years later I was asked to fly over to Georgia, USA to do seminars for Gold’s Gym. I thought, “Oh well, here we go again!”.
Whilst over in Georgia in the Fall of 1999 I started to feel a little unwell, breathless and tired. Then on New Year’s Day, 2000, I had a scare with my heart and I was rushed into the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) at my local hospital. Altogether I was rushed into the CCU three times in three months. I finally had to go into hospital for what is known as a Cardioversion – your heart is stopped electrically and then started again to put it back on rhythm.
After that I never felt completely ‘right’. But later, in the Fall of 2001, I returned to Georgia to present more seminars, in fact I was in Georgia on a seminar tour when the terrorism of 9/11 happened. I’ll never forget the sheer horror of that day and the weeks following it. I was In Georgia for a further two months and I felt the anguish that America was feeling.
2001 was my last trip to America to do seminars. I made a further trip in 2002 but it was purely social, visiting friends and drinking a glass or two of Jack Daniels with lots of ice, making trips to Memphis and Nashville and down to Daytona, Florida, for Bike Week. After 2002 and back once again on home soil I settled back into my ‘training for self’ mode and made my trip to the gym each morning, but in 2006 I started to realise that all was not well with my heart. In October 2007 my heart finally told me that things definitely were not going to plan and I had a problem.
I knew that I had to go and see my doctor and discuss the problem with him and made an appointment to see him. The day before I saw him I had three attacks, blacking out during one of them. The next morning I had a couple of light attacks but recovered enough to go to his clinic. As I walked in the door the lights went out and the next thing I remember was waking up to find paramedics around me and all kinds of wires and tubes fitted to me.
Once again I found myself in CCU. I was told that I was going to be heavily medicated until I could have a Catheter Ablation performed on my heart. The nerves in my heart, that controlled the beats, were beating along to their own tune and in the process making life very uncomfortable for me. As I write this it is November 12th, 2008 and it is now four months since I had my surgery. Two weeks after my operation I went for my first walk. Five weeks after the surgery I was power walking 5½ miles each morning, then I started interspersing it with cycle riding on some mornings. Five weeks ago I went back to Harry’s gym and had my first workout for two years, I had been unable to lift any iron due to the pump not working correctly.
What an unbelievable day that was, when I walked back into the gym. All the guys were so welcoming to me. You know, these great big guys that are as hard as the steel they throw around are really big softies inside. Great big pussy cats! I knew I was back where I belonged, with Harry and the gang, and that beautiful smell of ATMOSPHERE!
I am once again feeling good, the pump has started to return, and I am very pleased and amazed by how quickly my body is responding to the feel of iron in my hands. I look like a bodybuilder again! I shall gradually increase the number of sets I do until the end of the year and then start to increase the intensity of the exercises. By the summer of 2009 I should be in full flight and enjoying my training to the full. What a wonderful thing muscle memory is, huh folks?

Recently, someone has uploaded a couple of video clips of me onto YouTube. Type in my name as ‘Frank Richard’ in the search box, not as ‘Richards’, (There is a story behind that spelling error, but that is for another day). On YouTube, those of you who don’t know who I am can see me in my competitive days. It brings back many memories for me. Also, Weider Productions has a three pack DVD set entitled ‘The Golden Age Of Bodybuilding’, covering the years from 1984 to 1989. I am to be seen on three of the films in the series, the 1985 and 1986 Mr. Olympia contests, and on the film named ‘The Challengers’. I hope you like what you see.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of my life. What was it that Arnold said in The Terminator? Oh yes, that’s it, - “I’ll be back!” Not in contests of course, but certainly at them.
Regards everyone, maybe I’ll see some of you around the bodybuilding circuit on my future journeys.
Keep Pumping,
Frank Richards.

[MOSTMUSCULAR 85]

Complimenti,ottimo fisico 25 anni fa e ottimo anche adesso considerando l'età

[EGMario86]

grazie Sean, veramente una bella storia... questo è vero culturismo, rialzarsi anche quando si cade cosi pesantemente come i suoi infortuni...

[Zeta]

Un altra dimostrazione di come il CULTURISMO sia l'unico sport,che fatto secondo i dogmi del benessere fisico,sia in grado di fermare il tempo....
davvero piacevolmente sorpreso....

[c_cccccc]

Un altra dimostrazione di come il CULTURISMO sia l'unico sport,che fatto secondo i dogmi del benessere fisico,sia in grado di fermare il tempo....
davvero piacevolmente sorpreso....

nn sono assolutamente d'accordo..cosa significa "fatto secondo i dogmi del benessere fisico"??qual'è il senso ti tenersi un super fisico fino a 60anni per poi trovarsi completamente rovinati internamente e rischiare di restarci pochi anni dopo...xk nn prendiamoci in giro
credo ke se una persona mira alla salute e al mantenimento del suo corpo, di certo nn va a fare BB...xk x quanto io lo ami, nn lo ritengo assolutamente salutare...neanche a livello amatorialeIMHO