John traveled the world to learn the best training and nutrition principles and trained alongside top pro bodybuilders at Gold's Gym California. He was a student of Arthur Jones, inventor of Nautilus and Medx Fitness machines, and the pioneer of hi-intensity training. John developed the HIT3 Training System, which transformed his physique to win countless bodybuilding competitions at just 18 years of age! He was also the first bodybuilder to utilize Faradic Electric Muscle Stimulation in his training and intermittent fasting during his competition prep. John’s SHREDDED Nutrition Diet helped him build one of the most shredded physiques of all time. His diet program incorporates fasting and nutrient timing to help athletes build lean muscle while losing body fat.
To have a successful career in bodybuilding and fitness it takes more brains than brawn. No one is a better example of this than Canadian Bodybuilding Champion and business entrepreneur John Cardillo. A self-made man who at 15 years of age, weighing just 122 pounds, decided to start weight training to get bigger with the hope of making his high school football team. Within a year not only had he packed on 40 pounds of muscle, he also made the starting lineup of the football team, that went on to win their division championship. Cardillo instantly became a high school hero. However, he realized that team sports weren’t challenging enough for him.
In the year that he devoted himself to weight training at the YMCA, in preparation for the football tryouts, he fell in love with working out and caught “the iron bug”. This is also when he started reading about Arnold Schwarzenegger in muscle magazines. Arnold, an immigrant like Cardillo, became one of his role models. Each workout motivated him like nothing he had ever experienced in his young life. So much that he decided that working out with weights was going to replace playing football as his number one focus.
At 16 he decided that he wanted to be a bodybuilder and so his journey started. John Robert Cardillo went on to become one of Canada’s best bodybuilders, a successful fitness entrepreneur and now a writer and educator of the training systems he developed over several decades. In this 4 part interview, John shares his experience and wisdom about exercise, business challenges and his personal battle with cancer.
Catching the Iron Bug
Q. John, thank you for taking the time to share with us some of your incredible accomplishments. Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you developed your passion for weight training?
A. As a young boy I was rather thin and had a hard time gaining weight. In grade 8 I really liked watching NFL football games and I decided that I wanted to play football in high school. I started reading in Sports Illustrated that football players spent their off season working out with weights. So I decided to go to the YMCA to start weight training to get stronger and gain weight, so that I could make the football team.
Q. Did you make the football team?
A. Yes I did. I was really determined and made the starting lineup as a left guard and we won our district championship that year.
Q. What made you get into bodybuilding?
A. Arnold Schwarzenegger. I started reading muscle magazines and read about Arnold and the incredible physique he had. My focus switched from playing football to weight training for bodybuilding.
Q. What did you weigh when you started training?
A. I started training at 15, and I weighed 122 pounds. I was pretty skinny.
Q. How much did you weigh in your best competition shape?
A. I weighed 228 pounds. It was the best shape of my life and the last year that I competed. I was 23 years old.
Q. In that time frame you gained over 100 pounds of muscle?
A. Yes. I was also growing naturally as an adolescent, which helped. But the weight training was key in getting bigger and gaining muscle.
Q. Can you give us a brief history on your early success with bodybuilding?
A. I entered my first bodybuilding competition at 17 and to my surprise won the Ontario Junior Championships. The following year I decided to enter the Senior Ontario Championships for experience, and surprisingly I won. Which was really cool because I beat guys double my age who I had looked up to. To this day I’m still the youngest to have ever won the Senior Ontario Bodybuilding Championships.
Q. Did you have a coach or a trainer?
A. Not a formal one. I did have a trainer for 6 months, who introduced me to Hi-Intensity training. I also started reading workout literature on Arthur Jones about hi-intensity exercise. That basically changed everything for me. Before learning about Arthur Jones’s training methods, I was training 6 days a week; sometimes twice a day. Which really left me tired and not making a lot of progress. After switching to Arthur Jone’s methods of shorter hi-intensity training, I started making incredible improvements in muscle size and strength.
Q. You were training less and made more improvements?
A. Yes. Jones taught me how to attack each muscle by training all out to muscular failure. This meant that I didn’t have to do more than a few sets for each body part. He also had me cut my training back to 3 days a week. Each workout never lasted more than one hour.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about Arthur Jones?
A. Arthur Jones was a genius. He was the inventor of Nautilus Fitness machines and Medx equipment. His training literature and exercise machines revolutionized weight training and exercise in general. When I was 16, I decided to travel to Florida to meet him and be trained by him. The experience changed everything about my training. He taught me the raw basics of hi-intensity training and how not to waste my time in a gym. I incorporated his hi-intensity method into my bodybuilding workout routines. I really respected Arthur Jones and stayed in touch with him until he died in 2007.
For more info on John Cardillo, check out his website at johnrobertcardillo.com or right here at Muscle Insider at John Cardillo.
