Maxim October 2015

MUSCLE IS WHAT enables us to run faster, jump higher, lift heavier, or—as the beautiful Ronda Rousey demonstrates every time she squares off in the Octagon—pummel our foes. It can also be a certain kind of guy for hire. But most important, muscle is proof that we’re stronger than excuses, and that we’re willing to suffer for our goals. Our bodies, after all, are made to come back stronger; hard work damages the muscle fiber, which grows bigger as it heals. This is why muscle matters: It’s the result of sacrifice. Nothing good comes easy. The people in this issue exemplify this truth. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who applied the same focus and determination he honed as a professional bodybuilder to triumph as both an actor and a politician, is this month’s…

ONCE UPON A TIME a 6′3", 210-pound guy was a big guy in the NFL. And baseball players were more about athleticism than bulk. Then everyone started growing. The 250-pound guy who used to be a lineman? He’s now a linebacker or a tight end. The NFL guys today are just huge—bigger and stronger and faster—and their collisions are harder, more impactful, more deliberate. Baseball players saw other guys around them growing and felt they needed to keep up, driving a whole steroid epidemic. ¶ parents see these big guys succeeding, and they think about breeding like an animal. They’re saying, “You know what? I’m 6′3", let me get with this girl that’s 5′9"—that kid’s going to be huge.” That’s the truth. That’s what people are thinking now. ¶ muscle,…

BUILDING a perfect body is ultimately a lot like making a beautiful sand castle. Part of what’s cool about sand castles, especially the more elaborate ones, is that we know they’re not going to be around for long. When it comes to our bodies, that’s something we like to ignore. The difference between building beautiful bodies and making sand castles, of course, is that no one is going to want to fuck you just because you made an awesome sand castle. (That might happen, but it’s much more likely you’ll be struck by lightning and then immediately eaten by bears.) Building a good physique, on the other hand, is pretty much all you need to do to ensure that someone, somewhere will want to have sex with you. What’s strange…

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s sporty tip on how to improve bar selfies? Bring a ridiculously large trophy. EVERYONE I MEET ON BOOK TOURS wants a selfie, and the best selfies suggest a story larger than two people standing together. A photo prop makes all the difference. On tour for my novel Pygmy, I commissioned a towering trophy consisting of gilded columns and winged angels. It broke down into pieces that fit in my suitcase, and the afternoon before each event I’d sit in my hotel room like a sniper, assembling the threaded rods and marble slabs until the trophy stood taller than most people. The final touch was looping prize ribbons and medals all over it. For each photo, I’d pretend to be presenting it to a happy winner…

The back lot at Bodie Stroud Industries may look like a junkyard, but each junker is potentially worth millions. Surrounded by tall fencing, it’s cluttered with cars that are torn in half, parts broken beyond recognition, and stacks of bumpers. A 352 Ford V-8 engine dangles from a chain hoist, a motor without a home. The junk, the cars, the tools, and even the workers—there are eight of them today, wearing respirators and Mechanix gloves, sanding, shaping, tearing, bending, spraying, and turning wrenches—are covered in dust from the concrete factories that pervade this very industrial, very hellish corridor of the sun-blasted San Fernando Valley. To look at the plain exterior of BSI and its grim surroundings, you might never guess that Johnny Knoxville was here not long ago to pick…

GET REVVED WITH SOME OF THE CLASSIC CARS BEING REBUILT IN BODIE STROUD’S SUN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, SHOP.…