Vince Basile is a Canadian bodybuilder who competed during the 1960s and 1970s.
Shortly after becoming Mr.Canada 1970, Vince emigrated to Austrailia where he bought his first gym and later a factory which he uses to design and build gym equipment. Today Vince still lives in Austrailia, where he now owns a much larger gym, is still designing gym equipment and actively lifts weights into his 60s.
Typically, although many bodybuilding contests used to (and still do) have height categories for competitions, there was no 'strict' measuring process by which a bodybuilder's height catagory was decided. Instead the bodybuilders were trusted to enter the correct height catagory that their genuine heights fell into. It should be noted that in general, the 'tall' category has usually been for heights over 5'9", which was the category Arnold was always entered.
Measuring in Hawaii
Knowing that Vince Basile was the only individual to ever go on record as having measured Arnold Schwarzenegger, we at Arnoldheight.com felt obliged to look into his story. Vince's story first came to light in an internet bodybuilding forum, when, after learning that so many people were claiming Arnold to be significantly under six feet, he decided to step in to tell everyone what he knew.
In Febuary of 1969, several bodybuilders including Arnold and Vince decided to measure themselves against the scale in Mit's gym of Honolulu, Hawaii.
"Several of the guys there claimed certain heights and everyone was at least 1/2 inch shorter on Mit's scale. Arnold claimed 6' 2" but measured 6' 1 1/2" that evening. I did say that he might be 6-2 in the morning."
Vince is of course correct concerning how everyone shrinks over the course of the day. As the day progresses, water in the disks of the spine gets compressed due to gravity causing up to an inch of temporary height loss. As Arnold was measured 6'1 1/2", it is highly probable that he would be 6'2" and potentially slightly over at first thing in the morning.
"There were several other people there when I measured Arnold and several other guys. Paul Graham from Australia and Bob Bruce from New Zealand who promoted contests were two others I remember getting measured. Both of those guys were under 5-8 and I have a good idea how tall I am. I measured 5-9 1/2 that day and that is about right so the gauge was accurate."
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