I started out in the garage with an Iron Bar and some bricks and blocks. I begged for a set of weights I believe it was 1971 I got a starter set somewhere around 40lbs.
I am 41 and have also been lifting since 12 or 13 years old. This thread brought back some really great memories. Thanks, made my day!!!
I am 41 and have also been lifting since 12 or 13 years old. This thread brought back some really great memories. Thanks, made my day!!!
[quote]migman40 wrote:
When I was about 14 I bought a routine by Charles Atlas called Dynamic Tension. You did’nt use any weights. Basically pushing and pulling at the same time with differnt movements. Probably why I did’nt stick to it. [/quote]
For those who are interested many of these courses can be viewed for free at
Although I’m sure many of you know this.
Regards Chris
As everyone is saying- Great thread.
In 1979 when I turned 13 my dad gave me my first programme; full body, all the basics which I did more off than on for a couple of years.
In 1983 I joined my first real gym; it was called rather imaginatively called Unit 4 because that was the address.
In this gym many of the top bodybuilders and powerlifters in London trained; it was a real old ?sweat and sawdust? type of place. The main floor had some basic machines along with Db?s and some benches but downstairs was the best; it was where the power basement was.
You could probably fit 3-4 people comfortably in that basement but we used to push it to 10-12! No such thing as health and safety back then. Down there we had a power rack, a power bench, 5 olympic bars, and a ton of weight.
In the summer the walls used to sweat, it was that hot. From May to September it stank of stale sweat. In the winter it was freezing, I remember losing several layers of skin from my hands when squatting.
The owners were property developers and were hit hard by the market crash in ?89; the gym struggled on for a few more years but finally closed in ?95 with me working the last shift.
I now have a great home gym with everything I?d ever need but I?d love get in my time machine just to have one more workout at Unit 4.
Yes, I?m a sad old git.
Regards Chris
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
Nearly 15 years of less than optimal progress. I wonder where I could be today if I had had a source of information like this, back in the 80’s.[/quote]
Similar story here…when I think of all those wasted years I wann cry. Must be all that soy I ate.
[quote]foglifter wrote:
I had a gizmo called a “Bullworker” when I first started. I just did a search and they still sell the damn things. THEN I "moved up"to the plastic weights…[/quote]
My dad has one of these. I think its the original first production; the hand/plastic holding area’s are green. He also has some weird band thing; blue wood handles and has 5 HUGE elastic metal bands between were you pull. I remember hitting these things when I first started lifting about 8 years back. Me and my cousin would see who could push the bullworker in the most or grab the other device I talked about above an see who could reverse fly it the farthest. Talk about fun stuff, even in high shool my buddies and us would see who could hold if fully contracted (I think thats the word) the longest. Good times.
I’m 44 and got my first wait set on my 12th Birthday. My first bench was 2 of my dads jack stands from the garage. Have a million lifting stories that we still laugh about today. The only constant in my life has been my love of the iron. I love it as much today as I did at 12 years old.
Nothing like the feel of iron in your hands when you’re young and full of angst & “T”. I still have my plastic plates around, cause I’m a sentimental bastard.
The cool thing about real iron plates, which I didn’t have much of in the old days, is that they stand the test of time better than anything else I have owned.
The chest expander my dad had used to pull what little chest hair I had then and yank it out. Good skin-pincher, too.
The Charles Atlas brochure had the story about the skinney guy getting sand kicked in his face at the beach. Same dude started lifting, went back to said beach and kicked the bully’s ass. This bullshit is all it took to mativate me back then…
Man does this thread bring back memories. 1981, I was a freshman in high school and tired of weighing 100 lbs. I saw an ad for “Universal Bodybuilding” in a comic book and ordered their book. I had no weights at the time, so my routine consisted of push-ups, sissy squats, chin-ups on a bar hanging in the garage, and several other exercises.
After a few months, I had actually made some noticeable gains, so my dad bought me a used plastic concrete-filled weight set from one of his buddies from work. It had the classic narrow supports which were really good for pinching my hand if I wasn’t exactly even when putting the weight back. It didn’t matter, I was in seventh heaven- dumbbells, a barbell, bench, man it was a pubescent’s dream!
My next purchase was the best of all - “Bodybuilding- the Weider Approach.” I had never seen such big guys. Arnold, Sergio, Franco, Bill Pearl, Mike Mentzer, etc. I really got serious about this time, probably 1984. Summers I worked for the school district, and one day a radio station had some dumb trivia contest. The “prize” was a 3-year membership at a gym, even though it would still cost $39/year. I won, and also got an additional membership for a friend of mine.
We lifted hard at that gym for the next three years, and we loved it. There were some hardcore dudes lifting there at the time, and it was a great environment for a dumb kid to learn a lot- some good, some bad. Never did roids, and never will, but it was pretty obvious which guys were “on.” Clown pants and loud mouths usually set them apart. It was still an exciting time.
I had started subscribing to Muscle & Fitness around this same time, and knew all the bodybuilders of the day by heart. My favorite was Rich Gaspari, since he was kind of short like me, but mainly I liked him because he was built like a brick shithouse. He made an appearance up in Chicago, and I remember riding on the back of my buddy’s motorcycle so we could see him. I actually got him to sign my lifting belt! He was a cool guy, fucking huge.
Got married when I was 20, started having kids at 21. I lifted for a few years but nothing like the early days. 15 years later, at 39, I finally got up the balls to divorce my abusive wife and got back in the gym with a vengeance. I’ve gained back my physique in about 6 months and will never quit. I’m in the best shape of my life and have no intentions of slowing down. I’ve learned a LOT from T-Nation and you guys always make me laugh. Lift on, brothers!
Concrete weight’s, Weider?s books and products (talking my dad into dropping $125 bucks to purchase some Weider pack with all kinds of supplements in it guaranteed to bulk me up) , working out in gym’s that looked like prison facilities…all great memories. The first Rocky movie got me into lifting. I remember drinking raw eggs by the boat load. My cholesterol must have been thru the roof back then.
I also remember a book, called Life Extensions, by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. They are big proponents of high doses of vitamins, and amino acids particularly L-. Arginine. I remember taking such high doses? of amino acids that every time I went to the bathroom it smelled like a pharmacy. But I recall it having a very positive affect on my body.
All great memories. And now, at 42 with 4 yr old twins and a beautiful wife, I?m still going strong. Both my boys love to come down in the basement and ?be strong?, as they call it, with daddy. They?re gong to have a great advantage over me in terms of knowledge. No pharmacy craps for them, I?ll just point them to T-Nation?
I know I’ve already posted, but anyone who’s reading this and hasn’t added a reply, please do. I’ve enjoyed this thread more than any other!
I enjoyed reading this thread again.
Another memory I have from the early years is making a chinup bar out of a wooden dowel in my doorway and one day while doing I guess would be some sort of hanging pike, well of course it broke and I landed on my back, my buddy said I was knocked out for at least a min…
good times …lol
[quote]visbuffed wrote:
Here’s a throwback for you:
How many of you remember the old Flex TV show on ESPN with Shawn Ray and Boyer Coe? I also remember the days of watching Cory Everson on Bodyshaping.[/quote]
Wow! I must be old. I loved that show. I still remember Boyer talking about his split in his biceps and how it was genetic because his dad had it as well. Cory was a reason to watch that show, even if she was just doing some bodyweight lunges.
I remember doing total body workouts when I first started. I had one exercise for each muscle group. About 8 total exercises I think. I would do all 8 one after the other, then do this 3 times in a circuit every other day.
Yes things have changed!
merlin
I had a Kmart ultra Ktron bench. It could inline. Had the squat rack in the back, but we didn’t know squats. It had the leg curl/extension attachment. We’d tinker around. Dabbling with the super secret routines.
Took whatever protein was available. Amway had some. We took brewers yeast too. The hella gas was disgusting. We had the charles atlas dynamic tension course, and also some muscle builder course. Looking back, it was pretty good. Had progressions.
Had the bullworker, great rope burns with that, had the power twister. Damn near took off my face with that one. Handle slipped out of my hand and cracked me in the jaw. I bit through my tongue. We had a chest expander too. was most likely the inspiration for the epilady.
We also had a cardio rope device that hooked in the door handle, and you stepped into the stirrups and it had handles for the arms. It was a pulley set. You lowered the arm and the same side leg would come up. Why did all the gadgets quote “in 20 minutes a day”
When other kids moved away, we tried to get their weights. red, maroon, gold, all over the rainbow. Of course the bar bent over time.
[quote]ironheadpl wrote:
Fresh T wrote:
I think we all started with the plastic weights filled with concrete and did crazy workouts because we didn’t know any better. Back then there really wasn’t the workouts listed in mags to try and we definately had no computers. I worked out in my friends basemente when we squated and military pressed and i benched at home…( couldn’t stand up in my basement )
I remember using the plastic/cement filled weights. I benched in my bedroom and after a while had to use shoestrings and tie on extra weights. The weights would hang dangling on the end of the bar. good times.[/quote]
Ha ha. Yes. I had a bench system like that on my padio. Just before the powdered concrete completely poured out of the weights, I got too big for the dam thing and I nearly killed myself when it broke doing benches. I did an upper and uh, I guess you could consider lower split.
Calling them 1/8 squats would be generous, didn’t want to blow my back out with the 65 pounds on my back. I did like 35 sets for upper body and banged out a few sets of 1/8 squats and leg extensions on “leg day”.
I drank a gallon of carbohydrate powder during my workout and that did actually give me some disgusting pumps. Then post workout was 10 ounces of whole milk, 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream and 2 scoops of Weider’s super ultra mega gainer powder. Those were the days.
[quote]chriscarani wrote:
ironheadpl wrote:
Fresh T wrote:
I think we all started with the plastic weights filled with concrete and did crazy workouts because we didn’t know any better. Back then there really wasn’t the workouts listed in mags to try and we definately had no computers. I worked out in my friends basemente when we squated and military pressed and i benched at home…( couldn’t stand up in my basement )
I remember using the plastic/cement filled weights. I benched in my bedroom and after a while had to use shoestrings and tie on extra weights. The weights would hang dangling on the end of the bar. good times.
Ha ha. Yes. I had a bench system like that on my padio. Just before the powdered concrete completely poured out of the weights, I got too big for the dam thing and I nearly killed myself when it broke doing benches. I did an upper and uh, I guess you could consider lower split.
Calling them 1/8 squats would be generous, didn’t want to blow my back out with the 65 pounds on my back. I did like 35 sets for upper body and banged out a few sets of 1/8 squats and leg extensions on “leg day”.
I drank a gallon of carbohydrate powder during my workout and that did actually give me some disgusting pumps. Then post workout was 10 ounces of whole milk, 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream and 2 scoops of Weider’s super ultra mega gainer powder. Those were the days. [/quote]
Hahahahahaha!
Concrete plastic wights. Yeah! I owned them. I loved how the concrete would pour out the sides when you dropped them and cracked the plastic shell. They had those odd weights on them too. Something like 8.8 lbs for the “big” red ones.
(Talk about a worthless exercise, I use to do reverse curls with an 18 inch hollow black bar with one red 8.8 lb plastic/concrete weight in the middle of the bar) I had some gold ones as well that were 4.4 lbs I think. Some other colors and odd weight totals came with this package deal.
I remember struglin’ to bench that black hollow bar with plastic end-collars and two 8.8 lb weights on both ends. Man! …what a workout. My older brother was always a few plastic/concrete lbs ahead of me and I was always trying to catch up. Those were the days. I still don’t own an olympic bar.
I have those 15-20 lb chrome bars that bend when you go a little heavy on shrugs. Probably time to upgrade. I do have a 20 year old bench that I just refuse to give up though. My first sweats are still soaked into the torn up bench cushions.
Good stuff guys. Takes me back.
merlin
[quote]visbuffed wrote:
Here’s a throwback for you:
How many of you remember the old Flex TV show on ESPN with Shawn Ray and Boyer Coe? I also remember the days of watching Cory Everson on Bodyshaping.[/quote]
How bout American Muscle Magazine sponsored by Twinlab with John Romano’s recipes for everything with basil and Veggie Fuel Soy Protein? They did cover all the contests. Night of Champions, Jan Tana Classic and of Course the Olympia. I remember Cory on Bodyshaping.
Knowing that stuff was so different back then, it makes me wonder what weights would be like 30 years later when my son starts lifting weights…