I lived in Massachusetts, and started lifting after my junior year of high school in 1985, although I had been doing pushups and situps for a few years after being inspired by "Rocky" movies. I didn't know what I was doing, so at first I only had the confidence to do the stations on the Universal Machine (remember those?) at my school. But as a beaten-up, abused, nerdy kid, I wanted to be big and strong, so I watched the football players doing the bench press and squats and other free weight exercises, and little by little when the gym was quiet I would sneak over and try not to embarrass myself at those exercises.
Then before senior year, I went to K-Mart and bought my first 110 lb sand-filled plastic weight set, so I could lift at home in my parent's basement. At first I did every exercise I knew, every day...who ever heard of overtraining in the 1980's? But little by little I became friends with other kids into lifting weights, started reading the muscle magazines and watching the muscle TV programs on ESPN, and I started figuring out what to do, for better and for worse.
I remember the first time I went to GNC in Framingham, and bought a can of Metabolol II and some amino acid tablets. I thought I would blow up overnight and start looking like Gary Strydom! Unfortunately that never quite happened, but I kept on pushing the weights and eating everything in sight, and little by little I got bigger and stronger. I went from being an 155 lb high school senior to a 255 lb college senior, before ever touching steroids. Then of course I did my first cycle of Sustanon, that I bought from a female bodybuilder who later went on to win the New England NPC Championships. 500mg per week, and the magic really started to happen.
This was the 1980's and 1990's, so we all wanted to be Arnold or Stallone or Mike Tyson, but I was amazed by guys like Lee Haney, Shawn Ray, Rich Gaspari, Phil Hill, Mike Quinn, Lee Labrada, Berry DeMey. I remember going to the movies with friends and happening to see Ted Arcidi, who had recently set the world bench press record at 705 lbs. I was in awe of Ted then, but little did I know that years later in the mid-1990's I would be training partners with Ted when he was recovering from elbow surgery. Literally unbelievable strength. We all like to think we're big and strong, until you meet someone like that on a world champion level, who is so far beyond what the average person can do that its not even like we are the same species. Yet he picked me to be his training partner, so I must have doing alright for myself.
My first hardcore gym was Universe Gym in Lowell, a real dungeon in an old mill building, with pictures of champs like Jeff King on the walls, and used syringes in the trash cans LOL. Also Victor Terra's Paradise Gym in Hudson, and Vinnie Greco's Powerhouse Gym in Watertown. I remember competing as a heavyweight at the Mass State Championships in 1995, pumping up backstage, and seeing Paul DeMayo come walking in, there to support guys from his gym, slapping guys' backs and everybody wanting to talk to him. DeMayo had just done the Olympia the month before, and probably hadn't trained since, as he was looking smaller than expected. I remember somebody saying to his friend, "Man, I thought he was supposed to be huge," and his friend responding, "Well, he can't be huge all year round."
Went to seminars and met Mike Matarazzo, Vic Richards, Nasser El Sonbaty, and some promising young kid named Jay Cutler, along with other IFBB pro's. Worked for and trained with Paul Levesque up at Gold's Gym in Nashua, who became Triple H in the WWE (he used to be Terra Rizing on the local circuits up here.) Became a strip club bouncer and had a lot of fun with that, although ultimately it's an empty way of life.
This is turning into a book, and I have to get up in the morning. But there was a real camaraderie and a scene at that time. If you knew a guy, he could introduce you to another guy. Everything was local, there was no internet. It was its own little world, with its own heroes and villains, the hardcore dungeon gyms, the drugs being sold in the backs of gyms or Dunkin' Donuts parking lots at midnight, the contests and seminars and shows, and the perpetually tanned orange people in stringer T's and T-Michael tops out in the audience. It was all vanity, but it meant something and still means something to the people who were there and experienced it all.
God, how I miss it.
.gif "IP Gear")
