Shit! You're all babes in the woods!
How many of you can recall the original and real hardcore 'gyms' that offered 'bowling pins' to train with?
Or those mechanical belts that shook the fat off your ass?
Or the loose and swaying benches that you had to balance on while attempting to set those original bench press records before guys like Pat Casey did the impossible with 600 pounds (while the lions roared - See previous post a few years back).
How many of you GetBiggers remember the original world of Personal Trainers when you'd simply worked in with the likes of Reeves, and Eifferman, and Hilligen, and gradually with the likes of some new big kids named Scott or Schwarzenegger or Draper or many others.
You'd simply asked, "Can I work in with your guys?" and proceed to accomplish the same lifts that they were doing. There was no negative-this or positive-that bullshit and no fees exchanged hands unless you enjoyed your workout with stronger lifters and volunteered to buy the lunch at the Germans or the Swedish Smorgasboard place just around the cornor.
And if you were a bit weaker, it never was a problem removing a plate or two in them good old days. Patience was a virtue back then.
Back in those good old days, just about 90% of the gym rats could do a 300+ pound bench before they asked to train with the 'bigger guys'.
You guys got no idea what a gym was like when crazy guys like Lalanne or Baptiste ran the only 'gyms' in town outside of the local Y's.
Hell, I never even saw an Olympic plate until I saw a shit-load of them at the original Gold's.
Gyms before that time were dumps in which you had to search through a pile of ten pound 'plates' and bolt them together if you could find the pair of pliers that were often missing.
And there was no such things as squat racks! And every bench would sway at the slightest breeze even before you sat on it. Benching anything over 135 was a life threatening experience.
Then came a new business called American Health Studios and someone took the ball from Jack Lalanne and rebuilt it for the masses and 'gym things' and 'gym rats' started to gradually improve.
Shiney chrome gym-things appeared almost overnight and those bowling ball pins and medicine balls disappeared immediately, but even today if you look hard enough your can find one of those machines that shake the fat off your ass (or the bottom of your feet).
Then some guy named Joe started welding and the gym business got hard-core for the first time in its life. At first it simply attracted UCLA and USA football players and a few guys who wanted to have a muscular body (actually less than 10 muscle-heads in the whole LA basin back then). So the competitive football players outnumbered the less than competitive bodybuilders back then, but that was soon to change.
Joe eventually sold to Ken and then Ken sold to Pete and his guys but not before Ken had to sue Joe for attempting to use his own name once again (he lost and World Gym became "World Gym" and not another Joe Gold's) and Pete sold lots of T-shirts which kept the doors opened.
And then one day Pete saw lots of people outside looking in the window to watch the guys who were lifting heavy things by that window so that they could they would be admired by all those window lookers.
So Pete built a bench and placed it inside the gym to that those on the outside could come to the inside and sit comfortably and watch the heavy-thing lifters.
This small act of kindness on Pete's part resulted in increased T-shit sales which allowed the Pete and his business to at least keep their doors open a little while longer.
And then someone thought of even a better idea. Why don't we open Gold's Gyms all over the USA. And maybe even someday in Dubai, India. (This solid thinker was way ahead of his time!)
And so the Gold Gym Franchise was born ..... Keith knows more about this than I myself can recall.
And that is just the beginning of this story...... More to come if there is any interest.
Pig, actually the days of looking like a gorilla have just begun..... but only for a very select and positive few. I'm right in this assumption but only time will convince you otherwise.
