Thanks, JOE! That's about the time I use to talk with him while he was filling orders for Weider Supps in a little Weider shop across from Zucky's. I also think we talked about a movie role he had done or would be doing .... Don't Make Waves.
Back in these olden days it seemed that decent bodybuilders resided in three main areas … New York region, Florida, and California.
And due to the year-round sunny weather and the money making movie industry, most of the bodybuilding business was concentrated in Southern California’s LA area and especially in the Santa Monica region where Muscle Beach would eventually obtain world-wide attention.
The gym business was not big-business back in the 50’s and as far as I can recall there were no gym chains or franchises on the West Coast or any other place in the USA.
Gyms back then were mainly found in YMCA’s throughout the country and the equipment was less than desireable and most times had to be ‘bolted’ together if you could find the bar and enough plates to add to that bar.
And if you found those parts of the dumbbell, you now had to find the ‘nuts and bolts’ and a wrench or the "lock-key" to put them together.
That’s a bit off an exaggeration, but it’s close enough to the truth! (Right, Mr, Basile?)
Most gyms in these Y’s would have some form of a canvas mat stuffed with some kind of dirty cotton stuffing that was always used by someone sound asleep in the corner.
And they all had those ‘bowling ball pins’ that were supposed to do something that I can’t recall.
And two or three motorized-belt machines that you’d step into, place the canvas belt around your waist, flip the little switch, and let it shake the shit our ot your inner for the next 10 to 12 minutes.
That simply resulted in red rashes and itches.
And on one or two of the walls separating this “gym” from the more saner folk was some construction that looked like a rung of wooden ladders or something that would encourage you to climb to the top.
But the top was only about 6 feet above the bottom, so most old timers would either simply lean on it or do some type of stretching movement.
They most likely were the original founders of “Stretching Before Every Workout” which would only be taken seriously some 50 years later.
Sole old guys are way ahead of their time, I guess.
Add a rickety wooden bench and a ‘modern ‘ metal rickety squat stand (not a ‘rack’ back then) … and that would be the best 'gym' in most major US cities..
Meanwhile, not too far away in the country, those who had no Y and wished to increase their strength and get bigger in the process .... were lifting tractor tires and squatting with a yet-to-be-full-grown cow on their back.
This cow-squatting workout even became a major event on a major TV network when some farm-boy made an attempt to lift (squat) a young calf every week until is was either full grown or ------whatever.
But that TV show didn’t last too long because when that calf was close to being a cow, the farm-boy was squatting with it on his back and …. that calf/cow decided it was time to take a shit and did so magnificently …….
Cow- shit flew everywhere! (It even hit a couple of the farm boy “fans”!)
Needless to say, the TV crew got hysterical and pandamonium was the result.
The Test Pattern filled TV screens throughout the western regions of the US of A and that was the last of that cow, that farm-boy, and what I think was the first kid’s TV exercise show ever produced.
NEXT UP …… “Who Owned These Gyms That Competed Against the Y’s?”
