Story Time

I actually paid someone to teach me how to lift today, not only did I pay them but I paid them hansomly. $60. I feel like it was worth every red cent.

Time for the long version
I went to Dumbdarton middle school to train tonight. I had never been there and was meeting someone for a coaching session (it’s called foreshadowing, I’m trying to use it). I got there following very explicit directions.
If you took the Gold’s Gym that Arnolds trains at in the Fild Pumping Iron and tried to maintain it that way, this is what it would look like. It was this underground dungeon for steel. The had a hodge podge of different brands, types and sizes of everything I can think of that belongs in a real steel pit. All the pull/push down bars have the color of rust, they aren’t rusty they are just that color. There is one cardio machine, a treadmill in the back. In the middle of the room, corneres by four concrete columns is a massive platform. There are rack, boxes, bars and bumper plates there.
Saw and old guy who was roaming around in slacks. I approached him and asked for Tim. He kinda shrugged and went back to what he was doing. That was it, there was no one there but him and me. After a while he wondered over to the desk, he was running th place. I aksed again about Tim and they guy said he had probably met him but didn’t know him.
The payphone on the wall rang and he answered it. He shrugged and offered it to me saying only “Tim”. It was Tim and he was stuck in traffic but would be there. I hung up and told the guy that I was hear to get a coaching session from Tim. He looked at me and said “You can go workout while you wait, if you want.”
He started explaining that they didn’t have many members any more and that this was due to them closing down for four months last summer. I mentioned that I thought it looked great, quiet, lots of equipment, not a lot of people. I mentioned that my friends would like it, that one of them trains for strongman while the other one does kettlebells. He really surprised me when he said he hadn’t seen one of those fo at least 20 years. According to this guy, sometime in the late 70s he was training at the Baltimore YMCA and they were stocked with kettlebells.
Once we got done with this I took a coupld laps to see what the gym had to offer, I was impressed. Including classic blob style ok dumbells up to, alas, 95lbs. Oddly enough they also had York dumbells that had globe ends. I’m not sure I have ever seen those.
Tim showed up and changed. We met on the platform where he showed me his medal for the Masters tournement in Texas. Then we got down to Business. Tim was here to help my attrocitious lmpic lifting. Tim already had abad review from the one guy I met who knew him. The guys bad review was not wrong, it just turned it into a good review. Tim is good at teaching those like him. The good news is that I am a bit like him. We’re about the same build (I’m fatter). We can both pull from the floor just fine, it’s the hang clean that isthe killer. So that is what Tim has chosen to specialize in.
I’m not going to go throug all he showed me but it was good for me. Before I went in there I couldn’t hang clean. I tried but I could feel it in my shoulders a lot. By the time I left, I was consistently hang cleaning (I’m sure I’ll get the weight wrong) 165lbs (bar plus two of the lightest plates they had on either side: bar=44lbs roughly 125 in plates 124/4=31lbs/2 roughly 15kilo plates? If it helps they had green on them).I also did overhead squats with (assuming my plate calculations where correct) 100+ lbs. The hang cleans, although not perfect, felt light even weightless at times.
When all was done I got a great little history of the gym (open since the 50’s, used to be the place to buy steroids in Bmore but very clean now). I was unable to sign up for a membershp because “someone lost the book”. I don’t feel tired in my muscles but I can feel that my nerves are truly shot.

So like I said, great time, good use of money.
Oh and Dan and Luke, you guys would love this place. What would you say to $35 for a membership through the begining of the school year (annual membership starts then $84).

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