And This Is Why I Got Into Weightlifting...
MRBIG_PHOTOGRAPHY. Getty Images.Moving is a big deal. Moving when you're a kid, changing schools, and having to make new friends is an even bigger deal.
My parents moved to Connecticut in 1969. For me, it came at the beginning of eighth grade. I stayed in Massachusetts with my grandparents at first, but after the Pop Warner football season ended in late November, I moved to Connecticut to be with my parents.
After we left New London in '69, my father bought this house in Norwich, and I absolutely loved it! My good friend Tom now lives in Seattle, and when he visited his old stomping grounds in Norwich last year, he took this pic. The current owners must've removed the basketball hoop my father put up over the garage, otherwise, it looks exactly as I remember it. My room was on the second floor above the front door…
Leaving my old friends was tough; making new ones was even tougher. I was incredibly shy back then, and sitting in a classroom full of kids who had been friends with each other since kindergarten was intimidating. Where would I fit in? For weeks I sat quietly in class, content to listen, too afraid to speak.
On New Year's Eve, my parents were invited to a party at my father's boss' house. Abe looked a lot like Sonny Bono (Sonny & Cher). He was short like Sonny, but with broader shoulders. He was well into his mid-forties by then, and he wore big-collared silk shirts left open three buttons down, gold chains, cowboy boots, and he had a thick mustache, mutton chop sideburns, and straight, thinning, salt 'n pepper hair parted to one side creating a very fashionable comb over. He was the poster boy for a lot of men going through their mid-life crisis in the early '70s, most of whom consistently dressed like they were heading out to a disco…
It was after 2:00 am when Abe and his son took me and my two friends, who had come from Massachusetts to visit during Christmas break, into the unfinished part of their basement. Once Abe opened the door and flipped on the fluorescent lights, we saw barbells, dumbbells, benches, and a ton of iron weights neatly stacked on gym-quality racks. Abe pointed to a glossy photograph on the wall of him, posing. It looked fake to me, and I immediately called him out, "That's not real!" His son Neil, who I had become friendly with, was quick to respond in his father's defense, "My dad was a competitive bodybuilder. The photo's real." I moved closer to get a better look; all the while, Abe was smiling and waiting for my verdict. Damn, it was real! Abe was a legit competitive bodybuilder, and although he was short (barely 5 foot 6), in the photo, he was jacked like Arnold.
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I had just finished playing football on a championship Pop Warner team, where I was one of the captains and named MVP in the championship game. For a 13-year-old kid, I was considered pretty strong for my age. Abe looked at me and asked, "Have you ever trained using weights?" In the offseason, my father put me through a pretty strict training regime. I worked out with springs, grips, and put in my time on the stationary bike. I skipped rope and did pushups, sit-ups, and other calisthenics, but other than a canvas harness I fitted over my head that had a single weight hanging off it I used to strengthen my neck, I had never done any formal weight training.
Abe told Neil to set up a bar on the bench that totaled 100 pounds. Abe got under it and did a set of ten bench presses. After he finished, he got up, smiled, and looking directly at me, he asked, "Do you want to give it a try?" I wasn't cocky, but I was pretty confident I could do it, so I said, "Sure…"
I laid down on the bench, the same way Abe did. Then, I lifted the bar off the rack and let it down until it touched my chest, the same way Abe did. Then I began pushing it up, the same way Abe did… But, I struggled. My arms were wobbling, and I couldn't complete the lift, and the bar fell directly onto my chest. Abe was behind the bench spotting me, and he lifted the bar off my chest and placed it back onto the rack…
Then, Abe looked at Neil and said, "Show him how to do it…"Neil was scrawny, a non-athlete. Even at 12 (he was a year younger than me), he looked more like an elf than a weight lifter. He had some serious hardware on his teeth, and he slept with metal braces attached to both his feet, connected in the middle by an adjustable aluminum bar that was supposed to realign his feet. And, he had a metal brace attached to his jaw that connected to a pad that wrapped around the back of his neck that was supposed to correct his bite. The first time I slept over and saw him with all that stuff on, I warned him, "If I wake up in the middle of the night and see you looking like a mini Frankenstein, I may instinctively kill you…" He laughed, but I was fucking serious. Wearing all that corrective shit made him look like a lab experiment gone horribly wrong.
Bettmann. Getty Images.Neil was a great kid, my first close friend in Connecticut, but there was no way he was gonna do even one rep with 100 pounds, which was at least 10 pounds more than he weighed at the time.
Neil got down on the bench, gripped the bar with his small hands, took a couple of deep breaths, looked up at the ceiling, his focus on the fluorescent light, and then he lifted the bar off the rack. After a brief pause, he lowered it onto his chest… Honestly, I was waiting for Neil to start struggling as I did and for Abe to rescue his son the way he did for me, but then something strange happened. After several short breaths and one big exhale, Neil easily completed the lift.
I was at once humiliated. To his credit, Neil jumped up, and like a good friend, he consoled me, "Don't worry. I've been doing this for a while. Once you start training, you're gonna be really strong!" And then he just kept nodding his head in a reassuring way…
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I was speechless, and all ears while Abe explained the science behind weight training. He asked me if I wanted to start training, and I simply nodded my head Yes, not wanting to be humiliated like that ever again. He said he'd draw up a seven-week, progressive weight training program, put it on poster board, and that I would have to follow it to a tee if I wanted to increase my strength and get the most out of it. He told me to do only what was on the chart, no more, that it was a progressive training program, and after one week, the reps would increase, but the weight would remain the same. The following week, the weight would increase, but the reps would remain the same, and that would continue right through seven weeks.
Chicago Tribune. Getty Images.My father had visions (high hopes) of me playing football for the Fighting Irish, and he sent Notre Dame Head Coach Ara Parseghian a letter telling him all about my Pop Warner heroics. He was immediately on board with Abe's offer to train me and he went to Sears and bought a 120 lb. set of plastic, sand-filled weights and a cheap adjustable inclining bench that we set up on a couple of quilted U-Haul moving blankets in our unfinished, dimly-lit basement. The day Abe finished the chart and handed it to my father, I started training.
The first two weeks were so easy I was tempted to skip ahead, but because I knew Abe would be checking up on me and not wanting to piss off my new strength coach, I stuck to his training plan.
After completing week four, I started feeling stronger. There was a half bath at the top of the cellar stairs, and in between reps at the start of week five, I ran upstairs and flexed my biceps in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, and goddamn, I had developed some muscles! I immediately called my mother, "Hey Ma, get over here and take a look at this!" I was still holding the pose in front of the mirror when she walked into the bathroom. She said, "Wow!" and then gave one of my biceps a squeeze, and shaking her head in disbelief, she said, "You've got real muscles now!"
Thanks to Abe and his son, my obsession with weight training had officially begun. Once I completed the seven weeks, Abe created a new poster board that charted out the next seven weeks.
Just about the time I was finishing up week 9, there was a weightlifting contest at Kelly Junior High, and apparently, it was an annual event with long-standing school records that were considered sacred.
Dan was a big dude, and he had the bench press record for our class; no one came close to challenging him. Drew, who had already earned his black belt, had the wrist roll record. Back in the day, we played baseball with wooden bats, and when one cracked, we'd cut about 14" off at the handle end, drill a hole through the center of it, put a rope through it, knot it at the top, and once the rope was cut long enough to extend to the floor with our arms held shoulder high, we tied a weight to the bottom. Then, we'd extend our arms and roll the rope around the bat until the weight reached the top.
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Of course, I still have the one my father and I made in 1970. Who throws stuff like that away?
For the contest, the 5 lb. weight had to be lowered slowly before the next rep. I did 21, and that was pretty good, but Drew had freakish forearms like Popeye, and a lot of sinewy muscle, especially for a kid, and he did 45, setting a new school record. I was totally impressed and inspired by his performance.
My focus was on the butterflies, which were performed while lying on your back on a mat, arms outstretched on both sides, with a dumbbell in each hand. You had to bring each side up and across your chest, keeping your elbows straight until the dumbbells met in the middle. Then you'd lower them to the mat before starting another rep.
Initially, I did 165, but the next day another kid did 166. I went back to the gym and did 245, but the next day the same kid did 246. I went back the next day and did 300, but the same kid did 301. The competition became the talk of the school, everyone was wondering if the "new kid" could keep up.
The school record, which had stood for 25 years, was 325, and I was shooting for that. I managed to do 326, a new school record, but the same kid did 327 the following day, and his one-up-me strategy was starting to piss me off…
The next day I did an angry 365, and the following day he did 366… That's when I decided to go to the gym and empty my tank and do as many as I could, and taking a page out of Neil's playbook, I was laser-focused on the light on the gym ceiling, and staring at it I was able to block everything else out. I did 535. The kid conceded defeat and didn't even attempt to challenge that record.
I had broken a 25-year-old school record, and in the process, became a very popular kid. My confidence and self-esteem soared, and I began making new friends, and a lot of them were girls eager to get to know me better… (I was bigger than the Beatles-NOT!)
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Mirrorpix. Getty Images.I didn't know it then, but it's obvious to me now, the two years I spent in Norwich, Connecticut, were the best years of my childhood. In the end, moving and making new friends served me well. The experience taught me a lot about myself and about other people, and I was no longer intimidated by new and changing situations.
A lot of non-athletes condemn athletes, calling them Jocks, like participating in sports is a bad thing. I'll agree that competitive sports can get out of control, and it's usually overzealous parents with big egos that ruin it. My father sending a letter to Ara Parseghian when I was in eighth grade was a little over the top…
Sports build confidence and self-esteem, and they socialized me and created opportunities to make great friends, some of whom I still talk to today.
In the comments, let me know if you ever had to move as a child, what it was like, and if sports played a role in establishing your identity. I was heavy into rock 'n roll, but If you were looking to pick up chicks in the '70s, you had to dress like Tony Manero and go to a disco. And, you had to know how to bust a move…
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walkI'm a woman's man, no time to talkMusic loud and women warm, I've been kicked aroundSince I was bornAnd now it's alright, it's okayAnd you may look the other way…