Three years later at college, I joined the Freshman swim team. The coach, John Edgar, was actually the head of the football team. He sent aspiring team members a mimeographed set of exercises in September, urging us to consider going on our own (organized team practices were forbidden by the NCAA until Nov.1) into the weight room and started pumping iron.
So Fall and Spring, I would spend 20-30 minutes or so in the cramped quarters under the eaves of the field house. My roommate, Rich, joined me. Rich was squat, about 5’8”, weighed 200-220 pounds, more fat than muscle. But he didn’t want to be that way. Slowly, we both started struggling with the bars and plates, aiming towards different goals: I wanted to get bigger; he, smaller.
Those first two years, I gained no weight, only definition. I had hopes of looking like a half-back, but should have learned then than I was no mesomorph. Instead of my father’s bulky build, I had my mother’s sleek physique, more geared to running around brick walls rather than through them. Rich, however, managed to get his weight down to 150-160 lbs. In addition to all the weight work, he radically reduced his food intake, at one point eating only four meals a week for months on end. It didn’t seem to affect his brain development one bit; we went on to become a successful internist in Fairfield, CT.
Throughout my twenties, I had the good luck to first learn, than train for a medical career at the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center. This sprawling complex, with multiple separate hospitals, was so large it required its own precinct of the LA County Sheriff. In order to keep their officers fit, they had requisitioned and installed a state-of-the-art weight room, filled with free weights and machines set on padded floors, lined by mirrors. It was on the first floor of the “Interns’ Dorm”, easily accessible in the center of campus.
My whole time going there, I never saw a deputy, except for Sid, who was ensconced as the facility manager. Sid had suffered an on-the-job injury to his hip and lower back. But he didn’t want to leave the force, so he was assigned to keep the place running for the benefit of all those other officers who were supposed to be keeping themselves in shape.
Sid was a perfect amalgam of hardened law officer and dedicated power lifter. Probably in his late forties, he had that unshakable self-assurance that comes after forty years of not only carrying a gun everywhere, but also seeing generations of soft medical students and resident physicians come and go, trying to build themselves up through weight training. He believed that pumping iron was the solution to any physical ailment. Cold got you sniffling? Do a few reps. Aching lower back from 24 hours on call? Skip rope 100 times. Can’t get a date? Try some bench presses. He knew every exercise, and, because he’d had to adjust to his cranky back and core, he knew just the proper technique to both get the most benefit and the least risk out of every one of them.
He was full of gym lore and aphorisms. “Always do your cardio before your weights.” “Work your legs on Monday, your back and abs on Tuesday, your upper on Wednesday, repeat on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. rest on Sunday.” “Spot with your legs, not your back.” Lunch time in the gym was story time for me and a few other doctors-to-be as we soaked up Sid’s take on things.
After eight years at LAC-USC MC, I took the winter off to go skiing at Snowbird, outside of Salt Lake City while my wife-to-be, Cheryl, learned midwifery at the University of Utah. We bought a house in the Avenues, just above downtown, and every day (making sure to take a day off every week!) I drove my VW camper van 45 minutes to the slopes, skiing the deep and steep. While this was great for my legs and lungs, I felt a little puny in my arms and shoulders.
Across the street from us lived Cheryl’s classmate, Lynn Sibley, with her one-year old, Gabe. Her husband, Paul, a part-time carpenter and full time mountain climber, was anchored back in Boulder, but spent a fair amount of time in SLC. So much, that one day, he drove his truck up, loaded with boxes in the flat bed.
“I thought I was spending so much time here, I should bring some of my stuff. And this summer, maybe I’ll try some routes up the canyons, so I’ve some climbing equipment in here.” He was hoping to get some help moving in.
“You said you needed some upper body work, Al. This would be just what you need!” he said through a Tom Sawyer-esque grin.
On to the Pacific Northwest, where it can ran almost anytime, almost any month of the year. Or at least that’s what the salesman said to Cheryl and I as we were touring the “Health Club” down the street from our temporary apartment in Federal Way.
“So the indoor track gets used quite a lot,” he went on. But we were more interested in the 25 yard six lane pool (another habit of ours) and fully equipped weight room. There, gleaming machines from Nautilus almost overshadowed the bars and plates where the grunters and squatters flexed and groaned. The age of yuppie body sculpting had begun.
Thus began a series of gyms on either side of the Narrows Bridge. Each had its own accessories, ranging across tennis courts, sauna, hot tub, pools of various lengths between 15 yds and 25 meters, but each and every one had a weight room. No matter what sport was attracting my attention, I used the iron and pulleys to prepare and maintain my meagre frame for the rigors involved. Backpacking, skiing, mountain biking, swimming, running, triathlon … they all required, in the end, some measure of musclular strength.