Diablo Barbell
Article
I was fat pretty much my entire
life. It wasn’t until I was a senior in
high school that I started to gain a bit more weight…. all of it fat. By my first day in college, I was a hefty
215 lbs of flab. (I’d like to take this
opportunity to thank Hometown Buffet for allowing me to add so much weight to
my already fatty frame).
The winter of 1995, I was a
freshman in college and I was at home for winter break. It was the first day home that I had decided
I was going to get into shape. You have
to understand that until that moment, my moment of commitment to “exercise” I
had not worked out a single day in my life.
I was never involved in school sports.
The most athletic I ever became was the time I picked up a golf club and
started swinging that around a bit.
Ok, back to the winter of
’95. Running and calisthenics, to my
knowledge, were the only regiments I knew or understood pertaining to
exercising. So, I woke up every morning
and ran. After I finished running, I
did pushups and sit-ups. This went on
for a couple of weeks. When school
started again, I continued the running, push ups, and sit-ups. I wasted away to a meager 170lbs a few
months later. Then, my roommate convinced
me to go to the gym and lift some weights.
Actually, if I remember correctly, he said, “Dude, you gotta bench if
you want to get the ladies!” After
that, I was convinced. I quickly became
a gym rat. Of course, being 16, I was
dumb. All I did was bench, curls,
pull-ups, abs, etc etc. Your basic
“showy” muscle exercises. Running was
my leg exercise. After a few months of
this farting around I started reading and studying about nutrition, exercise,
biomechanics, and setting up work out routines. Things were going well. I
was squatting, deadlifting, performing Olympic lifts, and such. My strength was never high, but I worked my
ass off.
This went on for 8 years. My best lifts? A meager 225lb full (Olympic style) squat, 225lb bench press, and
335lb deadlift. All this at a
bodyweight of 200lbs.
Then I met Jesse in ‘03. It was more of a random occurrence, if
anything. I was perusing a forum in a
popular exercise website and noticed a post of a guy looking for a workout
partner. I didn’t like lifting alone
and ever since college, it was difficult finding workout partners with the same
intensity that I had. So, we decided to
meet up at the gym he worked at, and started working out.
Things were going well, we were
pushing each other and picking each other’s brains every workout. I was progressing, albeit slowly, but
enjoying the new strength I was achieving.
Then, and I’ll never forget this, Jesse asked if I wanted to try lifting
West-Side style. I asked him, “What the
hell is that?” He replied, “It’s
powerlifting.” At first, I was a bit
hesitant. Looking good was my first
priority. Bodybuilding was what I was
interested in. I guess he noticed my
hesitation and quickly followed with, “come on man!” And so we started.
Our supposed start was very
rough. We read articles, watched tapes,
and tried to interpret all this the best way we could. Looking back, we actually didn’t do that bad
of a job. But, something was
missing.
Jesse called up Dave Tate and
started talking to him. Dave told Jesse
straight up, “If you want to get strong, you need to find a hardcore
powerlifting gym and join.” It turns
out that Diablo Barbell was in Concord, California, a good 30-45 minute drive
from home. So, Jesse told Dave, “You
know, I don’t want to drive 30 minutes to a gym.” Dave replied, “We have several people here who drive anywhere
from 2-4 hours EACH way to lift. You
have no excuse.”
He made the trek. He saw the gym. He lifted a pr on his first day.
He was sold.
The trick was trying to convince
me to join. I gave him all the
excuses. I don’t have any time, it’s
too expensive, it’s too damn far…..
He told me to check it out
once. If I didn’t like it, I didn’t
have to join. I told him that was
fair. We went to the next workout on
the following Saturday, a dynamic squat day.
It was October of 2003.
I walked into the gym and met
several guys. Ted O’Neil was my first
introduction. Then Garrett Harper. Garrett was going to be doing box squats
with someone else and I was going to be changing the box heights for them.
The next 10-15 minutes were the
most intense minutes I’ve ever experienced in a gym. Not just because these guys were using 400+ pounds as their speed
weight (I was only able to squat 225 for 1 at that time!) but because of the
loud ass speed metal music that was playing.
I’ve never listen to metal or
rock. Hip/hop and rap are my genres of
choice. Metal works very well with
powerlifting.
I signed up immediately. I still remember the forms that I had
signed. On one page, I was to list my
best lifts in the squat, bench, and dead.
As I listed before, they were 225, 225, and 335. I know, those numbers suck. However, I have several strikes against
me.
Despite all these downfalls, I did
have one thing on my side: the fact
that I was willing to work my ass off.
Thank god too, because trying to
learn how to squat wide was very difficult for me. My squat form looked like a goddamn train wreck. I would flop onto the box, lift my ass up
4-5 inches first to put myself in a goodmorning position, and then stand up
with the bar. Months went by, and I started
to put things together. Then, without
my knowledge, I was entered into a powerlifting meet. Jesse came up to me and said, “So, you know you’re doing the meet
in a few months, right?” I had no idea
what the hell he was talking about. I
looked at Ted, and he just said, “You’re doing the meet.” Alright, I’m doing the meet.
I believe I squatted ~464, benched
~314, and deadlifted ~440 in the 242s.
A few years and a few meets later,
I managed to hit a 633 squat, 407 bench, and 574 deadlift at a home meet in
Aug, 2006 in the 220s.
Aside from the seriousness of
lifting at Diablo, the guys really know how to have fun. All you have to do is mention a gerbil and
everyone starts laughing.
Powerlifting has provided me the
greatest return of investment as far as training is concerned. I have never gained so much from a system as
I have with west-side style training. A
lot of it is attributed to the system.
However, I fully believe that training with a group of people, who all
have the same goal in mind, is the last piece of the puzzle to reaching your
goals. I highly doubt that I would have
reached my current level of strength by myself. Because of this, I owe a lot to Diablo Barbell.