Daily Archives: June 13, 2014

A Bit Of Lifting And Training History From My Perspective.

With the proliferation of health clubs, spas, fitness facilities, gyms, and the fact that most martial arts and yoga teachers have somehow branched out into personal training or “their-specialty-specific lose weight and inches fitness training” it might be beyond the understanding of the last two generations that there actually was a time when it was almost impossible to find a gym that had barbells and dumbbells in it within the confines of any town or village in the United States. By the mid-Sixties, most of the major cities contained perhaps one or two “health clubs,” usually a chain franchise like Vic Tanny’s or Jack LaLanne’s that was filled with chromed devices designed to separate the slack-muscled from their mounds of body fat and pocket books. I would be the first to add that these “clubs” were definitely a step forward from the “health spas” of the mid-1950’s and early 1960’s that were stocked with vibrating and rolling type machines that were meant to shake, jiggle, or massage the fat off of specific areas of the body. I can recall such an establishment opening in my home town of Long Beach and even at the age of eleven or twelve, I knew a rip-off when I saw it up close and personal. Overweight men and women strapped into contraptions that seemed to have the potential to rip genitals and other vital body parts off if used incorrectly, that would produce headaches or vision problems due to the violent shaking and bumping they produced, did not seem as if they really and truly would deliver the goods they promised. Lawsuits resulting from vicious injury, as well as the predictable lack of results, dictated the closing of every one of these outlets within a year or two of their opening.