Always be a student.
Gym memberships are expensive and some of the bigger commercial gyms will lock you in for a selected period of time. When your young and living with your folks some are lucky enough to get expenses covered by them for your leisure activities e.g.: getting the biggest biceps at school. Unfortunately I was not one of these kids. I am going to give a small insight into where and when my journey starting in the weights room and how to get the best out of yourself with little or no money at all.
I was heavily overweight in my early teens; at this very point right now I am only 4 kgs heavier and only slightly taller at a towering 5’7. I was convinced I would play rugby league for the mighty doggies so at 13 I made the choice to find myself some weights to lift. The 2 gyms in my town where in riding distance but come with hefty prices. Mum and dad could just put food on the table let alone fork out gym fees so the idea quickly fell through but I didn’t let go of it that easy.
Pre season footy training began for another year with the older boys and the first session was at an old boxing gym all I remember from that session was feeling like my lungs where tearing at my rib cage, tunnel vision of my mate in front of me shadowing boxing with 1kg weights as if he had had 20 beers and all the forwards clutching at hammies and ankles and taking a “breather”. What was the structure of the session? Where talking about a country town footy club, chaos induced vomit would be a way to describe it.
In my delusional state I noticed a multi-station pin loaded machine held together with rust and the dreams of failed boxers. There was also a few dumbbell handles with different sized plates, 1 barbell and a bench press that only had a decline bench. After the session I went over to inspect and it was all in working order but was never used, I asked the owner if I could come in the afternoons just to use it as the boxing coaching was there as a youth project and was free for kids around the area. He said yes on one condition, I had to finish the boxing sessions before I could use it. Sounded like a fair trade for me unknowing what I just signed up for.
The following Monday afternoon I was faced with this
-15 minutes continual skipping, if you missed skip 10 push-ups
- Bag work combos 2 min on 1 min off
- Body weight circuits with 500m runs around the block
- Continuous shadow boxing with 1 kg weights for 10 minutes
- Finishing with getting belted in the ring by kids half my weight
Doing this as an unfit 86kg, 5’5 13 year old damn near killed me but I never forgot why I was there. All I managed after that was some lat pull downs kneeling on the cement, some reverse fly’s (because all good NRL players had traps like cakes of soap) I finished with standing curls with uneven Dumbbells. At the time I had no idea how pivotal this was and what would come from it. I rode home to my pre dinner ritual of 2 toasted cheese and salami sandwiches.
I continued at this gym for 6 months and a grew to enjoy the boxing before my weight training it also took around 15 kg of weight off me and the weight training had added some size to my upper body, I was either genetically blessed with big legs or trying to run being super fat gave me legs. Either way not a leg was trained during those faithful 6 months. When I returned to the field I was faster, stronger and a much better player for it. After this period of time the trainers who ran the gym let me use the weights without having to do the boxing.
For my birthday I received a week pass to the local commercial gym, excitement was high as this had the potential for endless gains. I walked in to the cleanest most well presented training environment I had been in. I mean this gym had carpet everywhere and no dust or dirt. I found the only piece of equipment I was used to, the bench press although this one was flat. There was already weights loaded on it so without checking I jumped in, un racked and squeezed out 3 reps of 80 kg I did this a few more times and then explored all the machines, bars and pairs of Dumbbells.
After the week I was hooked I couldn’t go back to the boxing gym so with no money and addicted to training I walked straight up to the owner and told him “ I really want to train here but I don’t have a job or a bank account what’s the chances of using it for 1 hour a day?” He looked at me and said, “ Sorry mate no freebies”. I thought oh well worth a shot, again not taking no for an answer I worked out that if I convinced other members to us me as there “ bring a friend for free” I could train. So that was the plan of attack for the next few weeks and of course the owner wasn’t stupid. He came over and said, “ Nat I like your passion but you cant keep training for free, but if you drop all the pamphlets in letter boxes i'l give you 3 months free membership “. Music to my ears and I thought easy done what a legend. When I finished I walked over to reception and he handed me the biggest pile of pamphlets id ever seen. Got them all done over the weekend and the begging of the following week I was a full-blown member.
By this stage my love of training had taken over from my dream of playing NRL. This was the point when I realized what I wanted to do. I went through the phase of just wanting to the biggest guy in the gym, then all I wanted was abs, then I wanted to work in a gym and so on and so forth.
I received my first tub of protein powder a few years down the track not even making the link that meat and protein powder on a basic level achieved the same thing so I was convinced this was the answer and I had just unlocked the da Vinci code of gains. This sparked my thoughts about food because tot his point I had not even considered what I was eating id just eat (which was generally a lot).
I just started asking all the big guys in the gym what they eat and what I should be eating, after some discussion it always came back to roughly 5 foods. Meat, potato, eggs, rice and milk. I thought “ great, easily accessible low and behold got home and looked in the fridge pretty much had all bases covered, cheers mum.”
10 years down the track I look back and think about all those small things have accumulated into what I do now and I am so appreciative of those times but saying that, it was my attitude towards everything that made it possible I had every opportunity to put it in the too hard basket but that wasn’t an option so here are my tips on how to have construct a training lifestyle when the odds are stacked against you.
- Always keep it clear in your mind why you’re training in the first place and how it makes you feel. This is your internal inspiration keep that at the forefront and the following will find its way to you.
- Ask and you shall receive, money doesn’t mean you cant train, people in the fitness industry are some of the most passionate people especially private gym owners
- The best food to help your training is very accessible and cheap, I asked for a Coles gift card for a birthday and purchased 50$ worth of meat. Refrain from buying supplements
- Ask local gyms if you can do work experience or volunteer at the gym
- The gym I attended was closed Saturday afternoon and Sunday so I would go the beach and pick or stones and big logs like a deadlift followed by short sprints
- Some parks now have equipment built in for example chin up bars, dip stations etc.:
- Surround yourself with people who want to train as bad as you, not only will they push you but also help you out when times get tough
- Never burn bridges at gyms.
Some more reading on comp prep and training for spirituality
Nat
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