I wanted to invite you to share in the history as well as the present of a gym where I will have been a member for 25 years this spring. I would tell you it's the greatest gym ever not because of the equipment but because of its accessibility. Many of you reading this have had a Huge Gym workout, and a few of you were some of the original members back in 1984.
Before I get into the history of the Huge Gym, I wanted to bring you back to the primordial soup that spawned the gym. Being a creationist, should I drop that expression? Something to ponder on the road. Anyway, let's rewind to about 1980. I'm a skinny 10th grader who's added a lot of verticle reach in the last few years. And to some degree I was self conscious about it. My "twin" brother/best friend Jimmy (he's 15 months older but as a sick kid was held back in school so we were in the same grade) was pretty much in the same boat. We wanted to look more like those big, senior football players.
Our initial strategy was overeating. Just add lots of calories and we'll get there. As smart as I thought I was at 15, can you say "idiot"? We'd make milkshakes and peanut butter sandwiches at bedtime. We'd compete over who could eat the most at meals. Can you imagine being a mom with two teenage boys who are pushing each other in a neverending eatfest? The folks probably had to take out a second mortgage to finance the deal. As you would expect, this didn't produce any results. Thankfully, we didn't turn into dough boys either.
I can't remember where we got the inspiration, but it was around this time that we decided we'd try weightlifting. Back then the closest place to buy equipment was GNC. Ours was the location on US 1 and Hypoluxo Road in Boynton Beach. I think it's still there. We bought a bench, a bar, and some cast iron York weights. We later added more generic weights. Interestly, all these weights are stamped "Made in U.S.A." Betcha won't find that anymore.
We put this stuff in our garage, but because Dad wanted to be able to park both cars in the garage, it was a pain moving that stuff around all the time. Enter Rich Danca, aka "Chico". BTW, I was the nickname guy in high school. I didn't like to address any of my buds by their real name. Rich lived one block over from us, and he was in the same skinny boat as Jimmy and me. And his dad didn't care about parking the cars in the garage. So we moved. The Danca's were notorious pack rats so we still had to move stuff around for our workouts, but at least we had a home base.
Because we were no longer growing taller, the timing was right to start growing wider. Within a short time of following all the advice of Joe Weider and all his "principles" in Muscle & Fitness magazine, we started to build muscle. Of course our chests and biceps were the primary targets, but we followed the articles and were always trying new exercises to build certain body parts. We worshipped the bodybuilding legends of the day. We all know Arnold, but there was Franco Columbu, Lou Ferrigno (who became TV's Incredible Hulk), Frank Zane, Lee Haney, and Tom Platz. Oh, how we would marvel at Tom's thighs, of Haney's mass, and Zane's more slender proportions. These guys were our gods.
Arnold
Franco Coumbu
Frank Zane
Lee Haney
Lou Ferrigno
Tom Platz
Our workouts were long and intense. We lifted to failure on virtually every set while Rich or Jimmy would spot me (or vice versa) to get in more reps. Two comments I can make on this now. First, that's how you make quick progress. Those sets were intense, and we would literally be screaming on those last reps. Plus, at any point in time, we could tell you where we were sore, the natural by-product of this habit . You don't see that kind of intensity very often in the social gyms of today. But if you want to make changes to your physique in the shortest amount of time, find a workout partner who will spank the snot out of you. And be willing to let out a little noise in your workout.
The second point is that if I lifted like that now, I'd probably end up in the hospital. Actually, I don't believe that's true, but in my old age, I'm content with a wee bit less intensity. It's very rare that I have a partner to push me so hard, and I'm not the scrawny 15 year old anymore. Now it's more the battle of the bulge.
Our lifting was our ritual until it came time for me to head off to college in Gainesville. Jimmy and Rich stayed back home and kept the equipment occupied. At UF, I discovered a weight room at one of the dorms of one of my buddies where I could lift for free. I'll freely admit here that as an incoming freshman, I was now more interested in the beer than the weights. Combine that with lots of late night pizzas, and I had traveled a long way from that skinny 15 year old.
Can you say beer belly? I think Kellie exagerates it a bit, but she remembers me coming home to visit and noticing my first spare tire. So maybe my program slipped a bit. We're all capable of a little backsliding now and again. Thankfully, God had a bigger plan (doesn't he always?!) and determined that the hot brunette and I would be married; and that I'd start the "Huge Gym".
The original Huge Gym was actually an unihabitable townhouse in Gainesville, Florida, home of the Fightin' Gators. Me and the hot brunette, shortly after our shotgun wedding, got a job as a slumlord for a group of townhouse condos that the owner wanted us to rent. We got this sweet gig (and it really was for 20 yr olds struggling to pay for college) from my fraternity "grand brother" Flody Suarez, a very charismatic and truly caring kinda guy who had recently graduated and worked for the owner. BTW, Flody is now a hugely successful TV show producer - you'd recognize some of his shows.
Southwood Townhouses
Anyway Flody put us in charge of these 22 units of which only 2 were rented. And he gave us a bit of latitude with rental amounts if we could fill these units with good tenants. Because of my involvement in my fraternity, we had these babies filled that fall with a whole lotta Delts and Delt little sisters. It became a very fun place to hang out. Too fun sometimes Kellie would point out.
So one of these units was in really bad shape. Needed carpet replacement and new drywall for starters. Flody said we didn't have the cash to fix it up so we used it as a storage unit for tools, paint, lawn mower, etc. Well, I still had a lot of free weights, a squat rack, and a nice bench back at my parent's place in Delray Beach, FL. I don't remember how, but we got this stuff to Gainesville and it ended up in the downstairs living room of the unrentable townhouse.
I'm still using the same weight bench and plates. The original Huge Gym had a second one but I gave that away when we left Gainesville. This simply designed, sturdy weight bench is an all-in-one tool. I can extend the arms up and use is as a squat rack (so I eventually gave the squat racks away when we couldn't fit them in one of our U-Haul moves). It has a "preacher curl" attachment which I sometimes use to support my back on military presses. And because the top of the arms have a flat surface, I can use them for doing dips.
Dip setup
The current Huge Gym
The only things missing from the gym were a leg extension/leg curl piece and a cable pulley system. To this day I've never solved the leg extension thing - I just get by with squats - and there's no better excercise than that. As for the cable system I wanted something to duplicate what you'd find in a real gym for lat pull downs and tricep push downs. In 1984, you couldn't Google "lat pull down bars" and expect to find a place to buy them. Plus I was too poor to afford much anyway. So I sketched the pieces I needed and brought them to a welder in Gainesville. I don't remember the details of this exchange other than it didn't cost much, and the three pieces he built are still going strong today. Every few years I have to replace the coated cable or the pulleys (from Home Depot) but at a minimal cost of time or money.
Somewhere we got our hands on some mirrors for the walls so we could watch our form and marvel at our pumped muscles. My most faithful companion in the gym was my high school buddy Bill Stone. Bill was one of those rare strong men who could bench press over 300lbs. And the bench press was always the measuring stick. Yours truly never quite got there. There were others from the apartments, including the hot brunette, who would join in, and it became a great hangout for a bunch of poor but active college kids.
I'm not certain of this, but I think the late Kevin Henderson (a high school and college buddy who died with his wife and daughter in an apparent murder/suicide - so very bizarre) coined the name "Huge Gym". While I'd like to say the name came from my enormous, muscular proportions, it was really from the mispronunciation of my last name. Some people can't seem to say "Hughes" as in "hues". They like to pronounce the "g" and it comes out as "huges". I'm not bothered by this, and it does help screen phone calls when someone asks for "Mr. Huges".
The original Huge Gym only lasted about 18 months. After graduation, we moved to Charlotte, NC where the gym's contents were stored in a closet off of our apartment's back patio. When the weather warmed, I'd pull the stuff from the closet for an outdoor workout. Then we moved to another apartment. And another apartment. Then to our first home. We had a two car garage, and I stored the weights in the corner. I'd back the car into the driveway to make room for a workout
The only problem with this arrangement was the cold in winter. So I bought a space heater and gloves. Those took my excuses away, but I still complained about the cold so I joined a small gym nearby for those winter months. After 8 years in NC, we moved to Florida and again set up shop in our garage.
Not the original, but the same kind of space heater
Now in our 4th Florida residence, the gym has followed and become a fixture in each of our homes. It's still a garage thing, and probably always will be as long as we live in the Sunshine State (hard to find a basement down here). However, I can brag now as we have an "oversize" garage with an area soley dedicated to the gym. I added an air conditioning system (a fan) to compliment the heating system. In August it works best before the sun rises.
The point of all this is that weightlifting has been a constant in my routine since I was a kid. And for good reason. In my youth it added size and strength. Later, the lifting habit kept me strong and injury free as I played sports (still does). And now in my old age, I can boast that weight training, with more core exercises added in the last decade, has kept my back healthy.
I've had times when I'm training so long for triathlon (half ironman prep for example) that I stop lifting altogether. And I've paid the price especially with back pain. Combine that excessive tri training with lots of driving (you know I just drive around in my car all day for a living), and you have the recipe for back pain. While I love my chiropracter, Dr. David Zamikoff, I prefer to visit him for maintenance calls vs. repair calls.
A huge benefit to a tightwad like me is the cost savings of a home gym. Sure there's an upfront cost to the equipment, but it's way less than the cost of a set of golf clubs, and the technology of free weight hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. Good equipment, and there's plenty of junk out there, will last a life time. A multi-purpose bench, a barbell, a pair of dumbells, and some weight plates and voila. For $400 you have enough equipment to sculpt your desired physique.
The last point about having your own "huge gym" is the convenience. Maybe I'm a little more driven than some, but I find that having a home gym is the ultimate in time management which enables me to do more. Sure, there's better equipment at the gym, but if you have to wait to use it, or if you're commuting time adds close to an hour to your program, then your gym time could be eating into some other time.
"But the gym motivates me" I hear many say. So be it. To that point we can also add that we can see and make other fit friends at the gym. And that's a beautiful thing. Whether you lift at the gym or in your garage or your spare bedroom or your basement - just do it. Your body will thank you.
Thanks for reading. If you're ever in the neighborhood, come on by for a Huge workout!
