 |
| It doesn't take much equipment to set up a great place to train. |
Hail to the Dinosaurs!
When I was a kid, Bruno Sammartino
was the Heavyweight Wrestling
Champion of the World.
Sammartino was a super-strong, thickly
muscled man - and one of the very
strongest men in the world.
He set a World Record in the bench
press with a huge 565 pound lift.
He also body slammed 600-pound
Haystacks Calhoun at Madison
Square Garden.
That's some serious strength.
Sammartino was a real-life success
story.
His family lived in Abbruzi, Italy
during World War Two, and had
to hide in a cave in the mountains
to escape the fascists.
They survived by eating grass and
any wild plants they could find. Poor
Bruno almost starved to death.
After the War, they immigrated to the
USA.
Bruno weighed something like 80
pounds as a young teenager - a real
stringbean - but then he discovered
weight training, and the rest, as
they say, is history.
Bruno published a great little training
course after he became the Heavyweight
Champion of the World.
I saw it in the back of a wrestling
magazine, and of course I sent away
for it immediately.
The course included plans for building
your own bench and squat stands out
of wood.
I had a bench with uprights that
doubled as adjustable squat stands,
so I didn't try making my own
equipment.
But five or six years later, after we
had moved, I was setting up a home
gym, and I needed some strong,
sturdy squat stands.
So I pulled out the old course and
made a set of self-standing squat
stands out of 4 x 4 uprights with
2 x 4 cross-braces at the bottom.
It took me awhile, because I'm
not much of a carpenter.
I wasn't able to follow the plans
exactly as they were written, so
I made some changes and did
the best I could. I figured it
would all be okay.
Finally, the squat stands were
finished.
They looked pretty good, so I
decided to give them a try.
I started light, and added weight
from set to set.
Everything was fine until a set with
300 pounds.
When I tried to put the bar back
on the stands, I knocked one of
them over.
So there I was, with 300 pounds
on my back - and I couldn't drop it
because I was using metal plates
and I was standing in my parents'
garage, and I sure as heck wasn't
going to knock a big hole in the
concrete floor.
The doors were closed, so I couldn't
walk outside and drop the bar in
the back yard.
I was trapped.
Luckily, my younger brother heard
the crash when the squat stand hit
the ground, and came out to see
what was happening.
After he stopped laughing, he lifted
the squat stand up and put it back
into position, and I was able to rack
the bar.
After that, I learned my lesson - and
braced the heck out of those squat
stands with 25 and 50 pound plates
to keep them from tipping over.
The funny thing is, I had some GREAT
workouts in that garage - even with
those wobbly, tippy homemade squat
stands.
 |
| My current training quarters are a lot like where I trained when I was a kid - and I'm having great fun in each and every workout! |
Now, I'm not suggesting that wobbly,
tippy squat stands are a good thing.
But I am saying this - you can have
some great workouts without very
much in the way of fancy equipment.
In fact, you may very well find that
the best workouts of your life are
the ones you take in your garage,
basement, or backyard.
Just you and the iron.
Exactly the way it should be.
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
P.S. If you remember Bruno Sammartino
from when you were younger, you're an
older Dino now - and you're ready for
the workouts and training tips in Gray
Hair and Black Iron:
http://www.brookskubik.com/grayhair_blackiron.html
P.S. 2. My other books and courses
are right here at Dino Headquarters:
Hard-copy and PDF
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
Kindle
http://www.brookskubik.com/kindle.html
P.S. 2. Thought for the Day
"Some of the best workouts in your
life will happen in the most spartan
and basic of places to train."
-Brooks Kubik
BEFORE YOU LEAVE . . .
We have more than 25 Dinosaur Training books and courses in the Kindle
bookstore - here are several of them - head on over and take a look at the others:
 |
