Up until the age of 14 I had never done any training. Never lifted a weight.
That was all about to change when I went to Yugoslavia with my family and my great aunt.
We didn’t have much money in those days, so my parents had to take the cheaper option and go there by coach. Yes, that’s right – we got on a coach and spent the next 28 hours making our merry way to Yugoslavia.
Our destination? An off-season skiing village that was very beautiful, but first we had to get there.
My dad had been given a bunch of Muscle & Fitness magazines by a guy at work. He had no interest in the magazines so he gave them to me. During this coach journey to Yugoslavia all I had to do was read these magazines and somehow it captured my imagination.
The people in these magazines looked other-worldly. I know a lot of people are grossed out by overly muscular bodybuilders, but all I could see was the aesthetic side of it. Of course, I’d never want to ACTUALLY look like them, but I liked the idea that I could do something to get stronger and fitter.
So when I got back I went into Birmingham by train and bought a set of Weider 20kg dumbbells from Argos. I carried them all the way back and walked back from the train station, by which point by biceps were already pumped. I bumped into my next door neighbour, Kate and proudly told her what was inside my heavy box of delights.
At first I used to just do basic exercises with these dumbbells. My favourite was being stood upright against the door doing curls, but I quickly realised I needed a bench to do more, so I saved up my paper round money and bought one. It was a DP Fit for Life bench and my dad let me train in the garage.
It had a sit-up accessory on it as well, so all of a sudden I could do bench press for my chest, leg extensions, reverse curls and even do sit-ups like I was in a Rocky film or something. I used to put loud dance music on the stereo and train with a paraffin heater on in the Winter.
One night I came back down the garden and told my Grandfather what I’d been doing. He just looked at me very concerned and said, “You be careful.”
“Be careful? I’m fine”, I thought to myself.
I carried on this way until I was 17, at which point I used to go to a gym called Curves in town. The regular members hated people as young as me going to the gym. It was different times back then. I used to put gel in my hair and it would get in my eyes while I was training. I must have gone there about 6 or 7 times on my own. I used to get a bus back from the rag market and this is where it all went a bit shit.
I got heckled by people passing by a few times. None of that really bothered me although I did feel a bit unsafe as it was usually about 10pm by the time I got out of that gym. One night though, someone came over to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes.
“No thanks”, I replied.
This guy stopped and stared at me for a few seconds, then he got out a gun and held it to my head. I was not expecting that to happen and a wave of fear washed over me. I still said no, which is quite ridiculous in those circumstances. I don’t know how long he had it held to my head or even if it was real, but it certainly looked it and I was relieved when he pulled it back away from my head and walked off.
This was probably the most frightening thing that has ever happened to me. I never returned to that gym again because of this experience, so I carried on training at home.
Well, that is until I forgot to turn off the paraffin heater one night after training. Even worse, I went to laser quest in town and when I got back my dad went ape shit. Smoke had been bellowing out of the garage and not long after that he threw all my weights out of the garage to teach me a lesson. Nice.
When I was 18, I went with a friend of mine to a spit and sawdust gym in Solihull. At first we were a bit apprehensive about going in there because it had a reputation for having massive blokes in there on steroids. After driving past it a few times, we built up the courage to go in. A trainer there showed us around.
All the walls had posters of busty women in there as well as bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a very politically incorrect place with what was on the wall, but it felt okay so I started training there.
I carried on training there until 2004 when it was closed down because the lease run out. After that I joined a commercial gym which was more hygienic but also full of more corporate types that were winding down after work. It was a way of mixing socialising in with training, although the training sessions would last a long time, it began to feel like a home from home to me.
I went years without missing a week of training, right up until COVID. It all went a bit tits up during this period even though I carried on during lockdown, it threw off my routine. I have spent quite a while getting back to where I was, which isn’t easy but I’m there now. I have also focused more on the cardiovascular side, because I think you need that more as you get older.
Balancing physical fitness with strength and endurance is no mean feat, but I am up for the challenge now and always will be as long as I’m still breathing. None of this would have been my reality though if I hadn’t read those Muscle & Fitness mags on the way to Yugoslavia when I was only 14 years old.
Thanks for reading. See ya in the next one.