15 years journey of iron, blood and good-times
It all started in 1996 at the Middletown YMCA.
The “Y” was a small dirty gym with a ton of free weights and old school experience. Joey and I did what most 15 year olds do, we bought Arnold Schwarzenegger The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and taught ourselves how to lift, maybe not correctly, but it was with barbells and dumbbells. One day stands out more then any other, that day was when we were going to squat “all-day” long, well I think we ended up doing 100 reps, but it sure seemed like all-day long. The “Y” was great and in some ways, our journey has made it back full circle, back to dirty, grime, 45lbs plates, barbells, thermal underwear and years and years worth of knowledge, created by 1000s of hours of hard work, trials and tribulations.
While lifting at the “Y”, I started doing Judo and that’s where I met my next training partner Big Dan. Big Dan was a black belt Judo player and at the time the biggest guy I knew in person. Big Dan and I starting lifting at World’s Gym, my first commercial gym and consequently my first job. I cleaned the gym at night 3 days a week for a small pay check and a free membership. Big Dan was a genetic freak, he was rep-ing out 405 like it was nothing and to a 16 year old, that was big dog weight, hell for bench press it still is 15 years later. We did the usual body part programming, chest and triceps and back and biceps. I distinctly remember having to lift up a 120lbs dumbbell to Big Dan, so he could do seated tricep extensions. For me at that time, it was a pretty serious deadlift-to-shoulder movement. Eventually Joey joined “Worlds” and that was our spot for a few years.
During college, I walked-on to play football at CCSU and that was my first introduction to actual Strength and Conditioning. Coach Erickson taught me how to power clean, squat, use a GHD and do walking lunges amongst other things. I hated him, I was a lazy college kid when it came to the weight room, I killed my self during football practice, but never wanted to sweat in the weight room. If only I could go back in time, he had platforms and bumpers for Christ sake, that’s what it’s all about…but I had no freaking idea. When the school year ended and the football players went home for the summer, we were given huge binders with the CCSU Strength and Conditioning program. It was a percentage based program and Joey and I were back at Worlds with a real program and we finally got real results, I don’t remember the numbers we put up, but whatever they were they increased a lot.
So what happened after football, I pretty much forgot everything I was taught in the football weight room, once again I was a college student with a million things on my mind and the gym wasn’t at the top of the list. A year or so later Joey and I were training together at Bigsky and we found another great book, Super Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks. This was a 20 rep squat program and it was hard and we really enjoyed it, I think Joey ended up doing 225 for 20-reps, which is pretty sick, especially for two guys who were smarter then most people at the gym, but overall still pretty gym ignorant.
I joined the Army and did only body weight stuff for a while. During my deployment to Afghanistan, I started heading back in the right direction, I flipped some tires and squatted again, heavy. I was focused on trying out for Special Forces, so I would find any excuse to go over to their compound. One day I was over there and I looked inside their gym, I saw different colored weights (Olympic bumpers), kettlebells and gymnastic rings? What the hell was that stuff? Well I wouldn’t find that until 6 months later.
First day at my new unit and a team guy said, hey if you really
want to get into shape, check out this website called www.crossfit.com .
I checked it out and found that Crossfit Central
Connecticut was
located near my house. Well that was that, I fell in love with Crossfit (CF) and the first person I pulled into the mix with me was Joey. Constantly Varied Functional Fitness done at High Intensity, at the time it made sense and seemed to be the end-all be-all. I went to a Gregg Everett Olympics lifting seminar, Level one “certification” and Rippetoe’s Basic Barbell seminar. I was using dumbbells, kettlebells and doing power-lifting, Olympic lifts, gymnastics and it was pretty great. Tom Taylor was a great instructor and really hammered the fundamentals. At this time CF
was still very underground, with only 2 or 3 gyms in Connecticut. Joey and I competed at the first east coast CF competition located in Albany NY. CF was growing in size and Joey and I felt we need to move to a larger and more well-equipped gym, CF USA.
This gym had any and every piece of equipment you could or would want.
Joey and I
climbed 20 foot ropes, pushed the prowler, and started
to really get into Olympic weightlifting. At this time our “fitness knowledge” had increased 10-fold and we were finding our stride in the game of physical fitness. The key to physical fitness was STRENGTH and that’s what we wanted to achieve. We attended a Strongman Seminar and began reading books from Dan John and Mark Twight. Also around this time, we started to really hate CF and especially the CF community. Joey and I noticed a ton of injuries occurring at CF gyms and an unfortunate event that was repeating itself time and time again. This event was inexperienced people going to a 2 day “certification” and then opening a gym
WTF, how was that possible and why was it allowed.
As a result
of the shear watering down of CF and influx of non athletic people joining the gyms, Team Darwin was born. Before I go off on a why I hate CF tangent, I will get back on track, CF was our gateway drug, to much bigger and better things….Olympic Weightlifting.
It all started in 1996 at the Middletown YMCA.
The “Y” was a small dirty gym with a ton of free weights and old school experience. Joey and I did what most 15 year olds do, we bought Arnold Schwarzenegger The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and taught ourselves how to lift, maybe not correctly, but it was with barbells and dumbbells. One day stands out more then any other, that day was when we were going to squat “all-day” long, well I think we ended up doing 100 reps, but it sure seemed like all-day long. The “Y” was great and in some ways, our journey has made it back full circle, back to dirty, grime, 45lbs plates, barbells, thermal underwear and years and years worth of knowledge, created by 1000s of hours of hard work, trials and tribulations.
While lifting at the “Y”, I started doing Judo and that’s where I met my next training partner Big Dan. Big Dan was a black belt Judo player and at the time the biggest guy I knew in person. Big Dan and I starting lifting at World’s Gym, my first commercial gym and consequently my first job. I cleaned the gym at night 3 days a week for a small pay check and a free membership. Big Dan was a genetic freak, he was rep-ing out 405 like it was nothing and to a 16 year old, that was big dog weight, hell for bench press it still is 15 years later. We did the usual body part programming, chest and triceps and back and biceps. I distinctly remember having to lift up a 120lbs dumbbell to Big Dan, so he could do seated tricep extensions. For me at that time, it was a pretty serious deadlift-to-shoulder movement. Eventually Joey joined “Worlds” and that was our spot for a few years.
During college, I walked-on to play football at CCSU and that was my first introduction to actual Strength and Conditioning. Coach Erickson taught me how to power clean, squat, use a GHD and do walking lunges amongst other things. I hated him, I was a lazy college kid when it came to the weight room, I killed my self during football practice, but never wanted to sweat in the weight room. If only I could go back in time, he had platforms and bumpers for Christ sake, that’s what it’s all about…but I had no freaking idea. When the school year ended and the football players went home for the summer, we were given huge binders with the CCSU Strength and Conditioning program. It was a percentage based program and Joey and I were back at Worlds with a real program and we finally got real results, I don’t remember the numbers we put up, but whatever they were they increased a lot.
So what happened after football, I pretty much forgot everything I was taught in the football weight room, once again I was a college student with a million things on my mind and the gym wasn’t at the top of the list. A year or so later Joey and I were training together at Bigsky and we found another great book, Super Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks. This was a 20 rep squat program and it was hard and we really enjoyed it, I think Joey ended up doing 225 for 20-reps, which is pretty sick, especially for two guys who were smarter then most people at the gym, but overall still pretty gym ignorant.
I joined the Army and did only body weight stuff for a while. During my deployment to Afghanistan, I started heading back in the right direction, I flipped some tires and squatted again, heavy. I was focused on trying out for Special Forces, so I would find any excuse to go over to their compound. One day I was over there and I looked inside their gym, I saw different colored weights (Olympic bumpers), kettlebells and gymnastic rings? What the hell was that stuff? Well I wouldn’t find that until 6 months later.
First day at my new unit and a team guy said, hey if you really
want to get into shape, check out this website called www.crossfit.com .
I checked it out and found that Crossfit Central
Connecticut waslocated near my house. Well that was that, I fell in love with Crossfit (CF) and the first person I pulled into the mix with me was Joey. Constantly Varied Functional Fitness done at High Intensity, at the time it made sense and seemed to be the end-all be-all. I went to a Gregg Everett Olympics lifting seminar, Level one “certification” and Rippetoe’s Basic Barbell seminar. I was using dumbbells, kettlebells and doing power-lifting, Olympic lifts, gymnastics and it was pretty great. Tom Taylor was a great instructor and really hammered the fundamentals. At this time CF
was still very underground, with only 2 or 3 gyms in Connecticut. Joey and I competed at the first east coast CF competition located in Albany NY. CF was growing in size and Joey and I felt we need to move to a larger and more well-equipped gym, CF USA.This gym had any and every piece of equipment you could or would want.
Joey and I
climbed 20 foot ropes, pushed the prowler, and startedto really get into Olympic weightlifting. At this time our “fitness knowledge” had increased 10-fold and we were finding our stride in the game of physical fitness. The key to physical fitness was STRENGTH and that’s what we wanted to achieve. We attended a Strongman Seminar and began reading books from Dan John and Mark Twight. Also around this time, we started to really hate CF and especially the CF community. Joey and I noticed a ton of injuries occurring at CF gyms and an unfortunate event that was repeating itself time and time again. This event was inexperienced people going to a 2 day “certification” and then opening a gym
WTF, how was that possible and why was it allowed.
As a result So I did what I’d been wanted to do for a while, I built a garage gym and totally broke contact with commercial gyms. We started Olympic Weightlifting and took it a step further and contacted Gary Valentine of Team Connecticut Weightlifting and the rest is what you call history…Darwin Barbell Club was born, we became members of Team Connecticut Weightlifting, got 70sbig and I met Dan John…..scary what knowledge and dedication does for you…I’ve probably missed a gym here or there and a crazy program we did here or there, but hell it’s 15 years of shit, I remembered the important stuff.. Squat, always use a barbell, keep a training log and have great lifting partners.
Eric great fucking write up, best yet, and to everyone out there when eric was on deployment i didn't lift with anyone else, eric has been my training partner for the last 15 years and will continue to be until we are no longer capable of lifting a 1.5kg plate. Myself and Eric work together in ways most people don't, we challenge each other's ideas and that's how we have come up with the training programs and ideas we have up to this point. I know without eric I wouldn't be where I am now, on the mat, on the trail and on the platform and I know the same goes for him. We have both tried to pass this knowledge on to others but have constantly been met with resistance, only a few strong willed individuals have been willing to listen to us and they have themselves become better at whatever athletic endevour they a participating in. All I can say that after 15 years it's been a bumpy road and I honestly wouldn't change a thing because we have both learned so much from not only each other but from many others. I will say thank you to eric for being a great training partner, my only one, and to everyone that have believed in us.
ReplyDeleteI'll add my thanks in here as well. Eric and Joey, you are the guys that really showed me there is something else out there besides the typical beach muscle workouts. Along with Fabio, John, and Joe R, I was opened up to a completely new world. I was a complete and total bum coming out of college. I had no idea how much potential was in there. I had no idea it was just the beginning.
ReplyDeleteMy goals are different than yours or Joey's, but you guys definitely are the ones that lit my flame. I'm looking forward to returning to FOB Darwin after alcatraz, and even more excited for the future as you continue your coaching training and certification.
Thanks to everyone