Page 34 - Fire Your Personal Trainer and Kick Your Own Damn Ass

Fire Your Personal Trainer 31
And Kick Your Own Damn Ass

The copy of STRENGTH & HEALTH on the other hand, had pictures of
cover man Phil Grippaldi who had been voted weightlifter of the year,
and photos of the new AAU Mr. America winner, Casey Viator. These
guys were massive and looked incredibly powerful even though they
were involved in different sports. This was exactly what I was after; not
that weird, old timey stuff.

When I had this magazine in my hands it really sunk in that there were

actual magazines devoted to weight training with training information,
and I started looking for them in the magazine rack at the local
luncheonette. Sure enough – there they were!

Up until that time all I ever looked for were comic books and monster
magazines like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and CASTLE
OF FRANKENSTEIN. Within weeks I was buying my first copies of
Joe Weider’s MUSCLE BUILDER/POWER and Dan Lurie’s MUSCLE

TRAINING ILLUSTRATED.

Even though I had never lifted weights before, I was already sold on
weight training, and I had a plan. Well, sort of. I would take my goody-
goody, nerdy, study habits, and I’d apply them to weight training. I’d
read up on it and learn everything I could about lifting weights from
courses and magazines. Then I would build myself up and put an end to
all the nonsense. It looked like something I could do by myself in my own

house. If these other guys could do it, I could too.

What APPEALED to me about this was that it lent itself to my skill set. I
DIDN’T KNOW FOR SURE IF THIS WAS SOMETHING I WOULD ENJOY,
but I wanted to TRY it.

I had identified sources of INFORMATION and the TOOLS I needed. I
couldn’t wait to get started.