The Dungeon
By
Sean Barker
Wabush, Labrador, Canada. A small mining town nestled in the cold and desolate
woodland of northern Canada. Seven months of the year this isolated town in the
middle of nowhere is covered in a deep and cold blanket of snow. Darkness comes
early, and with the wind chill, temperatures can reach -70 degrees Celsius. But
there is a place I go where the temperature is a lot warmer. Tucked away in the
basement of the local recreation center is a little room I like to call the
Dungeon. Some people call it “the Weight Room” and others call it a gym, but to
me, it’s a dungeon.
It was originally built back in the early 1980s by old veteran powerlifters. One
in particular went on to win a gold medal in international competition. Almost
every piece of exercise equipment was made by hand in the nearby iron ore mines.
Welded and made of cold steel, almost every piece of equipment you see in this
“gym” was built from scratch. It’s filled with chalk-filled barbells, dumbbells,
squat racks, and lifting platforms. There’s no chrome or fancy machines, and
there’s just one broken exercise bike tucked away in the corner. As for music,
there’s no surround sound system here playing Ryan Seacrest’s Top 40 Countdown.
Just an old stereo that mostly caters to heavy metal music. Perfect.
Entering the recreation center, I reach the bottom of the stairs. As I enter
through the old, squeaky door, I drop down a little ramp onto the floor, which
is concrete with rubber matting. Even the rubber matting covering the floor is
made of old conveyor belts salvaged from the local mines. The low ceiling with
condensation dripping from overhead pipes and bad lighting would give anyone the
feeling of claustrophobia. The horrifying screams, the sound of cold steel, and
the smell of sweat momentarily give me a chill like a cold winter’s day. But at
the same time, a fire begins to burn inside that is making my blood boil in
anticipation of wrapping my hands around hundreds of pounds of cold steel. My
heart immediately begins to race, knowing that before I leave, I’ll endure a
physical torture familiar with any dungeon.
The homemade, paint-chipped dumbbells don’t all go up in 5-lb increments. After
your 60s, you have 67s, 73s, 80s, 82s, 97s, and 100-pounders. Unfortunately,
this is where the rack ends. But you have to be creative, and there are still
plenty of plates to make any bar bend.
I have trained in gyms all over Canada, and I wouldn’t trade this gym for a
Gold’s Gym in Venice. I practically grew up in this gym. I have been training
there for 15 years. I was first introduced to lifting weights at 12-years-old.
My father, who was in his late thirties at the time, started training at our
local weight room. No, it wasn’t a “gym.” It was a weight room in the basement
of our small town’s recreation center.
I started to train consistently at age 16. As time went by, the veteran lifters
at the local gym really noticed that I stood out above anyone my age, not just
for my physique but also for my sincere dedication and love for training. I
would get up bright and early while on summer vacation to be at the gym to train
with my father (who had trained for over 20 years). I loved the challenge of
pumping iron and the camaraderie that existed between the regular lifters at the
gym. I loved learning from the old school lifters, such as a former Mr. Barbados
and an international gold medal winner in powerlifting. It was like our own
version of Pumping Iron, the bodybuilding documentary that made Arnold
famous.
I will always cherish those memories of getting up early in the morning when all
my friends were sleeping or at hockey practice and spending that time in the gym
with my father. As for all the guys I knew who grew up playing hockey and
listening to their hockey dads scream at them for an hour, hardly any continue
to play today. The time together in the gym taught me life long
lessons about work ethic, goal setting, failure, and many more. I only hope that
I can instill the same values in my children and show them the vital importance
that exercise plays in living a long and healthy life. I sincerely hope that
this will inspire you to do the same.
Sean Barker is a certified personal trainer and a proud and busy dad. He has
been involved in the health and fitness industry for over 15 years and has
appeared in High Performance Muscle magazine. He has been on health and fitness
radio shows and was selected as a sponsored athlete by one of the top supplement
nutrition companies in the world. His popular Dad Fitness fat loss workouts have
helped thousands of dads around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in
less than three hours per week. For more information on the Dad Fitness workouts
that will help you burn fat without spending hours in the gym, visit
http://www.dadfitness.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products
and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the
industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit
us at www.EliteFTS.com.
