How to Open Your Own Warehouse Gym
By
Elliott Hulse
When I was four-years-old living in Long Island with my parents, my uncle ran
into some hard times. He had just gone through a tough divorce at the age of
only 23. My parents, also very young at the time, were blessed to have a large
enough home with a spare bedroom for my uncle to stay in. In exchange for
allowing him to stay at their home, they asked that he baby-sit me while they
were at work.
Uncle Elroy was about 5’7” and 145 lbs of pure muscle, tendons, and strength.
He and I would wake up after my parents had gone to work and watch “Channel 5
Kung Fu” with breakfast (if you grew up in New York City in the 80s, you’ll know
what I’m talking about). Afterward, Uncle Elroy, who was a black belt in
northern Shoulin Kung Fu, and I would go down into the dark, dusty basement, and
as he called it, “train.”
He taught me how to climb ropes and do push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups when
most kids my age were still pissing the bed. The basement had no training
equipment, only a few wooden boxes, concrete blocks, and the house’s structural
pillars that rose out of the ground. My uncle would beat his shins and forearms
against these pillars in order to “toughen his skin.”
These are my very first memories of training. As I made my way through high
school, my love for training continued to evolve, and additions were made to our
“basement gym.” My father bought a power rack and about 600 lbs of plates so my
little brother and I could continue our training and develop our young
physiques. By then, my uncle had gotten back on his feet and was working again
as a personal trainer in a “warehouse gym” located in Jersey City, over 100
miles from our home in Long Island. He frequently visited us and continued to
teach my brother and I how to train with only the minimal equipment that we had.
After college, I continued to train in my basement as preparation for playing
football. I decided to study exercise physiology in graduate school so as to
increase my knowledge in my area of passion—training. However, it wasn’t very
long before I realized that what was taught in university labs and classrooms
had very little to do with training and much more to do with padding the egos of
professors and administrators. They received great pleasure by complicating and
bastardizing the simple yet ancient art of bodily exercise. Most of what they
taught me was based on an aerobic model of fitness, which had become popular in
the United States in the late 70s/early 80s. It had very little practical
application for the athlete or for those training for strength, vitality, and
vigor.
After dealing with deep inner turmoil and frustration, I decided that my best
option was to quit graduate school and join the workforce as a personal trainer
just like my uncle. A personal trainer is one who instructs others on the proper
use of exercise and is knowledgeable in the application of fitness modalities.
They typically work for a “health club,” where they solicit the business of
often lazy, slothful, yet well to do individuals who believe that by hiring a
fitness instructor somehow, probably by osmosis, they too will develop physical
strength and the aesthetics associated with it.
More times than none, these “clients” showed up late to appointments, having
just filled their fat guts with sausage sandwiches from Jack in the Box, and
insisted that I “take it easy on them” because they had one too many cocktails
the night before. What is even worse is that these so-called health clubs are
designed to cater to the degenerate behavior displayed by its patrons. In fact,
there was nothing healthy about the health club. It was just another
modality for shallow people to continue adding to the daily delusion that they
call “life.”
Having already quit graduate school based on the pretense of the
administrators and professors, I was reluctant to retire from the health club
and confused about where I would offer my services as a strength coach. In great
agony about my future, I called upon my uncle, the man who helped raise me and
sparked my passion for training several decades earlier. He reminded me of our
battles and success with training in the dark, dirty basement of my parents’
home. He made it very clear to me that, like the old Shoulin monks, we only need
very basic training materials as well as a positive and
energetic environment to develop our and our students’ physical
capacities.
This is where the seed of my very first
“warehouse gym business” had
been buried. Stay tuned for part two, where you’ll watch this seed germinate,
take root, and become strength camp.
Elliott Hulse is a professional Strongman and strength coach who trains
athletes to get super strong and fast in his warehouse gym with less than $1000
worth of equipment. Learn how you can escape the clutches of the fake fitness
facade and rebel with your very own warehouse gym like Elliott did by visiting
http://www.WarehouseGymBusiness.com.
