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Iron Subculture: Part 1

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Iron Subculture: Part 1

Details: Published on Wednesday, 13 May 2009 00:31; Written by Steve Colescott

Welcome to the first installment of my Iron Subculture column. By definition, a subculture is a group that exists within a society but with beliefs and values that often differentiate it from the dominant culture. Things like avoiding birthday cake because you are trying to maintain single-digit bodyfat, sniffing ammonia inhalants before attempting a personal record deadlift, taking personal pride in the fact that you feel crippling muscle soreness from your workout three days ago or weighing your food into individual-serving Tupperware containers, seem like they would qualify. While the worlds of bodybuilding, strongman and powerlifting vary a great deal, we have more in common with one another than we do the zombies in the outside world, with their flatulent pecs and their ritual evenings of TV-and-six-pack vegetation. This column is for all of us that have embraced the difficult path and the rewards and challenges of the iron.

Some of you may not know who I am... okay, none of you know who I am. No need to rub that in. Let me give you a quick bio. Bear with me, as I will keep it as brief as possible. I'm based in northeast Ohio and my hobbies include needlepoint and bare-knuckle boxing. I've been working in the fitness industry for over twenty years (which you can take to mean I have either really seen a lot or just have not progressed that far career-wise in two decades).

I got my start back in the pre-internet days by copy-and-pasting out a letter to about a dozen of the top experts from the musclemags. In it, I asked guys like Jeff Feliciano, Michael Zumpano, Jerry Brainum, Fred Hatfield and Dan Duchaine (pretty much the only guys writing about bodybuilding science at the time) a half-dozen of what I felt were linchpin questions, just to get a consensus answer on some of the issues that most intrigued me.

About half of them wrote back. Duchaine gave me his phone number and we spoke on the phone a few times. I recall once calling right as he was sitting down to dinner with some well-known west coast competitors and, when I apologized for my poor timing, he said, "No, its fine..." and we spoke for another half hour. It was a side of him not many got to see.

Zumpano not only wrote me back in depth but commended me on the insightfulness of the questions. He went on to say that I wrote very well and asked if I was interested in being a part of the hardcore newsletter he was planning for Champion Nutrition.

This of course, received a leaping fist-in-the-air response. I was managing a World Gym, was completely immersed in a gym rat lifestyle and his "Rebound Training" articles in Muscle Builder were the first things I have ever ready that pushed the boundaries. My second response was not unlike the lead character in the movie Almost Famous, "Oh shit. I could never work with him. He has no clue I'm just in my late teens!" While it took a couple of years for Zumpano to get that Champion Nutrition newsletter together, due to his encouragement, I started writing freelance for the newsstand magazines.

After a couple years of freelance, I did the obvious. I had a core audience of a half-dozen fans, a few hundred dollars and no real industry contacts... why not start my own mag? The printing bill for the first issue was well over $50-grand, no one would advertise for something they had never seen by someone they had never heard of and I barely knew how to use a computer. Thus was born a second mortgage and Peak Training Journal.

Peak was more a cause than a business (obviously). We championed the underdog aspects of the industry and served as a Consumer Reports for the sports nutrition industry. Being a good guy isn't necessarily enough of a business plan and Peak ran into financial ruin within a couple of years.

While it lasted though, I had some great experiences. I got to spend four days in Texas with Ronnie Coleman before his first Olympia win. I designed the label for the first bottle of andro ever sold. I may have given Paul Demayo the food poisoning that cost him his Nationals win in 1992. While in England for the NABBA Mr. Universe, I trained at Dorian Yates' Temple Gym and, because he liked Peak, he chose me to announce his retirement from the sport (at midnight the day his years-long Weider contract expired). I was even asked by an Australian steroid manufacturer which products U.S. bodybuilders would most like to see (and they came out with my tren and high-potency test and d-bol suggestions). Flex Magazine's then-editor, Jerry Kindela christened me "The Guerrilla Publisher" and even sent us some of the items they thought were too hardcore for inclusion in their mag.

But the best part of doing the mag though was the opportunity to regularly watch or train with top bodybuilding, powerlifting and strongman champions and meet competitors at ALL levels. I met non-placers in local shows that were more hardcore and inspirational to me than Olympia competitors. Trust me, I felt incredibly fortunate, like a twelve-year old getting to be batboy for his favorite Major League baseball team. I even got to introduce the world to the writing of an innovative young expert-in-the-making named Dave Palumbo.

Although Peak's demise left me with a huge debt, it provided me with some good opportunities and I went on to work as a consultant for four different sports nutrition companies for some pretty amazing fees (didn't these guys know I was a few semesters shy of even getting my bachelor's degree?). Eventually, I left the big guys and opted to work for a small little company that I felt good about. I worked with Beverly International for eight years and they are still like a family to me. In the span of the past decade I have had eighty to a hundred published articles and feel like I have really helped a lot of people reach their goals. Now here I am back with Dave and John Romano working on Rx Muscle and I have to tell you, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

So in this column, I plan to cover a wide gamut of topics, focusing on some alternative input. You can expect athlete profiles, info on strength athletes, new products, opinions and gossip... pretty much whatever is rolling around in my gourd. Let's roll.

Find the Little Man: Brian Chamberlain Torments his Training Partners

Chamberlain2 ClubFit 247 in West Chester is one of eastern PA's top hardcore muscle hotbeds. The gym's owner, Brian Chamberlain, is an IFBB Pro by virtue of his 2004 North American overall win and a strong contender in the newly-implemented Pro Under 202-pound class contests. In addition to his passion for training, Brian's well thought-out training programs have played a big part in his platform success. He credits his "Find the Little Man" technique for some of his improvements.

It's like a twisted version of "The Weakest Link," except in the Team Chamberlain interpretation, the stakes are higher. Instead of huge sums of cash, the reward is the honor of knowing you were able to dig deeper within yourself, to drive past pain and nausea and push further into the pain zone than your training partners. While cash prizes can be squandered quickly, the honor and character built through gym battles lives forever.

Brian explains, "On leg day we might load the leg press machine with something that we can only get twelve times. Currently, that weight is about eighteen plates per side. Then we yank two plates from each side, and do twelve more reps. We continue pulling two plates from each side and grinding-out a dozen reps until we are down to just a total of four plates. Whoever doesn't finish is the little man. If you puke, you are the little man. If you cry, bitch or complain, you are the little man."

"If there is ever a fresh victim we really have fun with it," one of his training partners adds. "Sometimes we get new people that want to come down here and mix it up with us. If they show up all headstrong, wanting to go, we'll use ‘Little Man' to sort them out - especially on a leg day. That's how we weed out the weak."

Rotating quickly through a group of three or four lifters, Brian and crew are able to complete a great deal of work in a short period of time. They believe this fast pace both ignites growth and improves muscle quality. One of the crew explains, "The order of rotation is determined before we start. If you are not ready to jump on the bench or get under the bar right when your turn comes up, you'll definitely hear about it."

"Even subtle stalling techniques like suspicious pre-set coughing, belt or knee-wrap adjusting are picked up on," Brian says. "If we see people starting to resort to these, it's like a shark smelling hemoglobin."

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