When I first came to this little fishing village in 1982 the road from the airport to town wasn't paved. I used to 
eat a good Chateau Briand for two all by myself in a nice restaurant because it only cost six bucks, and there was no cable; we had to watch the Super Bowl at a little cantina called El Torito because it was the only place in town with a satellite connection. And the gym? There wasn't one. Today, Puerto Vallarta is not only a bustling seaside metropolis, but it's - as I have said many times before - a bodybuilder's paradise.
What makes it such a paradise? Well, as far as I'm concerned, there's a trio of elements necessary - above all others - that you need to have readily available to become the best bodybuilder you can be. A certain faction of the community is going to disagree with me, but those elements are: good clean food, a big well 
equipped gym, and ready access to an array of legitimate pharmaceutical items. There is a ton of stuff you can add on top of that, but the core foundation to a world class physique lies in the triangle above. Remove any one leg of that triangle and you're not going to be the best you can be. Now, I know the natural guys are cursing me to death right now for saying such a thing, but, come on, if you're going to do androstenedione, 4-androstenedione, 19-androstenedione, androstenediol and its 4, 5, 17, and 19 varieties, tribulus terrestris, growth hormone stimulators, hormone-releasing peptides, plant sterols, methoxy isoflavones, testosterone "boosters", dozens of magical herbs and other precursors to testosterone and still call yourself "natural" then you might as well just do juice, just like most - if not all - top bodybuilders. Hate me if you want for saying so, but it's the truth.
Having said that, in subsequent articles I will cover all three legs of the bodybuilding triangle, today, however, I'm going to start with the most important of the three - the gym.
Like I said, when I first came here in 1982 there was no gym. A few years later a place popped up that was located up an impossible flight of stairs off the street called Lee Haney Gym. I don't think Lee knew about it 
and I wasn't going to tell him. It was the only place in town to train; a cease and desist from Lee would have cut my nose off to spite my face. Besides, it was more of a shrine to Lee than it was a rip off of his name. If he saw it Lee probably would have cried. No two pieces of anything matched. There were plates from everywhere including the sand filled plastic jobs from Sears. There was even a bar that had paint cans on either end filled with cement that created an almost even sided barbell. The benches were home made - some out of wood, others crudely welded together and rusting away in the ocean air. And none of them were upholstered; you just used a towel for a cushion. There were also no windows, no door, and in the summer months it was like training in a sauna. But all over the bare, cracked and chipped concrete walls were pictures cut from magazines of Lee Haney. Little pics, big full page shots, a few centerfolds, even a couple of posters that were signed hung from every bare space possible, even the battered cement columns. Everywhere you looked were pictures of Lee. Not Arnold, not Louie, not Franco, just Lee. Hence the name I suppose. And, man, was the owner ever proud of his creation! He was there every day (he lived above it) and he made sure you knew who Lee was. He also knew who I was and that really made him happy. He kept asking me to tell Lee about the place. I didn't have the heart to tell him if Lee knew about his place he'd probably want him to change the name! So, I lied and told him Lee loved it. It didn't matter anyway, the gym closed three years later.
Over the years more civilized places emerged and gained popularity. By the early 90s there was even a gym with air-conditioning, but just barely. In 1994 Shelley Beattie and I bought the license for Gold's Gym Puerto
Vallarta and planned to build a really cool gym on a triangular shaped lot on the main drag where the Block Buster is today. We had the Gold's recommended guys come in to do a feasibility study and their result was that the area would not support a full scale Gold's Gym. So, we decided not to sink any more money into the project. In early 2000 a real estate developer for Alaska came down and bought the license for Gold's and opened up a gigantic, modern, incredibly well equipped gym. It was by far the best gym in town, but the owner wasn't really a gym guy. He subsequently sold it to a guy named Lambert and today Gold's Gym Puerto Vallarta rocks! It has firmly established itself as the place to be. There is an entire line of Hammer, a full line of Life Fitness and the first ever full line of Hammer Select. On top of that there is a never ending pile of plastic coated iron plates, fixed bars, camber bars, dumbbells up to 150 that have triple sets up to 50 pounds, all kinds of benches, seats, power racks and two Smith machines. There's also a full blown MMA area with a regulation ring, a four story climbing wall, Spinning, aerobics, and a juice bar. It's 50,000 square feet of bodybuilding heaven ½ block from the beach.
But, as good as any gym is they don't come with a necessary element for serious hardcore training - a training partner. You have to bring your own. In my case, my girl is about the best training partner I ever had and a very important component to making any progress while I'm here. Unfortunately, she could only stay for three weeks. Now that she's gone I'm really feeling her absence. No one pushes you like a good training partner - especially a hardcore, attentive, dedicated, full of energy training partner like my GF. So, when you make your plans to come down here, make sure you bring a training partner. You're not going t be able to find one here. I don't know what it is, but the Mexicans just don't train hard. I know that is a very general statement and there are surely exceptions to the rule, but for the most part you will be very disappointed if you come down here and expect to pick up a hard core training partner. They just don't throw down like we do back home. It's really interesting; I've given several seminars down here over the years and I've never had a question asked ab
out training principles. Not a single question about how any of the top IFBB guys train, or even something as basic as how to train to increase your bench. All anyone wants to know is what to take. What to take to burn fat, what to take to get big, what Jay Cutler takes... no one wants to know how to train! Hence, the puny guys training. In any gym in the US the guys way outsize even the biggest guys here.
Another thing that makes Gold's Gym such a perfect bodybuilding spot in Puerto Vallarta is that it is on the ground floor of a hotel. So, if you care to make a bodybuilding journey south you can stay right up stairs. In the same plaza as the gym and the hotel are two coffee shops, a sushi bar, a tattoo and piercing shop, a supplement store, a place that offers deep tissue massage, and right on the corner - a pharmacy!
I'll get to the pharmacies, and the food, in subsequent installments. For right now, the first and most important leg of the bodybuilding triangle is well established here in Puerto Vallarta - for any money, the gym and its surrounding amenities alone make PV the bodybuilder's paradise! Next I'll show you what food shopping is like down here. You won't believe the prices!!!
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