Atmosphere is Everything

I often think of what constitutes the "ideal" training environment. This would be defined for most as the environment that gives one the greatest chance of success. For me, an environment that fosters hard work, dedication, attention to detail and fun would be the ideal place to train. My early experience in the weight room exemplified all of these characteristics. It set the tone for how I would train for the rest of my life. It was my high school weight room.

Lets hop in the Delorean and set the time circuits for the summer of 2000. Hopefully the flux capacitor is working.

We were 16 years old and about to enter our junior year in high school. Most of us were built like Paul Walker, but wanted to look like Vin Diesel. We had our hair dyed bleach blonde and cut short in response to the popularity of Eminem. I'm not sure what we were thinking. In fact, I don't think we were thinking much at all. What we did know was if we wanted to have any chance of success on the football field or get girls to notice us, we needed to lift.

I come from a pretty small town. My graduating class had a grand total of 78 students. So, needless to say our school didn't have a lot of money to put toward a weight room. Our weight room was the picture of Spartan minimalism. It was in an old garage that used to be the school metal shop.We had barbells, weight plates, benches, squat racks, a leg press, and a couple of mismatched dumbbells lying around somewhere, but that's all we needed. In addition to a rather sparse selection of equipment, our boom box had a broken CD player and a broken antenna. There was only one cassette tape that we could find. Little did we know, by the end of that summer we would remember the words to EVERY SINGLE SONG on that tape for the rest of our lives. Surely it was something cool like Metallica's Black album or AC/DC's Back in Black right? Nope.

Oh yes

We listed to that tape so many times that I can probably recite the words to it better than my parents ever could. It was that tape or silence. So we squatted, benched, cleaned, lunged and did pull ups to the sounds of Steve Miller Band and Coach Hettman screaming at us. We didn't have a ton of cool equipment or a fancy periodization scheme to follow, but we got bigger, faster and stronger. We set personal records and challenged each other to break those records. We built friendships and team chemistry. We developed skills that we would take with us the rest of our lives like hard work, perseverance, and goal setting. By the end of that summer we were better young men. So what's the point of the story?

The point is, it doesn't matter how much cool stuff you have at your disposal. What matters is the atmosphere you create.

When you walk into the gym, you should feel a positive energy and the desire to work hard. Your trainer or training partner should teach, motivate and encourage you. Most of all, you should feel good about yourself when you leave. So ask yourself, is your atmosphere making you better? Are you creating an atmosphere that makes you and others better?

I learned so many lessons in that weight room. It dictated the way I would train for the rest of my life. To this day, I would prefer a dusty, dungeon-like garage to train in over any commercial gym because I learned what I was capable of in that high school weight room. All I need is a rusty old barbell and a bunch of weight.