Some expressions get so overused that they start to get on your nerves after a while.“Old School” is one of these expressions that is overused and under-defined.

What is Old School? I hear that term and I think about Old School gyms and Old School people. What makes a gym or a person Old School?

What I first picture when hearing the term Old School in reference to gyms, I think of the 1970s and 1980s. If you are in your 50s or older, you remember those gyms. There were not many gyms back then. There weren’t all these chain gyms around like there are now. I remember when I read about the first Gold’s Gym coming to Maryland, I couldn’t believe it. Gold's Gym? Here in little old Maryland?

Most owners of these Old School places were not in it to make money, but just to have a place to train with their buddies. Typically, there would be a bell on the front door announcing someone entering. No air conditioning, no heat. A grumpy old dude or woman on steroids with a receding hairline and deep voice would be manning the front desk with Tupperware always in front of him, or a thermos full of protein shake mixed with full cream. There would be a water fountain with the coldest water around, with a sign on the wall behind it reading, “Don’t spit in the water fountain.” There was no such thing as bottled water, you just used the water fountain. Nobody even thought of bringing a drink with you. It's strange, though – I never remember anyone being dehydrated or cramping.

The gym would smell of liniment, sweat, and testosterone. There would be power racks with numbers hand-painted on them. The dumbbells would pinch your fingers if you didn’t hold them quite right because the weld would be cracking some. A pile of old magazines would be stacked on a shelf somewhere: Strength and Health, Muscle Builder/Power, some Playboys sprinkled in, a National Geographic or two. The members would train with the basics because that's all there was to do. There’d be benches, stair-step squat racks, a leg extension, and a leg curl. Maybe there would be a plate-loaded lat machine or two.

Where I grew up in Maryland we had a few gyms. The aforementioned Gold’s, and then there was Dynamo Gym in Berwyn Heights. It was Dynamo Gym/Scuba. I’m not sure if there were tanks in there to swim in, or if they just sold scuba equipment. The gym was in the basement of the shop. Hardcore. I’d go upstairs when I was in high school to buy muscle and lifting magazines (there were muscle magazines and scuba magazines upstairs for sale). It was the only place in the county that sold Powerlifting USA and Iron Man magazine, and it received its shipment of Muscle and Fitness before anyone else.

I ventured into the basement to watch the lifters one day. I was a kid, maybe 12 years old. What I can remember was lots of chalk and Olympic weightlifters. I had never seen that before except for the fat strong Russian guy in the Olympics. I started talking to a man who was performing snatches. He asked me what kind of program I was currently doing. We had a student teacher at our school at the time who had us on a program. I told them, "3 weeks of 8s, 3 weeks of 5s, 3 weeks of 3s.” He yelled to another guy in the gym, “They do sets of 8!” The other guy shook his head.

I had no idea what was wrong with 8s, I just listened and watched. He told me that we should be doing the Olympic lifts. He didn’t have very big arms so I didn’t think he knew what he was talking about. Looking back, I wish I had listened to him.

I trained at the new Gold’s a few times and ended up working there in the 1990s. The Gold’s back then was quite different from today. It was an Old School house that was made into a gym. There were very few cardio machines that I can remember. I recall only a lone exercise bike in the corner. It had a few machines but it was mostly free weights. It had a posing room, I remember that. I saw the Barbarian Brothers doing rack deadlifts with a bunch of plates, and I went to see Tom Platz in a seminar there when I was still in high school.

I trained at a couple of Old School gyms when I lived in North Carolina and Florida. One was in Shelby, North Carolina in the basement of a sandwich place. It was the Iron Bar Gym. The bars were old, with the knurling almost gone on them. The ceiling was low. If you were over, let's say 6'2", you had to duck. Don was a good dude who was in his early 60s back in '92 when I trained there. The gym cost 10 bucks a month. Don was a great dude, always happy. He was like an old biker, with a big old beard and tattoos long before everyone had them. The gym was a little depressing, actually, real dark and dismal. It was like a large bedroom or something. It was definitely Old School, though. The equipment was usable, rusty, and creaky.

The Power Pit in Cocoa, Florida was Old School. It was owned by some local cops, I think. Carpeted floors, no air conditioning in Florida. Guys wore “Better Lifting Through Chemistry” shirts. Hot as hell. Benches with the skinny uprights. I’d be all jacked up on trucker speed and caffeine and sweating my balls off. But I had great training sessions there with my training partner, Bill the Wrestler.

The gym that I belong to now in South Jersey is Old School – Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey. You guys know the gym, the guys who never closed during the Scamdemic. It’s run by solid guys, salt of the earth. Old Marines and patriotic men and women train there. When you walk in, all the military branches and all first responders are represented with flags hanging, and there is also a big flag that reads “Fuck Murphy” which addresses the state’s governor who tried to shut the gym down and is still making the owner’s life a living hell.

The gym is two floors and has everything you need to get in any kind of training session that you want to. There are plenty of weights and different bars, platforms and rubber plates and machines and big dumbbells and Atlas Stones. Upstairs is some cardio stuff and a matted area with heavy bags and an area for jiu-jitsu or boxing or Muay Thai. It keeps the Old School theme alive.

There are still some gyms like that around, in fact there are people opening gyms that fashion themselves after those old gyms, and that’s good to see. Real lifters will always need a place where they don't have to worry about dropping a deadlift once in a while or using chalk or offending someone with a grunt or two.

What makes a lifter Old School? Attire for one. It runs the gamut for Old School, but a common theme is that Old School lifters go for comfort, not for looks or, god forbid, likes on social media. Some typical Old School attire: Jeans and work boots, cut-off sweatshirts with white athletic tape on the wrists, old ratty sweatpants or shorts, tank tops, oversized V-neck white t-shirts, construction boots or Chuck Taylors.

But Old School is more than the gym or the clothes you wear, it’s an attitude. Training for someone who is Old School is something that must get done. Their training is simple, just the basics plus curls and grip work and hitting the heavy bag. Old School lifters get their training in no matter what, never missing a session. It's making your way to the gym in inclement weather or when it’s a holiday. He still goes to the party, but the Old School lifter gets his training in first. He may have a gym bag, but it doesn't have anything on it like stickers that read “Savage” or “Be a Wolf, Not a Sheep,” or anything cheesy like that. It could be a black garbage bag, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need anything special to train except the bars and plates.

I have to laugh when my sons have to have headphones to train. An Old School lifter doesn't care about the music. In the old days, the music consisted of a boom box over in the corner blasting out Iron Maiden, or if the gym had a speaker system, it was the local rock station. Old School lifters train everywhere; in their basement, in the garage, or the local hole in the wall gym – it doesn’t matter to them. They don’t worry about social media or taking selfies or bringing a tripod to the gym. That's all blasphemy to an Old School lifter.

Old School is still out there, both in attitude and gyms. It may be hard to find with the smokescreen of the “look at me” generation so prevalent today, but it's out there. Just look for a jacked guy in jeans and combat boots heading into a hole-in-the-wall gym in a run-down strip mall.

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