Weightlifting has been part of my exercise regiment since the seventies. My simple description of weightlifting is moving dumbbells and barbbells in various ways with your arms and legs to improve your body strength and appearance.
But where did my long and fabled weightlifting career begin? Sports has never been part of my younger life although my father would have loved it if I had. In my 9th grade year at Lane I had to create my Sophmore schedule for Snider High School where I’d be attending the next year. My Father, a teacher and school administrator, was helping me with it. We did the English, math, science and then we got to PE. This was when Physical Education was required in high school. I don’t know if it is stell is. My memory is unclear on what choices we had for PE, but he suggested I take bodybuilding and Team Sports. I took the course and it was a tremendous impact on me the rest of my life.
My PE teacher at Snider helped me create a plan for the weight room and weights since I had never used weights as a 16 year-old. The main component of the weight room was a Universal machine which had a bench press(chest), military press(shoulder) , leg press, and pullups. There was also a pulley cable setup on the wall. In my Junior year I took another two semesters of bodybuilding and continued with weightlifting. A weight set was purchased for home use and I used the weights in the summer and in college.
So there you have it. A non-athlete takes one weightlifting/bodybuilding class and it changes their life for the better.
