עצימות או שיגעון ? סיפורי מכון מאת ג'ון דפנדיס

[arbel2]

Part-2

When Michalik trained, the fires of hell burned in his eyes. The man was an animal. I lived each waking moment anticipating the ass kickin' workouts that lay ahead that day and wondering how in hell I would be able to overcome them. I lived by a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: "That which will not kill you will only make you stronger."

Surviving The Workouts

The key was to figure out how to survive and even thrive and grow on these workouts. It wasn't easy at first, but I was determined not to quit. I wanted to win the U.S.A. and claim a spot in the record books. I was not looking to be fit. I wanted to be the best. If you want to be a champion you have to make sacrifices. Michalik was not only a champion but he was the Vince Lombardi of bodybuilding. Win at any cost. Winning meant everything. He would always say, "Train beyond the pain... and death is your only release!"

It was a hot sunny day in the summer of 1979 and we just finished a brutal 55-set leg workout. Yes, that's right. 55 sets. It may sound stupid today and you may think that it was overtraining but at 20 years old, I was sporting 28 1/2" ripped-to-the-bone quads. Big, thick, muscular thighs at a time when Bill Phillips probably couldn't even pronounce the word "creatine" and way before I ever heard the words "growth hormone." Makes you think about training harder in the present era of IGF-1, insulin, and growth hormone.

Anyway, the freak Steve Michalik invited me to catch some rays at the beach in preparation for the upcoming U.S.A. On the way to the beach I kept asking Michalik what it was going to take for me to win the USA Championships. What would I have to do and what sacrifices had to be made beyond the ones that I was already making?

Steve was quiet. He just kept looking out the window but refused to mutter a word. A short time later we arrived at Jones Beach, dropped our towels on the sand, and proceeded towards the water. When we were out far enough for the water to cover my head, Steve grabbed me and aggressively shoved me under the surf. I managed to surface for a moment. I gagged, coughed, and was shoved under again.

Michalik would allow me to come up for one breath, and then proceed to shove me under again and again. I frantically kicked and fought until I finally grew weak and went limp. Michalik dragged me from the water and threw me on the beach. As I spit up water and tried to catch a breath, he started yelling like a madman. "Tell me how it felt to have one breath... How bad did you want that little breath of air? When you want to win as bad as you wanted that one breath of air, then come back and see me. That's what it will take for you to be the best!"

That day marked a hiatus that lasted for the next three years: Michalik as the demanding mentor, and I was the willing punching bag. Day after day and week after week I started to grow bigger and better. The workouts were unbelievable. Michalik taught more than training though; he instilled in me a will to win that was almost supernatural.

Living In The 70's

I lived to train, eat and sleep and I worked enough to afford all of life's luxuries which consisted of a 1972 Chevy Vega with no front end, an endless supply of chicken, a basement apartment with a mattress on the floor, and a cupboard full of vitamins. But looking back now, I realize the meaning of the phrase, "Happier than a pig in sh*t." My lifestyle would have been misery to most, but to me, I was on top of the world. I was doing what I wanted to do and I was skyrocketing towards my goal.



It didn't matter to me that I was waking up at 5:00 in the morning to eat egg whites so that I could be at the gym by 6:30, and it didn't matter that I was dragged through the last half of the workout like the gladiator in the chariot scene from "Ben Hur." What did matter was the fact that I was training with Mr. America and that even though he was mentally and physically beating the living sh*t out of me day after day, I was improving dramatically.

My 18" biceps were now well over 20" and the peaks were getting higher by the hour. Dumbbells that I had once used for heavy incline presses were now my warm-up weights for exercises like dumbbell curls and lateral rises. "Intensity or Insanity Training" was as routine, like breakfast in the morning. Every time someone said that we couldn't do something, it inspired us to try it anyway. 50 sets of heavy barbell curls? Been there. 30 sets of squats. 500 pound inclines. 100 pound dumbbell curls. 90 pound dumbbell laterals. 60 set back workouts. Our lives could have been characterized by the quote made famous by Walter Gagehot, "A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

It was about this time that my parents realized that Michalik possessed me. They despised him for turning me into a living, eating, breathing, training machine. They tried to keep me away but it was too late. Once I realized that these long, hard training sessions were the key to my progress, there was nothing on earth that could have kept me away from the gym.

Ah, the gym. Michalik's gym. No aerobics classes. No cardio equipment. No sauna, steam, or pool. No racquetball! Just big, heavy black steel machines and benches with red padding to remind you of the old torture chambers. When you came to Mr. America's Gym to train, there was only one way, one speed: very hard and very fast.

The Gym

The facade and grounds to the front door were hosed down several times a day to wash away lost breakfasts and lunches. This was the hardcore Mecca of bodybuilding, a shrine to gut-wrenching, ball-busting workouts. No Tony Little exercise tapes found on these premises. If you didn't train hard, you were shown, or should I say thrown through the back door. Medals were won by how many brutal workouts you could endure and you were only as "bad" as your last workout. You were respected not so much by how you looked but as how hard you could train.

Steve didn't take any bullsh*t. One day a guy with ELS (Exaggerated Lat Spread) came in to workout and Steve stopped him and told him that he was three months overdo on his membership dues. The guy said, "Yeah, whatever. I'll bring money in next time," and then proceeded to work out. Steve reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a hammer, and headed out the front door.

Oh boy, I thought. This is gonna' be good. I gotta' see this. As I walked out the front door of the gym, I saw Steve walk over to the guy's Corvette and smash in the headlights. Just as the guy came running out of the gym, Steve started whacking out the passenger side windows. The guy was screaming frantically, "Stop! Someone call the cops. What the hell are you doing to my car?" Steve just nonchalantly looked at him and said, "It's okay now. We're even. You can go train."

As I look back I realize that I was living in a very corrupt environment. My morals and attitude were distorted because of Steve's philosophies. Buying thirty pounds of chicken to fulfill my protein requirements was more important than paying the overdo rent on the apartment. It was much more important to be on time for the workout than it was to be on time for work. If someone trained with us and they ended up in the hospital (which was the case several times), we didn't even visit them but instead passed them off as mentally and physically weak.

As I sit here and think about the past, I have one thing to add to that Friedrich Nietzsche quote, "That which will not kill you will only make you stronger." And that is, if it does kill you, then you shouldn't have been training with us to begin with.

[arbel2]

Part 3

Pain! Pain!! Pain!!! Why is it that, in a lifetime full of suffering and hardships, some of us will take it upon ourselves to inflict even more pain? As I sit here and look back on the Michalik era, it is not difficult to understand why I would subject myself to such torture. My perseverance stemmed from wanting to win, the will to become a champion. We all have it buried somewhere within us. We all have the desire to accomplish goals. Sometimes we make excuses for our shortcomings. But, there are no excuses. A champion is a champion, and will never succumb to the obstacles that are thrown in his path.

Mr. America's Gym. Michalik struts across the gym floor with a set of 60 pounders for incline flyes. I know the routine. Three benches, three exercises, all sets to failure. Nonstop ass-kicking supersets. Steve begins with almost 300 pounds on the incline Smith machine. He then proceeds to the second bench to complete a set of incline flyes, and finally, pullovers across the last bench with a 100 pound dumbbell.



He moves methodically like a cyborg on a mission. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, on my way to the flye bench. He is indestructible, but I can't slow down or miss a beat because within minutes he will circle behind me and humiliate me. I realize now that I have not been training at this level since I left Steve years earlier. On the third cycle of exercises I feel exhausted and I begin to panic. Just as fear starts to overtake me, Michalik screams, "Come on, look at you! You pathetic piece of sh*t. What the hell have you been doing these last couple of years? Sitting on your ass eating nachos?"

Oh, man, I'm pissed off now and I manage to find the energy and guts to shift my body into high gear. At this point I must have totally lost my mind because I remember yelling, "Come on! Bury me if you think you can... Just try to put me in the hospital again. You'll be the one driving off in the ambulance Mr. Champion!" Oh, sh*t. I couldn't believe it. Those words actually came out of my mouth. I started to sound like a Michalik clone.

As I sit here and remember that moment, I wonder how many brain cells were missing from my cranium when I was born. Too many to count, I guess. "Masochism - n. a condition in which the subject delights in being hurt or humiliated." "Masochist - n. John DeFendis." Michalik was right. I was a very brash, co*ky kid. But at this point in time, I was a brash, co*ky kid who was about to get the beating of a lifetime.

My pathetic statements fueled the madman. His distorted face was overcome with a rage and fury that could have sent chills down Freddy Krueger's back. He grabbed me and threw my body up onto the pec dec.

Then he frantically started running around pulling pins out of the various pieces of equipment in the gym. It didn't take me long to figure out what was about to take place. I predicted pain and suffering ahead.

He strategically placed the pins in the weight stack, all five of them. The first set would be the entire stack, and as I completely failed with each weight, Steve would make me do a couple of forced reps before he extracted the pin. The pain was unbearable. I wanted to quit after the third drop but I knew it was not an option. To quit was to die. It felt like hours had gone by when I finally completed the series but it had only been minutes. Now, it was the Master's turn.

I would thoroughly enjoy the moments that would lay ahead. His pain was now my relief and happiness. "Sadism - n. the deriving of pleasure from inflicting pain on another." "Sadist - n. John DeFendis and Steve Michalik." Michalik churned out rep after rep. He made it look easy at first but started to grimace after he completed the second set. After his final reps on each set, I rapidly yanked the pin out so that he wouldn't get a second to rest. I wanted him to die so that I could go home a winner. Okay, maybe I would have been happy just being able to leave alive and in one piece.

Before too long I found myself back up on the machine. "Second round coming up," Michalik shouted. I knew that there would be five rounds. This was one of Steve's favorites. He wouldn't be content until I could no longer move. He wanted to teach me a lesson by annihilation. Finally, I completed my last set in the series. I remember whispering to myself, "Get me the fu*k away from this machine!"

As usual, there was a crowd of wannabe Michalik trainees standing around, waiting to see if I would fail or quit. In all the years that Michalik trained with aspiring champions, there were only a select few who could keep up. Most of them are in isolated rooms at the mental hospital. If you get close enough, you can even hear them screaming, "No more, I can't do another rep. Let me go home now!"

"Intensity Or Insanity Training" was not only a method of training that enabled me to become a champion, but it was a time that cannot and will not be duplicated. It was an era when most bodybuilders relied on ballistic and animalistic training to get big and grow strong. Bodybuilders utilized nutrition and vitamins to make progress and supplemented with minimal steroids in order to survive the torturous workouts.

Now, with drugs like growth hormone and IGF-1 accessible, the bodybuilders of today are crying "overtraining" consistently. With steroid use and abuse running rampant, I feel that the complaints of overtraining by a young, strong, juiced up "Champion" is unwarranted. But that's just my opinion. And, we are all entitled to our opinion, aren't we?

[arbel2]

Fast forward to 1982. I'm sitting in my backyard at my new home, reading a Muscle & Fitness magazine. I'm married now, a little mellower, and my situation has transported me from New York to sunny Arizona. The article that I'm focusing on is about the upcoming U.S.A. Championships and includes two of my photos. The caption next to one of my photos reads, " John Defendis, a terror from the East, is now living in Phoenix, Arizona, and is rocketing like a meteor toward the 1982 U.S.A. Championships with mass built by means of incredible 40, 50, even 75 set-per-bodypart workouts!"

I'm excited about the flattering press but I must admit, it creates undue pressure caused from the fear of possible failure. Immediately I run into the house and phone Michalik. I express my concern. Once again I realize that I made a mistake by calling him. He barks through the telephone, " You feel pressure? You are afraid that you might fail and lose the contest? You gutless bast*rd! You have two choices. You can either quit bodybuilding and take up golf, or you can fly back to New York and pick up your balls where you left them and train for the show with me!"

Michalik has once again spoken and I can feel a knot of nausea well up in my stomach. At this point I proceed to explain to my good friend Mr. Michalik that my wife and I could not afford to pay for a plane ticket to New York and at the same time miss 6 weeks of work. His voice gets even louder and he starts to sound like a psycho who has gone completely out of control. "John, do you really want to win? Must you insist on being a failure or are you going to do what it takes to win the U.S.A.?"
He hesitates for a second and then asks, "Do you own a television?" I reply with a yes not knowing where this is going to lead. Then Steve asks, "Do you own a nice stereo system?" By this time I feel like a defendant on trial that is being led into a bad position through a series of questions, but I again said yes. I told Steve, "I do own a stereo but what does that have to do with winning a contest?"

At this point Steve screams into the telephone, "Sell your damn television and sell your damn stereo and do what you have to do to accomplish your goals! Anyone can own a television but only a small handful of people have the genetics to win a major bodybuilding title. Material objects don't mean sh*t! Now you have to make a decision. Do you want to be a champion or would you rather sit at home and watch the real champions on your nice big color TV?"

At this time I really didn't need to reply because Steve and I both knew where this was going. He had too much of an influence on me. So, we borrowed the money for the trip. Delta Flight 228 was scheduled to leave Phoenix Airport at 7:30 A.M. It would be a long flight and would not arrive at Kennedy Airport until 4:45. At least I would be able to get some rest between the time that I left Phoenix and tomorrow's workout.

As I sat in my uncomfortably narrow seat on the plane, I fearfully anticipated what would lay ahead. Fortunately, the plane arrived in New York on time. That was good. At the same time Steve was waiting for me at the terminal. That was real good. Unfortunately, his dress attire was not appropriate for the occasion. This was real bad. He sported a torn up old sweatshirt with a raggy tank top underneath and some ancient sweatpants with a giant hole in the knee area. For some strange reason, I had the feeling that this was going to be a very long day for me.

Steve didn't waste any time. His warm greeting went something like this: "Let's go. Get your ass in gear. We have to train our chest, back, and shoulders and still be able to get two more meals in today." "But, Steve," I replied, "I just got off the plane and I feel like I have major jet lag. Can we start tomorrow?" His face took on a transformation and his eyes started to bug out. So before he spoke, I reluctantly committed to my post-flight, nightmare workout. At the same time I came to the sick realization that I had wished that my flight had missed the runway altogether.

The car ride from Kennedy to the gym took approximately 45 minutes. In that time span, only four words were spoken. Steve said, "I hope you're ready." I just nodded and realized that he was on a mission. I knew that he wanted to once again prove to himself that he was indestructible and that he had the capabilities of annihilating anyone in his path. This was his M.O. Michalik had sent more people to the hospital than Hurricane Andrew and the California earthquake combined.

Upon arriving at Mr. America's Gym, I noticed that nothing had changed since I had left three years earlier. A member was still forced to sign in with a syringe-pen and the atmosphere was still hardcore. No businessmen or ladies here. Just masochistic lunatics. As I entered the front door I was pleased to see that Michalik had a full size wall mural of me doing my trademark vacuum pose. Immediately several of my old friends approached me with their arms out. They reflected on the old days and expressed their congratulations on my accomplishments and articles in all of the magazines.

For a second I almost felt important and proud. But before I began to bask in my glory, it all ended abruptly. Michalik shouted across the gym, "Hey primadonna, don't listen to their ass-kissing bullsh*t. Get the hell over here and let's see if you have what it takes to be a champion. From looking at your pathetic condition I'm starting to get the impression that you've been spending most of your time rearranging cactus out there in Arizona."

At this time, I knew that I was getting ready to face the greatest challenge of my life, and more than anything, I loved challenges. I figured that I would make my situation more interesting so I said to Steve, "I'm not a kid anymore, so don't think that your attitude is going to intimidate me. I came 3000 miles to show you what I am made of, and I intend to do just that. So stop wasting my time and let's get rock'n and roll'n!" Michalik looked at me in disbelief. As he finished setting up the roped-off battle zone, he sternly said, "You, my friend, are going to die."