Old School Bodybuilding - Shout out to Queensland Uni!

While sojourning in Brisbane I have struggled to find a decent gym. I would normally book one to one sessions with my coach Damon at his great facility in Fortitude Valley, however for the last 5 weeks I have been going old school with a Mark Rippentoe routine from Starting Strength to work on my form and manage some issues I am having with recovery (subject of a new blog next week). Therefore finding a gym with power racks and the ability to powerclean was a priority.

I have already blogged on my disastrous workout at Fitness First so following a google session and spotting a positive forum review on the University of Queensland gym I caught a ferry to the St Lucia campus and hoped for the best.

Upon arrival I paid $14 for a casual session. Staff were very friendly and the change rooms large and spacious including automated lockers for casual users. Based on my first look, the gym occupies a corner of the sports centre building which spans several levels. First level...nothing but machines, granted all quite new but not what I needed. I descended to ground floor, a few benches, plenty of gear for free weight shoulders back etc but no racks and nowhere to clean. Anxiety is starting to rise and at this point I am starting to worry my 30 min ferry ride and 14 bucks were for nothing. Then I spot stairs up to a third level and......nirvana!!!

The third level has 3 power racks, couple of benches, a solid t-bar row unit, prone row, plenty of great condition rubberised dumbbells and an adjustable chin and dip bars! Rounding the corner I couldn't conceal the stupid smile that splayed across my face: I was looking at 3 genuine Olympic lifting platforms with a full range of rubber plates for Olympic lifting and more importantly for my power cleans. Like a pig in the  proverbial shit I hit the iron with a vengeance erasing the memory of my horrendous workout at fitness first.

 As a University campus most of my fellow lifters were in their early twenties. Now not withstanding the usual array of poor form and confused exercise execution the overall vibe was of hard training kids giving it their best. I spotted a kid dumbell benching 40kg dumbells and then another couple of guys giving 100kg benches their best shot. As I deadlifted 2 Asian students were clean and snatching next to me and working really hard on their form. Importantly no obvious sign of using (roids) and no one was fucking around with biceps or triceps. It was genuinely old school hardcore heavy (relatively) compound exercises being lifted by kids in their prime. They probably dont have much sense but plenty of recovery ability and a really obvious desire to lift heavy. 

The Queensland Uni gym certainly was a more enjoyable facility than my regular diggs in Perth. Comparatively the vibe of the young kids here exceeded what I am used to at home. In my gym there are a number of young guys barely lifting 2 wheels on bench and not deadlifting/squating at all. Worse still  too many of the young guys are just not training hard and already are dabbling in the gear. These guys could learn a hell of a lot from the crew at Queensland Uni!!

Suffice to say it was a fantastic experience. I was genuinely inspired and felt a little pang of jealously at these young kids just starting out on their journey in life and with the iron.

Thomo