Mike Graham and Carol
Finsrud built and run the Old Texas Barbell Company in
Lockhart, Texas. Described by Mike as "a real gym, not
a health club," the facility also boasts a collection of
Physical Culture and Strength Training books, magazines,
training courses, and equipment that span more than 100
years of strength history. The collection includes
Andy Jowett's anvil, Indian clubs, and other fascinating
pieces.
Mike has more than forty
years of experience competing in everything from boxing and
swimming to weight- and powerlifting. He has owned a
string of gyms since 1973. Carol is also no stranger
to strength and power training. She recently competed
in the Masters Track and Field World Championships in San
Juan, Puerto Rico, where she received a Bronze Medal in the
Javelin Throw and Gold Medals in the Weight Pentathlon,
Discus Throw, Shot Put, and Hammer Throw. She set new
Masters World Records in the Weight Pentathlon and Hammer
Throw, her Weight Pentathlon score tallying an impressive
4960 points.
Mike, how and
why did you first get into the gym business?
I got into the gym business in
1973 when I revived a gym in Austin, which had closed due to
poor management. Between 1966 – when I got my degree in
journalism from the University of Texas – and 1973 I taught
high school biology for a year in Brownsville, Texas, worked
as the assistant manager of the Chamber of Commerce in
Harlingen, Texas, spent three semesters in graduate school at
the University of Texas, edited two weekly newspapers, did
construction work with an engineer, worked as a
bartender, rode and raced on my bicycle, ran three marathons,
lifted weights, and did some boxing.
During those years I had a "plan"
in the back of my mind someday to own a gym. I kept a notebook
on my thoughts and ideas as I trained at various gyms and saw
things that I liked and didn't like. I never really went to
work on a solid plan, however.
The gym in Austin had
been opened and closed several times under several different
owners. I trained there over the years. When it closed again
in the summer of 1973, I tracked down the owner of the
building, who was left holding the bag. I made a deal
with him to reopen it with the equipment left there, splitting
the profits with the owner. I had just recently quit graduate
school and had no money to speak of, so this was a way to get
in with no investment – beyond a lot of hard
work.
I was working as a night watchman at an office
building at the time (in an effort to have the maximum time to
play), so I kept that job and began reviving the gym. For the
first five years in the business, I kept my night watchman
job, had the gym open 7 days a week, lived upstairs over the
gym, and put everything I had into bringing that place back to
life.
In 1983 I bought another gym business that had
opened a few miles away but was closing due to poor
management. In 1986 I closed my first gym when the owner of
the building lost it in a bank deal. Then I worked out a deal
to buy the property on which the second gym stood.
I
mostly folded whatever I made back into the business and kept
growing. In 1995, I was ready to slow down a little. I sold
the business, kept the real estate, and moved thirty miles
away to Lockhart, where I opened The Old Texas Barbell
Company, Inc.
The real estate boom in Austin has
made me more money than the gym business ever did. It has
allowed me to have a fun gym and museum without worrying too
much about the profit margins.
Tell me a little
about your training philosophy.
You become a better athlete by
planned, focused, repetitive practice of your event. You do
not become a better athlete in the
gym.
Strength, Power, Endurance, and Flexibility
Training will enable you to become a better athlete by
allowing you to train better, train harder with better focus,
and train more often without a breakdown in your form and
without overuse injuries, IF you train
smart.
Far too many competitive athletes ruin their
competitive careers by having the wrong focus in the gym. They
injure themselves by overdoing their training in the misguided
belief that "a stronger and more powerful athlete is
always a better athlete."
Functional, useable
improvements in your neuromuscular system integrated into your
performance training will enable you to become a better
athlete. A 2% improvement in your strength that is
integrated will be more helpful than a 20% strength gain
that is not integrated.
"Just doing it" in the
weight gym is not the answer. A bigger bench press will not
make you a better athlete, and in many cases may even be a
hindrance rather than a help because it will cause
neuromuscular imbalances that interfere with your skill
performance.
There are more good discus throwers who
never do heavy Olympic Lifts in the gym than there are
weightlifters who throw the discus well. Strength and Power
Training can be, in and of itself, an end as well as a means
for the competitive powerlifter or weightlifter, but for the
athlete in other sports it must be considered a part of base
training. It must be integrated into the overall training
program as such.
Unfortunately, because strength
increases are "fun" and easy to see in higher weights or more
reps, the immediate feedback encourages many to push harder in
the gym than they do on the practice field. On the
field, improvements come more slowly, with subtle
changes that are not always easily seen or felt. This focus on
the "fun" part of training often takes mental energy away from
the skill training, as well as causing neuromuscular problems
that interfere with skill performance.
What's the difference between a gym and a health
club?
A gym is where we go to enjoy
playing with our muscles in order to make them bigger,
stronger, faster, and more fun. A health club is a social
"scene" with a "fitness" theme.
Carol, you have
an impressive collection of track and field accomplishments.
Have you always been interested in those types of activities?
What were your early competitions and training
like?
I started participating in track
as a sophomore in high school. Initially I was a runner (to
stay in shape for cross country skiing), but when I saw the
throwing events at the track meets I was intrigued. I wanted
to put the shot – and I especially wanted to throw the discus!
I talked my coaches into purchasing a shot and discus for
me.
I started throwing my junior year
with very little coaching and a lot of raw athletic ability. I
ended up winning the discus at the Minnesota State High School
track and field meet. I also placed second in the shot
put. My senior year I won both the discus and the shot put at
State and set a new state record in the discus.
How did you
first get into weight training, Carol?
My first exposure to weight
training was at Flathead Valley Community College in
Kalispell, Montana, where I earned a track scholarship. One of
my coaches, Gary Parker, trained in a small gym in an old
armory. He took a group of us there because the school did not
have a weightlifting gym. When I went to the University of
Texas, also on a track scholarship, my track coach, Jack
Daniels, took us to the UT weight room in the fall. I quickly
learned that women weren't very welcome in the "football
dominated" weight room. The strength coach put us on a circuit
routine on a universal machine. I knew from my limited
introduction to lifting free weights in Kalispell that two
times around the universal machine would not
do.
Jack Daniels took our group of
throwers to a gym that a friend of his owned. The gym was the
Texas Athletic Club and the friend was Mike Graham. Little did
I know how fortuitous this meeting would be.
How has weight training helped
you?
Weight training has enabled my
throwing career to be relatively injury free. It has also
prolonged the length of that career. I really enjoy lifting
weights in and of themselves.
Mike, you've also had a long history of
athletic activities, from boxing to swimming to track to
weights. What of these did you like best, and why? What did
you like worst? What did you find most fulfilling? If you
could change anything about your past experiences, what would
it be?
Fighting always came to me as
second (first?) nature. All of my school years were punctuated
by fights, for the fun of it rather than out of anger, I
actually have never had a "quick temper." I really enjoyed a
good fistfight regardless of the "reason" for it. When I
discovered boxing I realized I could get my picture in the
paper for a good performance rather than getting a reprimand
of one sort or another. Then, as I learned more about boxing
and the difference between boxing and a fistfight, the
development and use of boxing "skills" became something I
could enjoy quite a bit more often than whatever fistfight
opportunities arose.
I never analyzed the psychology of
fighting, but in reading Scott Sonnon's writing I understand
what I was doing and why. In watching professional boxing on
TV, however (like the Gatti/Ward fight on Saturday night), I
am always amazed how few of the "old-time" boxing skills are
seen these days. It seems more like a fistfight with gloves
than "the art of boxing."
The hard and disciplined work
of training was enjoyable in and of itself, but going
one-on-one in a fistfight or a boxing match provided a high no
other sport ever matched. The stress of trying to save your
own skin while you are trying to take as much skin as you can
off the other guy's nose teaches you things you can't learn
otherwise.
I have always had wide and varied interests
in the world around me and have been unwilling (unable?) ever
to focus in one direction, so in athletic endeavors I have had
a pretty wide range of experiences. Perhaps, had I chosen one
direction or one sport, I could have been much better in it
and gone farther with it than I have with any of them. I have
enjoyed the variety, though, and I believe have been a more
successful coach, trainer, teacher, and gym owner because of
my wide-ranging experiences.
Looking back on the past
60 years, I can't find much that I would change. I have had a
very good Guardian Angel who understands me well.
What about you,
Carol? If you could change anything about your training, what
would it be?
I can't think of anything that I
would change about my training. I just wish that I had more
time to train. In college and when I was in my late twenties
and early thirties I concentrated on the discus. When I began
to compete in the Masters Track and Field I started putting
the shot again. Also, the Masters track and field has an event
called the Weight Pentathlon. This is an event similar to the
Decathlon, only it consists of five throwing events: hammer,
shot put, discus, javelin, and a weight throw, all contested
in one day. This event became a new challenge to me,
especially because it involved learning new events (hammer,
javelin, and weight throw). It has also been a challenge to
fit in all of the additional training time required. I
currently have a pending world record for the weight
pentathlon in the women's 45-49 years age group.
Mike, what do
you see as the critical difference in focus, intent, and
technique between weightlifting, powerlifting, and
bodybuilding? If you had to choose one of them, which would it
be, and why?
Weightlifting demands intense,
focused training in order to combine strength, speed, balance,
flexibility, speed, timing, and fearlessness in order to pull
a heavy barbell as high as possible – and then, in the split
second at which it stops its ascent before it crashes back to
floor, get under it, control it, and stand up with it under
full control.
Powerlifting, by comparison,
requires an intense focus on pure strength to move, painfully,
a heavy barbell – which good sense would tell you is
too heavy.
Bodybuilding, on the other hand, is
built on the dream of the "perfect physique." It is based on
honestly assessing your physical strengths and weaknesses and
working to balance them into that physique. The long, slow,
repetitive process of Bodybuilding requires hard-nosed
tenacity, rather than the intense focus required by
weightlifting and powerlifting.
I competed well in all
three of these and, in fact, always combined aspects of the
other two when focused on competing in one of them. Could I
have been better if I had focused on one of them? Perhaps, but
then I wouldn't have been me.
The satisfaction that
came with a well executed "snatch" with a heavy weight (my
best was 100 kg./220 lbs. at about 180 lbs.) was unparalleled
in my experience with iron weights.
Mike, have you used any of Scott
Sonnon's products or services? If so, how have these helped
you? How have they complemented your other
activities?
I have been playing with Scott's
Clubbells® and find them another step up the ladder (the top
rung?) for athletes who want their training to enable them to
perform better in their sports.
Clubbells® are fun
muscle toys by themselves for those who just enjoy the
challenge of developing new and different muscle control and
power. For the athlete trying to optimize his or her abilities
to perform athletic feats, they provide a way to develop
dynamic power beyond what can be achieved with barbells,
dumbells, kettlebells, and other gym tools and
toys.
And you,
Carol? Have Scott Sonnon's products helped you,
too?
I have only recently been using
the Clubbells®. In just a couple of weeks I noticed an
improved grip with the Clubbells®. I also think that using
them is strengthening the small stabilizing muscles in the
shoulder. As a thrower I use the shoulder girdle very much and
in extremely dynamic movements. The stronger the shoulder is,
the less chance there is for injury.
To what do you
attribute your extensive success in track and field
championships through the years, Carol?
Natural ability is a big part.
However, hard but smart training combined with the drive to
improve and compete is a big factor. The foundation that
weight training has built plays a big role in the continuation
of my career. I still routinely win the discus at invitational
track meets competing against collegiate women less that half
my age. Many of them are in poorer shape than I
am.
Tell me about the Masters
World Championships in Puerto Rico in July. What did these
involve, and how did you train for them?
The Master's World Championships
are held every other year with a participation of 8,000-10,000
athletes ages thirty five years and up (divided into five year
age brackets). I competed in the hammer, shot put, discus, and
the javelin as individual events as well as the Weight
Pentathlon over a ten day period. My weight training was
minimal during this time of the season. I did enough to
maintain my strength level. It was at this time that the
Clubbells® were especially beneficial. I concentrated on the
individual throwing skills for each event during the season. I
practiced each event at least once a week.
How has Mike
helped you in your training? How have you helped
him?
Mike has helped me so much, not
just in weight training, but in my whole attitude about life.
I doubt that I would have continued throwing after college if
I hadn't met him. Mike has a vast knowledge of training, but
he knew nothing about how to throw the discus. He took it upon
himself to learn all about how to throw the discus so that he
could coach me after I was out of college. With his help I
competed in three Olympic Trials. He also helps me stay
focused, especially in the long range planning. Needless to
say, he is my biggest supporter. I think that I have helped
Mike by being his resident guinea pig. Mike is constantly
thinking outside the box, to see if there is a better way to
do something.
Mike, you've
served as Vice President of the National Physique
Committee. What are your thoughts and feelings regarding
the bodybuilding industry and competitions today? Are things
"better" or "worse" than they used to be?
I have nothing to do with the NPC
(National Physique Committee) or the IFBB (International
Federation of Body Builders) these days. I do not subscribe to
bodybuilding magazines. I do not follow the "sport." It is too
far removed from my reality.
Better or worse? That is
all a matter of perspective. There are bigger muscles, more
ripped physiques, more endorsement contracts – and there are
more drugs, more assholes, and more corruption. Take your
pick.
What advice would you
offer to those who wish to remain physically healthy and
active as they get older?
My advice has always been the
same: "Have fun." Find what you enjoy and go in that
direction. If you enjoy it you will benefit from it, but if
you don't enjoy it, you won't benefit in the long run. Try new
activities. All we are doing is getting "healthy" while
playing with our muscles.
Carol, what
advice would you offer, specifically to women
interested in weight training and bodybuilding?
Do not be afraid of lifting
weights. It will not take your femininity away. If you train
hard enough you will look like a woman who is in shape. It
will make you feel better and enable you to do other sports
and activities in everyday life better and longer.
Whom do you
consider a hero or role model in terms of fitness and
athletics?
There are two athletes that I
really admire. One is Babe Didrickson Zaharias, because she was
such a pioneer for women's athletics. She was so talented that
she mastered every sport that she tried, from track (where she
won the javelin and hurdles and placed second in the high jump
at the Olympics) to basketball to golf. Babe Didrickson
Zaharias won 82 golf tournaments and played against men 58
years before Annika Sorenstam did.
The other athlete I admire is Al Oerter because of his longevity and
ability to perform when it counts. He won the gold medal in
the discus at four successive Olympics. He was only twenty
years old when he won his first gold medal on his first throw,
breaking the Olympic record in Melbourne, Australia. A year
after a near-fatal car accident, he won his second gold in
Rome. Two days before competing in Tokyo, Japan, he tore a
section of his rib cage and – despite the pain – he captured
his third gold. In Mexico City, despite being the defending
champion, he was not favored because he did not have the top
throw going into the Olympics. He prevailed however, because
he has the mental focus to give his best effort and win at the
ultimate competition.
Mike, Tell me
about the museum attached to your gym. Does it have a
website?
I am working toward a web page,
but I am pretty stupid in "computerology." I collect old
weights and training equipment as well as strength and muscle
publications. I display them for other muscle crazies to
enjoy.
Mike, I notice you have
George F. Jowett's anvil, among other things. Why is he your
hero? What makes his training methodology special and
admirable?
When I was a fighter and boxer,
around 1960, in search of more muscle as well as more success
in fighting, I wrote to George F. Jowett in care of the "Jowett
Institute." He was retired up in Canada, but someone at the
mail-order business forwarded my letter to him. He sent me a
handwritten reply encouraging me to weight train in
conjunction with my boxing, which I did.
I wish I still
had that letter. It was lost during a hurricane in
Brownsville, Texas many years ago.
The anvil that I
have on display, which belonged to George Jowett, was given to
Jan and Terry Todd by his daughter. They have loaned it to
me.
George F. Jowett was a man who could do, think, and
put the two together in writing. He was a forerunner of
Scott Sonnon. In reading his books and other publications you
realize that he was teaching from experience and a careful
study of building "Might and Muscle." He was honest,
knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, just like Scott
Sonnon.
Mike, Carol, it's been
an honor. Thank you for the extremely educational
pleasure of
interview! |
