My 1st Workout Soundtrack – 1992

When I was 16 I started lifting in my parent’s basement, in this tiny little area behind my dad’s workshop.

I bought a York Universal weight machine set from some guy that my mom worked with…no wait, if I remember correctly I traded him a portable CD player for it. Anyways, there was just enough room to set it up on a cement floor in the area between my dad’s shop and the furnace room.

In fact, in my little tour below, you’ll see – from the outside – where I first started lifting…maybe I’ll go back and film inside the house…you’ll be shocked at the tiny space I used for about 6 months before I finally got a gym membership.

Anyways, someone’s “Turbulence Training Theme Song” entry the other day reminded me of the Metallica “Enter Sandman” tape (yes, a tape!) that I played over and over and over again while I worked out.

Every day I would come home from my $5 an hour after school job at the local greenhouse around 6pm, and then I’d eat dinner and go down to the basement to train.

Back then I was doing 3 total body workouts per week, as outlined in the little booklet that came along with the weight machine. It was a little annoying because I had to remove and adjust a bunch of pieces on the machine whenever I changed exercises, but it was good enough.

In addition to the Metallica tape, I also listened to Nirvana’s Nevermind over and over again, as well as Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger.

I honestly can’t remember much about the workouts. They certainly worked because I got stronger, but it wasn’t until I finally started training at the Stratford YMCA that I got a lot stronger, and was benching 225 by age 17. That’s not crazy strong, but pretty good for 5’8, 175 pounds.

Eventually I was training 6 days per week, and yes, I was using the stupid one bodypart per day type program. Eventually that irritated my shoulder, and around age 21 I started training smarter. But that’s another story for another time…

But at age 16, I was having a blast training in the basement, even on the nights when I had hockey at 9 or 10pm. And on the nights I didn’t, I’d train and then go play about 3 hours of NHL Hockey for Sega. Those were the days.

Alright, if you’re training, then here you go…enjoy.

I think this just might be the Turbulence Training Theme Song for now…

Train hard,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training