Cover

Brad Stine
by Ryan Richardson

Health & Fitness
by Jeff Consiglio

The Addiction
part iii
by David Chipp-Smith

God's Promises
Part IV
by Colin Michael



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Pushups, Sit-ups & Lessons from "Tiger Al"

by Jeff Consiglio

Those who know me as a fitness writer and coach are often surprised to learn God hasn't blessed me with "natural" athletic ability. When God was passing out the athletic DNA, I must have been close to last in line.

Being about last was a normal part of my youth. Last in the 50 yard dash, last in the 400 yard run, last one chosen for touch football, last one chosen for baseball, last one the girls were interested in… Do you see a pattern developing here?

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating. I was usually about 3rd from the last one picked. There were generally a couple of fat kids whose even greater athletic incompetence spared me the indignity of being chosen dead last.

I remember grade school primarily as a blur of social ostracism caused by my inability to run fast or excel in team sports. Bullies frequently beat me up and the pretty girls frequently laughed at me for having just taken a beating. Do you feel sorry for me yet?

My social standing didn't get any better in Junior High School either. I attended 7th grade at Coakley Junior High School in Harlingen Texas, near the Mexican border. PE class was torment for me.

Nobody wanted the slow, clumsy "gringo" on their team. It didn't matter that I was smart, got good grades and had a great sense of humor. Good grades were not nearly as impressive as fast 50-yard dash times and the ability to excel in team sports. My year at Coakley Junior High was unpleasant, to say the least.

But summer finally came, and I was temporarily reprieved from the prison of Junior High.

By this time I was living in the small college town of Fulton, Missouri. I spent that summer as any nerd would - with my nose in a book. Books had become my best friends. Fiction, non-fiction, mysteries, autobiographies…I loved them all.

However, my mother became concerned that too much reading was having a negative impact upon my physical fitness. I'd developed a bit of a paunch that summer and my expanded waistline hadn't gone unnoticed. The paunch might have been ignored had I been a larger framed person, but the newly acquired potbelly looked surrealistically out of place on my scrawny little teenage body.

Mom had dropped a few hints my way, suggesting I should do something about the potbelly situation. But I just laughed them off. What did I care about a potbelly? I was already a social outcast, so why even bother trying to look good? A little potbelly never hurt anyone!

But Mom didn't quite see it that way.

It was the summer of 1980 and the Summer Olympics were in full swing. One day, my mother gave me an issue of GQ Magazine, which profiled several of the Olympic competitors that year. I think it was her way of giving me yet another subtle hint about the OLE potbelly situation.

Being the reading addict that I was, I immediately tore into its pages. And what I saw and read inspired me.

I saw men who looked how I wanted to look. Who did things I wished I could do. Who had recognition I could only dream about. I decided I wanted to be like those Olympians. I would build my body through discipline and exercise, and recreate myself. That issue of GQ magazine started a fire in me that would burn for the rest of my life.

I embarked upon a daily program of calisthenics. I did pushups and sit-ups every night, right before bed. I also had a job working in a horse stable during that time. The manual labor of shoveling horse's "number-2" combined with my nightly ritual of pushups and sit-ups began transforming my body. For the first time in my life, I had some muscles. Not many, but definitely more than I ever thought I'd have. And my potbelly had also gone away.

Then my Grandfather showed up during his annual pilgrimage from Florida. And with him came a set of dumbbells.

The significance of my grandfather showing up at that time in my life with a pair of dumbbells can only be fully appreciated by knowing a little about my grandfather's background. He was a larger than life figure to me, primarily because of the pictures I'd seen of him in his younger days and the stories I'd heard of his youthful exploits.

Alva Boggs was my grandfather's real name, but at one time he'd been known as "Tiger Al." I knew this for a fact, because I'd seen an old black and white publicity photo of him in a pair of leopard skin wrestling trunks. His stage name, "Tiger Al", was emblazoned across the photo.

Grandpa Boggs had been a professional wrestler. He'd also been a golden gloves boxer and all around tough guy during his youth. My mother told me how, when she was a little girl, Grandpa Boggs used to have neighborhood boys over to his house. He'd teach them the in and outs of weight lifting, the importance of physical fitness and the how to defend yourself. It was easy for me to envision my Grandfather in such a role.

During that summer of 1980, my Grandfather decided it was my turn for instruction in the manly arts of fighting and physical development. My first physical development course began with a lesson in prioritization.

I was warned to avoid falling into the all too common trap of seeking form over function. In other words, I was supposed to build muscles for reasons other than just "looking good".

Grandpa told me how most guys loved to develop their "T-shirt muscles." Otherwise known as biceps. But these same guys would totally ignore the development of muscles which could actually help you to pound another man into submission - should the need arise.

"Your punching power comes from your triceps," he told me. I asked him what a triceps was. "That's the muscle on the back of your arm. That's where your real arm power comes from."He showed me several exercises for this all-important punching muscle, as well as exercises for all the other muscles deemed crucial for outfighting other men.

I listened to his lesson spellbound. This was the great 'Tiger Al" after all. When Tiger Al spoke, I listened. And I learned.



"Tiger Al" showing me how to work my
fighting muscles during summer of 1980

My lesson ended, and so did my Grandfather's visit. He went back to his home in Florida, but left me a pair of dumbbells to work out with. The only stipulation being that I concentrated primarily on building my "fighting muscles" rather than mere "T-shirt muscles".

Me and that pair of dumbbells became best friends.

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