THE HARDCORE GYM REGISTRY

[beserker]

"Iron Works Gym " in saskatoon , saskatchewan canada baby ! Its the ultimate dungeon , tons of bodybuilders , power lifters and strongman competetors and the place is covered in chalk from head to toe !

[SmallTownMuscle]

O man you guys have never even heard of the town I live in.

Gillam, Manitoba, Canada

Gym is located at the Recreation Centre. Kinda like a small dungeon. The only reason it has dumbells over 55lbs is because the biggest dude needs 140's so he bought all the way up to that weight! Haha, we make due.

[wtfkevin]

Gladiator Gym:
this gym is the shit, i trained here for the past two years and i have grown since. the gym is quiet empty here and its basically all to yourself. the maximum people working out with the old school weights and machines are 4 pple, including myself. the place isnt fancy at all, weights are all chiipped away and semi-rusty. benches etc. old school. definitely check it out.
located on the lower east side of new york, manhattan

address: 69 Columbia Street
new york , nyc 10002

[HoldFast]

Hey Romano!!! Read the article in the july issue of MD about Golds. These place are sprouting up all over. They recently opened one up less than 4 minutes from my house and the place is huge. I went in just to see what the equipment was like and after talking to the manager, he said they DO NOT allow any deadlifts in this new club. (in other words, NO POWER LIFTING) After talking with this clown and reading your article, the "real" GOLDS GYM is dead!!!

This is exactly how the Gold's near my house is. Such a god damn waste. They just put in a basketball court.

[moosehead]

"Iron Works Gym " in saskatoon , saskatchewan canada baby ! Its the ultimate dungeon , tons of bodybuilders , power lifters and strongman competetors and the place is covered in chalk from head to toe !

lol this is the gym i go to.. a little exagerated to say the least.. theres a few bodybuilders.. only 1 or 2 that ACTUALLY compete... about 3 or 4 strongmen.. and a few powerlifters.. at least thats all ive seen. but then again im not there every minute of the day. i remember when the real hardcores use to go there. they all thought they were clones of ronnie coleman. always screaming out every rep on benchpress with 165lbs. they were the ultimate freaks. i bet the biggest one weighed 140.. i wish i could be like them. they even called themselves "the pain train". but they are better known as "the gay train"... but besides that, it is a pretty hardcore gym. i like it cause you dont have all the douches there that just wanna check out all the broads. it isnt clean, and it isnt pretty, but it is harcore.

[hammeranvil]

ENCINITAS BOXING. Encinitas , Ca. Old , dusty, rusty and trusty. Upstairs is Gracie-Barra school. Downstairs a boxing gym and three rooms of old school weights and machines. No AC in the summer, just a few fans. Old ass metal dumbells, no new rubber coated shit. Your hands smell like rust when u leave. But for some reason, u can just go in there a do work, burry your head in there. No hot milfs on the stair master(unfortunately), but thats ok cuz u just get in the zone. Anyway, thats my spot.

[DylanArmbrust]

Mahany's Gym out in Aurora is where Phil Heath trains. The owner Sean Mahany is a fixture in Colorado bodybuilding.

Flex Gym in Lakewood is worth checking out - it's a small, no frills balls-to-the-wall kind of place. The memberships are VERY reasonable, and grunting is definitely allowed.

Colorado's Pro Gym is a pretty hardcore place, but it's a little more out of the way, depending on where you live.

I've trained at all 3. My preference is Flex Gym out off west Colfax. It's smaller than the other two, but it has a very hardcore vibe.

Colorado Pro Gym is the ONLY hard core gym in Colorado! It is where both, in my opinion, the future MR. and MS. OLYMPIA Phil Heath and Heather Armbrust train, and most of Colorado's top National level competitors also train! Way more weight, tons of great equipment, louder music and a fuck load more intensity!!!! No bad feelings bro but Flex gym SUCKS! Everybody who is any body has trained there and they dont any more for a reason. Come on down to Colorado pro gym, I will gladly give you free week and welcome you to real hard core gym! Peace!

[hotrod1985]

Hanks Gym

Houston, Texas

Elm St

Bad ass gym with bad ass equipment!

[Lewy23]

Bodybuilders Inc. in Akron, OH

It is truly hardcore!

[Ferraro]

What is hardcore exactly? As a gym owner I have found that the term hardcore has been perverted to include those who have no respect for equipment or other gym patrons. Kind of like a brotherhood of hardcore and redneck. Romano bitches about EFT polo wearing pussies. My gym has EFT's, however I allow anyone to work out for just $5 a day, monthly cash, PIF, whatever. The EFT allows me to have a set income to work off of. The hardcore guys that I respect are the ones who pay for their year upfront without bitchin'. Axioma Fitness is hardcore and family friendly. Our circuit is Nebula, which is pretty hardcore and ugly. Our dumbells go up to 120, but I have promised as soon as one of our members does 10 clean reps of any movement, I will get heavier. I have a kid's room, not a problem to anyones workout. I don't discourage guys from growlin', but if they're swinging 25's then I say, c'mon. I think true hardcore lifters are respectful and secure. I grew up in Baldwin's Body Forum in Tallahasse, FL I learned gym etiquette from some monsters. I think Ramblin' Freaks latest DeFendis ancedote is the typical "hardcore" lifter today. Cut gym owners some slack, Romano. I don't have a trust fund or parents who loaned me the start-up. I am not some pencil neck geek with a franchise. I work 75 hours a week as owner, operator, personal trainer and janitor. I clean up the vomit that the hardcore guy spewed on the back of the toilet. I got your fuckin' EFT.

Hey, I agree with you regarding respect and etiquette in the gym, though I think we might apply it in different ways. To me, gym etiquette means racking your weights back where you found them, wiping off machines/benches if you're sweating all over them, letting people work in when you're on a machine or have a weight, and just being respectful to people on a personal level. As far as grunting and dropping the weights go, I don't find this to be disrespectful and even find it is condusive to good health (hear me out on this one!). For example, if you're using heavy weights on the dumbell press and are going to failure, you risk injury less if you just drop the weights rather than trying to sit up and carry them back to the rack right there. Same with the deadlift; it makes more sense to do the exercise naturally, which in the case of deads, means some noise will be made. Why restrict the way you normally do an exercise just to reduce the amount of noise you're making? Honestly, it's not a library, it's a gym. I don't complain about noise when the fancy gyms blast techno bullshit music and shitty pop radio hits when I'm trying to get a pump, nor do I complain when people stand around bullshitting when I'm trying to get a serious workout in. Who are they to complain about me making some noise as it relates to serious lifting?

As far as grunting goes, if you need to let out noise while lifting, I say do it. It's healthy to do so, and can help you get those last couple of reps in. Staying silent during exercise to me is like not breathing while you lift...if you need to let out some energy, do it! I'm not saying you need to scream at the top of your lungs and be OBVIOUSLY annoying, but whether someone's using 25's or 125's, does one person have more of a right to grunt than the other? We don't grunt to be fashionable, we do it to help with those last reps and to raise the intensity level. Why restrict that? Again, it's a GYM, and I think many people are losing sight of that. I knew I was unwelcome in my old gym when some older woman complained that I was being too loud dead-lifting. I'm pulling 375 pounds from the floor (which is a good lift for me), and she's complaining that I'm dropping the weights too loud? I told her "it's a gym not a library" and that it's not her personal home gym. This is what happens, though, when you water down fitness for the masses; they forget that it's all about work ethic, and pushing your own limits. However, the gym catered to people like her, and I'm sure the gym owner would rather me cancel my membership than this old woman if he had to choose, so I decided I'd find somewhere that would welcome me.

For the record, I've seen more guys act like pricks in the fancy gyms than at the little hardcore place I'm at now. The guy at the front desk is friendly and knowledgable, not some teenager bullshitting on his cell-phone while scanning people in. And there's no one in a button down pacing the gym trying to sell me some bullshit training package at some ridiculously expensive rate.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to describe YOUR gym...I've never been to your gym and it would be unfair for me to try and describe it. You seem like a pretty good owner to me, like you care about your members and your gym. And of course, it's a business, you need to make money, and I won't criticize the style of gym you run, whether it's a "fancy" gym, hardcore, or a combination (sounds like a combination of both from your description). I was really trying to describe the NY Sports Club, World Gym, LA Fitness, Planet Fitness type gyms. Obviously, there's a big place in society for gyms like this, because they appeal to more mainstream fitness types, and there are all types of hot chicks in booty shorts on the cardio machines for the guys to look at (hell, that's the one feature of my old gym that I miss! I workout with a bunch of fat-ass ugly powerlifters and sweaty muscleheads). I'm really just trying to defend the hardcore gyms and hardcore lifters who inhabit them. To me, hardcore is a mindset. It doesn't mean you're a huge guy, or you're lifting three times your weight (OK, that would probably qualify you), but rather you into the gym prepared to sacrifice and to push past your own limitations in order to achieve a desired look. These are the people who aren't afraid to grunt, drop weights, or to be in that intensity "zone" where you don't feel the desire to stop and bullshit with chicks, or your buddies, or talk on your cell-phone while you're doing cardio.

My main problem with the fancy gyms, and Romano has said as much countless times, is that they spit on and shun the very people who allowed their success to happen in the first place. Once upon a time, you could only find hardcore gyms. And these gyms, like the original Gold's and World, and the bodybuilders who inhabited them are ones who created a mass market for fitness. Without them, fancy fitness centers with courts and swimming pools would not exist. The hardcore movement basically gave birth to a child who has grown to shun its forebearer! lol

[cfloridafitness]

"The Gym", now defunct, was in Bartow, Florida in the second floor of what used to be an old Ford Model A plant. There was an old elevator they used to use to bring the cars from the second floor to the ground level. They used it to bring in the gym equipment and then it broke. Once you climbed the rickety starwell to the gym it looked like you were stepping back in time. The floors were wood but extremely strong and filthy. There was no air conditioning (we were in central Florida remember) and I remember many a morning at 5 am in the summer when it was already 90 degrees up there. It never did cool off from the night before. The equipment was old Nautilus machines with the motorcycle chains and homemade stuff with 400-600 pound weight stacks plus thousands of pounds of free weights. I remember a guy falling off the back of the Lat machine when the cable snapped with over 300 pounds on the machine. There was an antique store below the gym and the owner would have a real hissy fit whenever the 600 pound deadlifts starting dropping. There would be heavy metal blaring on the stereo but you could hardly hear it over the slamming of the weights on the floor (no rubber here) and the screaming powerlifters.

The gym went out of business and was sold to a guy who wanted to move it to the street level about a block away. I helped move that equipment down those creaky stairs (how they didn't blow apart is beyond me) since the elevator was broken. The best workout I ever got was helping move all this stuff and the 200 pound dumbbells down the stairs and into the bed of a truck waiting down below. Ah the good ol' days.

[Ferraro]

That sounds awesome, dude. All they play is heavy metal at my gym, lol.

[Heather]

Don't laugh....I belong to Planet Fitness and Bally's. I avoided PF for a long time. The "lunk" crap, no benches, and yellow and purple color scheme. But I gave in and joined. Why? Cardio. I only use Planet Fitness for cardio because they have a better set up than my Bally's (6 tvs and only 3 channels, usually at least two of which are on Spanish channels)....at PF, 12 tv sets all on different channels and you can plug in on every piece of cardio equipment. With something like 20 treadmills, 20 ellipticals, 15 bikes and 12 TV stations it makes cardio seem almost bearable. And the sights I get to see....my, my! Every once in awhile I see a glimpse of some muscle and the guy (it's always a guy) walks around like a gorilla! Too funny! Bally's isn't 24 hours, PF is, except for weekends. PF charges me $10 a month and Bally's is $19 so for $29 I have all my bases covered.

I too joined PF for the cardio, it's only $20/month, free tanning, and obviously, I'm a woman, I'm not throwing up huge dumbbells, so it gets the job done for me. I mostly go there for cardio though, they have ArcTrainer, which I love and a lot of gyms don't have around here. I also belong to an LA Fitness and do most of my lifting there.

Two hardcore gyms I know of in the Trenton, NJ area -
Joe Dodd's - Man's World Gym
1030 Brunswick Ave., Trenton, NJ 08638
609-695-9821

and

Adam & Eve Spa
1601 S. Clinton Ave.
Trenton, NJ 08610
609-396-8483

[thejourneyman]

Anyone know of any gyms in or near Corona Ca or anywhere in the Inland Empire area? theres nothing but 24 hour fitnesses around here

[B-DUB-]

Powerhouse Gym, in Twinsburg Ohio