Gym Articles

House of Payne Gym

House of Payne Gym in North Carolina
(How Mispelled Names Prevent Lawsuits)

Last month we looked at a couple of Hard Core Gyms; both were named simply the ?The Gym.? We talked about the dangers of using generic names for your gym, as in the old sitcom where there were three brothers ? all named Darryl. A similar thing happened to my sister Cindy when she had her 5th (!?) son. They basically ran out of new names, and so they started reusing old ones ? so that their oldest and youngest now share the same name. Michael Scott is the big brother of William Michael. Of course, I just call the youngest ?Little Willie? to avoid confusion.
Similarly, all of my 3 kids have nicknames, to more easily separate them from their classmates. There may be other children named Caitlin, Callie, and John ? but there aren?t many named Possum, Pip, and Pancho. This works great for us, but it presented a problem when our middle child (Pip) started kindergarten and couldn?t spell her real name (Callie). Apparently the teacher wasn?t prepared to accept her neatly printed ?Pip.? These teachers can be so picky?
Which brings us to the extensively trademarked name ?HOUSE OF PAIN.? As you can imagine, we have copyright protection on all of our logos and designs, and have trademarked our legal name ?HOUSE OF PAIN? nine ways from Sunday. This means (among other restrictions) that other apparel companies cannot use the term HOUSE OF PAIN without our express written permission. We have stopped several bigger companies from this sort of trademark infringement. Other companies cannot even legally use a name that is ?confusing similar,? such as HOUSE OF PAYNE GYM ? because it would be confusing to the public. BUT, what if we had a loyal HOUSE OF PAIN customer who had the misfortune of being named Keith Payne. What if he opened a gym and wanted to name it after himself? As in ?HOUSE OF PAYNE GYM?? Well, legally ? that won?t work ? but we have to take care of our good powerlifting friends. So we made an exception for Keith ? because we like him! Let?s go to North Carolina and see what he has done.
The House of Payne Gym is located in Yadkinville, North Carolina, which is a little town near Winston-Salem. The HOPG is a 1000 square foot powerlifting facility. Although relatively small, the gym is equipped with a monolift, reverse hyper, glute/ham machine, cable machine, various bars and benches, and a couple tons of free weight. The walls are covered with pictures and other memorabilia that we have collected through the years that serves to motivate us as well as create an absolutely great lifting atmosphere. The HOPG is a strength training gym made up of mostly powerlifters. Our members are strictly interested in Strength. We have no mirrors!
Like a lot of lifters, we studied successful groups such as Westside, Metal Militia, L.A. Lifting Club and NGBB to name a few. We try to reproduce their success. We are cultivating our own HOPG philosophy by taking certain principles we have learned and adding things from practical training experience to form a functional training ideology that works for us.
Most of our members prefer to train in groups. Currently we have three main groups that train together but we do have several individuals that train alone due to their work schedules. We are very proud of the diversity of our members. We have both assisted and raw lifting groups. Our members range from elite world-class lifters to youth lifters. Our members include Travis Mash who just broke Ed Coan?s all-time total record in the 220 class. Also, Chris ?Ox? Mason who is an elite APF lifter. Mike Lovelace, Tony Atkins, Donnie Atkins, Shane Gaydon and Lynn Hodges hold various APF/AAPF State and American records. Walter ?Truck? Ferguson (A veteran of over 100 meets) is one of our Master lifters. James Lopes, Jason Robertson, Eric Payne and Timmy Payne own various State and American records in the USAPL and AAU. We have several up and coming lifters including Rodney Rochester, Shawn Griffin, Tom Hill, James Gentry, LB Bullins, Brett Payne, Brennan Anderson, Tom Payne, Dakota Phipps, Dustin Phipps and Wayne Rochester.
We welcome lifters that are serious about getting stronger. You can find more information about the HOPG on our website. http://www.houseofpaynepowerlifting.com or email keith@ironboyenterprises.com.
Equipment: MonoLift, Power Racks with flat benches, Competition Flat Benches, Incline Bench, Decline Bench, 90 degree Military Bench, Lat Cable Machine with attachments, Reverse Hyper Machine, Glute/Ham Machine, Row Machine (Chest supported), Leg Press Machine, Deadlifting Platform, Dumbbells (5 through 120 pounds), Adjustable Dumbbells, Tons of plates. An assortment of bars including: Texas Power Bars, Safety Squat Bar, Texas Squat Bar, Texas Deadlift Bar, Cambered Curl Bar, and Triceps Bar. Accessories: Dragging Sled, Stability Balls, Squat Boxes, Chains, Bands, Boards, Weight Releasers, and Manta Ray.

Sounds like Keith is doing a great job in the small town in Yadkinville, North Carolina! Anyone that welcomes serious lifters is a friend. Friend, and any gym with a lifter named ?Truck? or ?Ox? is a winner. People email us all the time asking us to help them find a serious gym in their area. We are creating an online list of great training spots for powerlifters. While we work on that - you can already see all of these old articles at houseofpain.com.
Next month, we?ll check out a little Texas gym, then we?ll probably go a long ways from home. Either to Kuwait or to Illinois. Until then, nickname all of your kids, and watch out for trademark laws.

Comments/Questions?
rick@houseofpain.com
or
HOUSE OF PAIN
PO Box 333
Fate, TX 75132