Gym Articles

Hell's Gate Gym

Southern Style Bobsledding and Hell?s Gate Gym

A little while back, I promised to teach you how to bobsled ?Southern Style?. When I was about 16 years old, we got a heavy snow in Texas. One of the things that is often overlooked when discussing ?hell freezing over? is what the residents of hell will think about all of the snow and ice. A similar confusion arises in central Texas when we get a lot of snow.
This confusion helped us discover Southern Style Bobsledding when I was teenager. We took canoes to a tall hill on a local golf course, and carried the canoes to the top of the snow covered hill. With two energetic but stupid boys on each side of the canoe, we picked up the canoe and ran full-tilt toward the hill?s drop off. Just as we went over the edge, we all dove into the canoe!
The canoe careened down the hill at top speed, and took us on a wild ride! Southern Fried Bobsledding! Of course, there is no way to steer or control the canoe as it races down the hill. I remember the bloody explosion when the canoe veered into the trees, and slammed dead center into a tree. Jimmy broke the wooden cross brace with his nose, which exploded in a red spray all over the snow. We died laughing! Southern Bobsledding is a lot of fun until someone gets hurt, then it?s even more fun laughing at the injured person!
If you get a chance, try this on a big hill the next time it snows. Then email me and tell me who got hurt.
I get a lot of emails about these articles. Here are a few samples (2 bad, 2 good) from many emails; see if you can tell what we?re looking for:

Q: You wrote an article about my gym, but didn?t include a photo of me. I?m stronger than X who you featured in the article. Why didn?t you tell about me?
A: Because there are 1200 members of the gym, and you were one of the ones that we didn?t like. Comb your hair and shave.

Q: I saw jam rally grate on stret neer mine hous. Beg strawn gis train ther and you shood rite abot it. Her?s my pitcher.
A: If you don?t take your medicine, you?ll never get better.

Q: What information do you need to consider a Hard Core Gym for review? The gym I go to is owned by an elite female powerlifter (Lynn Boshoven), and we would like to submit it for review. We can provide, pictures, summary of our training, bio of the owner, and list of member accomplishments.
A: You have everything we need. Send actual photos, plus a drop of blood or a severed finger.

Q: Here is the info, with actual photos. You requested a drop of blood or severed ring. We were going to send the bloody nipple ring we tore out of one of our members, but he left before we could extract it.
A: Good enough! (Here follows the information following this actual exchange.)

When national and world level lifters the likes of Pat Hall, Rich Salvagni and Tom Skiver visit Grand Rapids, Michigan, they don?t go to the any of the local Powerhouse Gyms or YMCAs but instead head to a small gym located behind the residence of Lynne Boshoven.
Lynne got into the gym business in 1983 shortly after joining a gym to lose weight. She is 5?4? and weighed 87 pounds at the time! Fortunately, she changed her goals quickly and began training for and competing in bodybuilding and then powerlifting. She competed in her first meet at 148 and since then has been in all the weight classes from 165 on up. She has won the APF Senior Nationals, Budweiser World Record Breakers, and Worlds Deadliest Deadlift. For the almost all of the past 20 years, her name has appeared in the PLUSA top 20 women?s list in several weight classes and usually at or near the top. Recently, she briefly revisited the bodybuilding scene, competing in and winning the Masters division of the NPC Southern States competition. She hated the dieting and feeling weak and immediately after the meet returned to powerlifting.
In 1986 when the lease on her commercial gym was not renewed, she built the current structure behind her house and moved her operation there. In December of 2002, when the company where she was working as an IT professional closed its doors locally, she made the gym and personal training her full time job.
The gym is so jam packed with equipment that it is difficult to even get from one side of it to the other.
In addition to the machines used for training her fitness oriented clients and for assistance work for the powerlifters and bodybuilders, the gym stocks tons of plates and dumbbells as well as many specialty bars including a cambered bar, an Okie deadlift bar and a thick (2?) bar. Other specialty equipment that appeals especially to powerlifters are a belt squat machine, the only real Monolift squat rack in Michigan (the APF owns two, but they are 3rd party clones), and a Monolift bench which is designed to make hand offs easier. Out in front there are a couple of Atlas stones and a dragging sled. A tire may be added soon.
The gym provides not only the equipment for some serious lifting; it can also provide the attitude.
The main source of the attitude though is Lynne, referred to by many as Satan?s Gatekeeper. Lynne personally oversees everyone?s workout and will add weight to the bar until she ?personally feels good about the matter.? Many newer powerlifters have added over 100# to their squat and/or deadlift and 50# to their bench within a couple of workouts here and sometimes on their first one. Lynne says they were simply now aware of their current ability and were training much below it. ?Working with other serious lifters who push you helps too,? she adds. In fact, joining in the Sunday squat crew (all heavier squatters lift together on Sunday to insure adequate spotting) with only a 500 pound squat might earn you a nickname like ?Alice?. She will also stop a lifter from trying something way beyond their capability or from going too heavy too often and overtraining.
Her attitude carries over to her fitness clients too, who have often discovered this gym after their bouts of training in commercial gyms and the trainers there has brought them little or nothing in the way of desired results. Lynne?s old school emphasis on multi joint exercises and adding weight to the bar when possible has brought these people the weight loss and strength gains they sought but could not get at the foo foo places where there was no advice or the trainers seemed afraid to make their clients work outside their comfort zones.
All ages train here from a 9 year old powerlifter (who started at 7) with a 2 times bodyweight squat and deadlift up to a 74 year old man training to get in better shape. Lynne even has success with teens where many are afraid to try or fail. She has them deadlift with her for their first workout. She will then handily out lift them all the time reminding them that she is ?just a little blonde haired girl.? If they are serious about training they continue on with their teen ego in check, otherwise they never return. Sometimes she even lets other lifters in on the fun like the time others took a turn in killing Kenny (South Park style) by handily out lifting him. It is not unknown for a teen caught smoking on the property to be giving a swirly.
While there are a lot of fitness oriented people at the gym, the fact that many powerlifters train here and this is Lynne?s forte has caused it to catch on. Many of them have asked to and competed in powerlifting meets. She takes lifters (both serious and somewhat casual) to many meets both sanctioned and non sanctioned as well as holding meets at the gym. ?We go to meets where we like the environment independent of federation politics. In the long run, unless you are WPO or IPF bound, federation association or lack thereof makes no difference.?
The latest news is that the gym is expanding. Lynne hopes to double its size in the near future. ?Don?t expect there to be any more free floor space than there is right now though,? Lynne adds. ?I plan on filling it up with equipment.?

Sounds good to me! Thanks to Mike King for the well written info, and hat?s off to Lynne for the cool gym. Next month, we?ll take a look at more wacky comments from our emails, and see what we can find.

Questions and stupid comments:
rick@houseofpain.com
or
HOUSE OF PAIN
PO Box 333
Fate, TX 75132