Quadzilla
This story is a little embarrassing because some just don’t understand the concept of a good man crush, but the person I’m about to tell you about inspired me to train hard and get strong on basic, compound exercises at a time in my life when I was fascinated by lifting and getting strong but had no idea how to go about either. When I lived in Phoenix and trained at the LA Fitness gyms on either Dysart Road or Cotton Lane, there was this huge dude who used to come in that just had me in awe. That may sound weird to some, but I’m not ashamed to admit that this guy’s build and strength was captivating to me. I was in my mid-20s at the time, and being a transplant from such a small, isolated part of the country, I had not ever seen anyone like “Quadzilla.” Quadzilla was the nickname I gave him in my head, because every time I saw him in the gym, he was squatting heavy-ass weight. Standing about 6’2” and weighing 255 pounds with big legs and a thick and powerful upper back and traps, Quadzilla looked like he had been either a thrower or football player in college. His typical gym attire was tight-ass sweatpants with a tank top. If I saw him at the gym now, I would strike up a conversation with him and try to pick his brain on training, but back then I was too shy and figured I should probably just stick to my bodypart split from Muscle and Fitness.
I only ever saw Quadzilla do a handful of exercises, including squats, bench press, overhead press, lat pulldowns, and seated cable rows. At first, I was confused as to why he didn’t have a dedicated “arm day” full of preacher curls and triceps pushdowns. After all, that’s how MuscleMag told me the pros trained. In 2009, as I slowly learned more about powerlifting and the shockingly positive effects squatting, deadlifting, and overhead pressing could have on a person’s system, I started to see the bigger picture. Quadzilla looked like a total beast because he used heavy weight on basic, hardcore exercises that have stood the test of time. The more I started to employ these methods in my own training, the more I realized how little use I had for the fluffy exercises that used to occupy most of my training time. Finally, I was getting results, putting on weight and feeling strong.
I moved away from Phoenix in 2010, so it’s been at least ten years since I’ve seen Quadzilla. I like to think he’s still out there, squatting and benching his ass off, looking like a monster, and maybe even inspiring some other young guy to get with it, cut the crap exercises, and start doing the hard stuff in training that actually produces results.