IronOnline Memory Lane Archive

Henrik's Big Bodybuilding Adventure Part 3

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Part 3: The Santa Cruz Experience:

To recap, my California Dreaming vacation had the following schedule:
Aug. 2-11: Staying in Venice (LA) training in Gold's Gym, World Gym, Muscle Beach.
Aug. 11-14: Staying in San Diego. Personal training with Frank Zane at Zane Experience.
Aug. 14-28: Staying in Santa Cruz, training in Dave's World Gym, meeting Dave, Laree and the Ragtopman Kevin C. (and many more).

Before I go into the details about my Santa Cruz experience, I want to give you a little background on the vacation. All gymrats in Europe dream about traveling to California and training at Gold's Gym and Muscle Beach. I'm no different, only my dreams also included Santa Cruz, where I knew my long time idol Dave Draper had a gym. For many years it's been like an impossible dream, but last year I decided to do something about it. I teamed up with my buddy Boris, and we started doing some serious planning in September of 1998. Later Henrik2 would join us.

At the time I had no idea where Santa Cruz was or how to find Dave's Gym, but by pure coincidence I stumbled over davedraper.com in February of 1999 I sent a question to Dave a couple of days later and he answered with a long column on the site (man, was I proud). And what luck! All of a sudden I was in contact with the Draper's - it all seemed a little unreal. I must admit that I hesitated a couple of weeks before I decided to ask Laree for help in finding us a place to stay in Santa Cruz. I wasn't quite sure if that would be out of line.

Boy was I wrong!! Not only did Dave and Laree help me get in contact with a good vacation home rental company, they even drove out to check out some of the houses/condos that we could rent. What generosity! We ended up renting a condo in the beautiful city of Capitola, right next to Santa Cruz and a 5ish mile drive to the Gym. The condo is located practically ON the beach with a fantastic view over the Pacific Ocean.

OK, lets get back to August of 1999. After 9 intense days in Venice/LA and 3 even more intense days in San Diego, we drove up to Santa Cruz on Saturday 14th.We were pretty exhausted when we arrived (10 hour drive) and my head was ready to explode with all the new impressions we had so far, so we decided to take the Sunday off (that would be the only day without sightseeing of some kind). Instead we took a long 2 hour walk up the coastline from Capitola, where we saw all the surfer-dudes that comes out for the weekend. California - surfers - sun - beautiful women at the beach - ahh the good life.

Boris on Dubois Street in Santa Cruz. World Gym is on the left.

Monday morning we drove out to World Gym Santa Cruz. Man, was I excited. The Gym is located in quiet surroundings close to the forest. At the Gym we were immediately recognized by Larry, one of the gym staff. He told us that Laree was around somewhere finishing up her workout and Dave would be there in an hour or so. We got our own membership cards (great souvenir, on mine it says: Henrik - The House) and decided to hit the weights right away. The Gym is basic but great and there's lots of space. On the walls there's big blowup pictures of Dave and Arnold training at Gold's '68-'70 and big blowups of 6 Dave Draper magazine covers. Also pictures from Dave's flick "Don't Make Waves".

Henrik in World Gym, Santa Cruz

5 minutes later Laree showed up and I got a big hug. We got a fantastic warm welcome by Laree, and just as I had imagined, when Laree starts talking there's no stopping her! (hehe, just kidding - no not really, hehe). Laree is the kind of person who just seems to be bursting with energy. There's always something going on.

We continued our workout and about an hour later Dave arrived. Again we got a fantastic warm welcome by Dave. You can't help notice the calm happy glow in Dave's eyes and his good sense of humor. It was obvious that Dave was in great shape and Boris complimented Dave on his paper thin skin. We finished our workout and met up with the Draper's at the Juice bar.

Of course we talked about all the things we had seen on our trip so far and about the Zane Experience. Many of the gym members came over to say hello and we just felt so welcome it was a little overwhelming. What a difference from the much more "cool-business" gyms in LA. We got a lot of good info on where to go and what to see. Laree gave me an update on the topics in the Irononline-group (the Draper challenge). She also showed us pictures from the opening of the gym 10 years ago, with people like Arnold, Zabo, Grace Jones, Sven Ole Thorsen.

The set-up at the "Juice bar" is really cool. It's a natural place for people to meet and you can have Dave shake up a BIG protein-drink for you (I liked it so much, Dave caught me rummaging behind the counter a couple of times.)

Henrik getting advice from Dave

The first week we trained every other day and each time we were there I had a lot of questions for Dave about training and nutrition (duh). It took a while to get used to the idea that I was actually in Santa Cruz talking to Dave Draper! (I still have to look at the pictures once in a while to make sure it really happened).

Let me tell you, Dave must be a very patient guy. He calmly answered all my questions and there were many. In fact, one day when I ran out of questions, Laree commented: "Henrik isn't feeling well, he's got no more questions!" Dave's answer: "Is it a mental problem?" - there's the Draper humor for 'ya. One advice from Dave that really stuck in my mind was this, "If you wanna have big muscles, you have to do A LOT OF HARD WORK." That means a combination of high intensity AND high volume. There are no shortcuts. Forget about the one set to failure theory. That's invented by people who's main purpose is to sell books and magazines (oh no, I'm in trouble now!).

The next Saturday is a day that really stands out from the others. About 9ish in the morning; Boris and I had dropped of Henrik2 at the bus station (he would spend the last week in Las Vegas). We then drove down to the Gym to hang out a little. In the afternoon there would be a bodybuilding contest on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk at the beach. Because of that, none other than the legendary Zabo Koszewski was at the gym together with a former tag-team partner of Jesse Ventura, Steve Strong, for a morning workout. We also met the former Mr. California Kim Allyn who was in fantastic shape.

But that was only the beginning. Dave came over and asked if I wanted to see his old training journals he had found at home. I could go get them in his truck. Trying to stay calm I of course said YES, but inside I was feeling like a kid the day before Christmas Eve. It turned out to be journals from 1964-65 when Dave was training for the Mr. America - I could hardly believe it. This was not some magazine made-up routine, it was the real thing. Only problem was that it was written in the usual training journal code (everyone has their own code) and since it was 35 years old, not even Dave could decode it a first. But eventually we made some sense out of it. I think this is one of the best memories I have from the vacation. It made me feel kind of special that Dave would show me the journals. I managed to get a xerox copy with me home - what a treasure.

The second week we trained every day and on Tuesday I finally met The Ragtopman Kevin C. We had emailed each other for several months, so that was a big event. Of course he got an update on our vacation so far, including the Zane Experience. Unfortunately we didn't get to talk much since Kevin had an appointment with his personal trainer, but it was fun meeting a fellow Iron-Onliner. Later that week I also met Iron-Onliner Steve K. who is a personal trainer at the Gym.

If I were to write about all the sightseeing stuff, this story would be way too long, but just to give you an idea of the things we saw, I'll list them here: Capitola coastline, Aptos, Santa Cruz Boardwalk, Santa Cruz downtown, The Redwood forest with the gigantic trees up to 1700 years old (took the old railroad from The Boardwalk), Monterey, Pacific Grove and the 17 mile drive, Carmel (where Clint Eastwood was mayor), The beautiful Big Sur coastline (100 miles down hwy 1), Hwy 1 north to San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, The Golden Gate Bridge (walked over!), San Francisco downtown, Telegraph Hill, ChinaTown, Pier39 (unfortunately the tour to Alcatraz was sold out), Sausalito, The whole bay area, Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose. As you can see, we didn't waste any time.

One of the reasons for this vacation was to get first hand advice from people like Frank Zane and Dave Draper and thereby hopefully clear up some of the confusion I've had about all the different training theories. And I got all the answers I could possibly want. My guess is that this vacation has cut at least 10 years of trial and error of my training and as I've said before, I'm now a lot more confident in my training, knowing I'm on the right track.

The only thing I regret is, that I didn't have the nerve to ask Dave if we could work out together. It seemed like a little too much to ask at the time and I knew that Dave prefers to work out alone. I did get to do the next best thing though. I worked out right next to Dave, him doing his thing, me doing mine. For instance I was doing triceps pressdowns and right next to me, Dave was doing lat pulldowns. What a feeling that was. That feeling alone can fuel my workouts for many years to come. And just observing Dave in his training gives you knowledge that no book or magazine can give you.

Henrik "spotting" Dave - who says Dave never do forced reps?

On Saturday the 28th it all came to an end. After 4 fantastic weeks in California and a vacation that definitely has made a difference in my life we had to go home. But hey, I was out of money anyway (used my last dollars on 2 World Gym Santa Cruz t-shirts). We packed our bags and drove by the Gym to say goodbye to Dave and Laree and the rest of the guys. After that it was a 20 hour journey back to Denmark.

Before I end, I wanna thank Dave and Laree for their fantastic friendliness and hospitality. Boris, Henrik2 and I had such a great time at your place. You guys are simply some of the most generous people I've ever met. I just wish I could repay you in some way.

Henrik
"The House"

Henrik in LA LA land

Click here for Henrik's Bash 02 travel journal

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