Read Online FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL by Vinnie Tortorich, Dean Lorey - Free Book Online
Authors: Vinnie Tortorich, Dean Lorey
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I wasn’t quick enough.
I got the rice treatment because I’d looked out the window a second too long.
But it wasn’t just the nuns who made my life hell. The other kids in school used to start fights with me as they mocked the way I spoke. One kid would kneel behind me while another pushed me backward, knocking me to the ground. I’d fight back and then more would pile on.
The bus was no better.
I rode with the public school kids, which meant there was a whole new crop of students to beat on me. One day, a couple of them got off a stop early just to kick my ass before walking home. Every day I’d go home with scrapes and bruises and tell my concerned mother that I’d fallen down in the playground.
This went on for years. There was no safe place to hide from the constant torment. I was in hell. I wished I was dead. Or a superhero. How great would it be to be able to fight back and protect myself? Unfortunately, even though I was only nine, I knew superheros were just cartoon characters.
There was no hope.
I tried to escape my life by watching Wide World of Sports on TV. I don’t know if you remember it, but you could always see athletic people in exotic locations all around the globe. Over the course of an hour, you’d go from a motorcycle race on the Isle of Mann to a ski jumping competition in Kitzbuhel.
You’re probably thinking the same thing I was thinking. Where the hell is Kitzbuhel? Answer: Austria.
I really wanted to go there. It looked so clean and the people seemed nice. I was in such a bad mental state that I thought a place that housed a Nazi death camp during WWII was better than where I was living.
And then, a miracle happened.
I was getting ready to turn off the TV after watching Wide World of Sports when a new show came on featuring a very muscled guy doing exercises. His name was Jack Lalanne. He seemed like a God and I wondered how he got to look like that. That’s when my nine-year old brain put it together. Weight lifting.
For the first time, I realized that lifting weights up and down could lead to putting on muscle. And if you did it enough, you could maybe end up looking like Jack Lalanne.
Who needed cartoon superheroes? He was the real deal!
I wanted to start lifting weights. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any. But what I did have was a hollowed out piece of metal pipe and a couple of bricks—the kind with the holes in the center. I’d slide the bricks onto each end of the pipe and lift it up and down. Which kind of worked, except the bricks would slide down the pipe and rip up my hands.
I didn’t care. I did it anyway.
One day, my Uncle Frank asked me what happened to my hands. I told him about my gym in the backyard. He wanted to see it, so I took him out and demonstrated my lifting technique, promptly cutting my hands again.
“You really want to do this?” he asked.
I told him I wanted to be like Jack Lalanne. He said he knew someone better than Jack Lalanne, which I knew was bullshit because there wasn’t anyone in the world better than Jack Lalanne.
Except there was.
Joe Bonadona.
This guy made Jack look like a wimp. His pecs were like Honeybaked hams. His biceps reminded me of oversized pythons. He had quads like sequoias, and a stomach that looked like it was carved out of marble by Michelangelo. My Uncle introduced us. Joe shook my hand in his giant fist and said, “Hello, Vinnie.”
Not “Vinna.” Vinnie.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I met someone who didn’t mock me. From that moment on, I didn’t care what anyone said, I was going to be like that guy.
He had a gym. It was about fifteen by fifteen, with walls made of cinderblock and a tin roof. The equipment was made by a local welder. The benches didn’t have any upholstery—the seats were raw wood. Instead of having pull-down machines, he had pullies hanging from the rafters threaded with a rope tied to a t-bar that he hung weights on. In the summer, if it was a
I wasn’t quick enough.
I got the rice treatment because I’d looked out the window a second too long.
But it wasn’t just the nuns who made my life hell. The other kids in school used to start fights with me as they mocked the way I spoke. One kid would kneel behind me while another pushed me backward, knocking me to the ground. I’d fight back and then more would pile on.
The bus was no better.
I rode with the public school kids, which meant there was a whole new crop of students to beat on me. One day, a couple of them got off a stop early just to kick my ass before walking home. Every day I’d go home with scrapes and bruises and tell my concerned mother that I’d fallen down in the playground.
This went on for years. There was no safe place to hide from the constant torment. I was in hell. I wished I was dead. Or a superhero. How great would it be to be able to fight back and protect myself? Unfortunately, even though I was only nine, I knew superheros were just cartoon characters.
There was no hope.
I tried to escape my life by watching Wide World of Sports on TV. I don’t know if you remember it, but you could always see athletic people in exotic locations all around the globe. Over the course of an hour, you’d go from a motorcycle race on the Isle of Mann to a ski jumping competition in Kitzbuhel.
You’re probably thinking the same thing I was thinking. Where the hell is Kitzbuhel? Answer: Austria.
I really wanted to go there. It looked so clean and the people seemed nice. I was in such a bad mental state that I thought a place that housed a Nazi death camp during WWII was better than where I was living.
And then, a miracle happened.
I was getting ready to turn off the TV after watching Wide World of Sports when a new show came on featuring a very muscled guy doing exercises. His name was Jack Lalanne. He seemed like a God and I wondered how he got to look like that. That’s when my nine-year old brain put it together. Weight lifting.
For the first time, I realized that lifting weights up and down could lead to putting on muscle. And if you did it enough, you could maybe end up looking like Jack Lalanne.
Who needed cartoon superheroes? He was the real deal!
I wanted to start lifting weights. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any. But what I did have was a hollowed out piece of metal pipe and a couple of bricks—the kind with the holes in the center. I’d slide the bricks onto each end of the pipe and lift it up and down. Which kind of worked, except the bricks would slide down the pipe and rip up my hands.
I didn’t care. I did it anyway.
One day, my Uncle Frank asked me what happened to my hands. I told him about my gym in the backyard. He wanted to see it, so I took him out and demonstrated my lifting technique, promptly cutting my hands again.
“You really want to do this?” he asked.
I told him I wanted to be like Jack Lalanne. He said he knew someone better than Jack Lalanne, which I knew was bullshit because there wasn’t anyone in the world better than Jack Lalanne.
Except there was.
Joe Bonadona.
This guy made Jack look like a wimp. His pecs were like Honeybaked hams. His biceps reminded me of oversized pythons. He had quads like sequoias, and a stomach that looked like it was carved out of marble by Michelangelo. My Uncle introduced us. Joe shook my hand in his giant fist and said, “Hello, Vinnie.”
Not “Vinna.” Vinnie.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I met someone who didn’t mock me. From that moment on, I didn’t care what anyone said, I was going to be like that guy.
He had a gym. It was about fifteen by fifteen, with walls made of cinderblock and a tin roof. The equipment was made by a local welder. The benches didn’t have any upholstery—the seats were raw wood. Instead of having pull-down machines, he had pullies hanging from the rafters threaded with a rope tied to a t-bar that he hung weights on. In the summer, if it was a
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