SERIOUS MUSCLE : San Fernando Valley is Emerging as an Alternative to Living at the Beach for Those Committed to Body Building
They’re heeeeere . Guys with great bodies and women with large muscles. Serious body builders--the kind who win Mr. Universe contests, pluck and shave themselves and hang out at Venice Beach--are moving to the San Fernando Valley.
“It’s a trend,” says Andreas Cahling.
Before any worried Valleyites start forming committees and writing Joy Picus, Cahling wants to point out, “It’s not a massive exodus.”
The list is short but impressive. Tony Pearson, Albert Beckels and Rufus Howard, each a Mr. Universe. Cory Everson, Miss Olympia. John Aranita, Mr. USA. Christian Duffy, Mr. Los Angeles. And Cahling, Mr. International. All live and train in the Valley instead of Venice, the traditional roost for the world’s best body builders.
Leaving Venice
“More and more top body builders are leaving Venice,” says Cahling, a 35-year-old Swede who has been in the United States since 1976. “I lived on the Westside for a few years. It’s too crazy. I like the peace and serenity of the Valley.”
If the barbell set is relocating, it’s not only because of the life style. Until the mid-1980s, there weren’t any major-league gyms in the Valley--Vince Geronda and his tiny gym in Studio City was it. If a body builder wanted to get serious about pumping iron, he would have to train in Venice or make a tortuous commute from the Valley almost every day.
And training in Venice, to people such as Christian Duffy, became uncomfortable. Gold’s is only a block from the beach. “It’s a circus down there,” he says. “We’d get a lot of gawkers, a lot of tourists. You were always being bothered for your picture or your autograph. Especially in the summer.”
But in the last three years, three large gyms have opened in the Valley--a Gold’s in Northridge, a World Gym in Woodland Hills and the Power Source in Burbank. They provide first-class facilities for top body builders and make it easier for them to live in your neighborhood.
“We’ve got an alternative now,” says Cahling, who lives in Reseda and designs competition bikini briefs at a company in Northridge. “The reasons for living at the beach are not that valid anymore.”
Attitude Counts
A lot of Nautilus Plus clubs and Holiday Spas will probably say their facilities have always been good enough to put muscles on Pee-wee Herman, but to the barbell set, the art of body building, as opposed to working out with weights and just “getting in shape,” must never be practiced in a place that condones juice bars and Spandex and takes prospective customers into a back room to sign multi-year membership deals at discount prices.
Real gyms, according to real body builders, are single-minded in their pursuit of sculptured ligaments. That means a lot of free weights and supervision, and no strutting, saunas and social interaction. Leave your attitude at the door and don’t bother bringing your little black book.
“It’s easy to be serious here,” says Bruce Seid of Panorama City, before working out at Gold’s. “It’s not a big social thing.”
The Northridge facility is in a little shopping center next to a fast-food restaurant. On a wall in the 10,000-square-foot gym hangs a color photo of a buffed and polished Cory Everson, who works out there. The autograph reads: “Thanks for being here and allowing us all to live out our dreams.”
Living a Dream
Gold’s is operated by Duffy and Bill Phillips, both in their mid-20s, both living out their dream of owning a gym. “Especially a Gold’s,” Duffy says. “You almost have to try to make a Gold’s fail.” The partners lease the name from the original gym in Venice. Ironically, the original is no longer owned by Joe Gold, a body-building legend. Gold sold his name and went on to start World Gym in Venice, which is also successful. Duffy and Phillips bought the gym in December. It’s a descendant of a Gold’s that had previously been “a hole in the wall” in Reseda, says Phillips, who worked there in 1985.
“It was my first month in town and I would have licked mirrors to get a job there,” he says.
Duffy, whose wife Marianne is a pro body builder, was a private trainer at the Venice Gold’s when Phillips was working the desk there. Their personalities clicked. “He was the biggest screwball in the gym, and I was in the top 10,” Phillips says. Both are needlers and jesters, which keeps their gym upbeat, Phillips says. “You want members to want to come here because we’re so happy all the time. We bring others up.”
In contrast to the Northridge Gold’s, the World Gym in Woodland Hills is more subdued, which reflects the temperament of the owners, the husband-wife team of Kyal and Wendy Betton, both dedicated body builders in their early 30s. They started a World because “we’ve always been World people,” Kyal says. “It was the first gym I walked into six or seven years ago.”
Too Far
When they moved to Calabasas three years ago, the Venice gym became too long a journey to make every day. So they solved the problem by buying their own place, which is on the western outskirts of Woodland Hills next to the Ventura Freeway. They had to talk Joe Gold into licensing the World name, something he’d never done in Los Angeles County.
“We finally convinced him that we’d run our gym just like he runs his,” Kyal says. The Bettons went as far as sending a designer to Venice to copy Gold’s equipment. They opened the 10,000-square-foot gym less than a year ago and insist “we’re doing it for the fun of it,” says Kyal, who works for a wealthy aunt and doesn’t “rely on the gym for income.”
Aram Nersesian, owner of the Power Source in Burbank, is not that unconcerned about revenue. Banners that hang from the rafters in the cavernous 12,000-square-foot gym are paid for by advertisers such as Guido’s Pasta and Midas Muffler. Nersesian, 48, was a former mechanical engineer before catching the body-building bug. Now he wears a diamond-encrusted barbell pendant around his thick neck. His first Power Source, opened in 1974, was the size of the tiny aerobics floor at the present gym, which is his third.
“I’ve just about doubled in size every time I relocated,” says Nersesian, who has been in the pink-colored building for three years.
Like the other gym owners, Nersesian makes extra money by selling merchandise in a small pro shop, particularly T-shirts, which are almost a mandatory fashion statement for body builders.
“We also sell ours to a lot to people who don’t work out,” Kyal Betton says.
“A lot of people belong to other gyms but come here to get T-shirts,” Duffy says. “That’s how we get a lot of converts.”
While each of the three gyms caters to a small cadre of top body builders, the majority of members are average people (Gold’s claims a membership of 1,600, World 800 and Power Source 2,000). The gyms appeal to people who want a basic workout with basic weights.
Trend Reverses
“The old-fashioned gyms like these are coming back,” Nersesian says. “They’re for people who want to get in shape rather than be seen.”
Mimi Bagley has other reasons for liking Gold’s. A Northridge grandmother, Bagley joined Gold’s “to keep myself going so I don’t tighten up and die.” She exercises a few days a week. “I’m doing karate and want to strengthen my body all over,” she says. And what does she enjoy about working out?
“Where else,” she says, looking around the crowded gym, “can you spend hours looking at good-looking hunks like these?”