Catalyst Athletics in Sunnyvale, California. And pretty close to where Bayshore Freeway and Lawrence Expressway meet. Now, that’s something real new for Sunnyvale. Or so you’d think.

Not too far from Catalyst Athletics there was once a garage gym, just off the Bloody Bayshore and Lawrence Station Road. Known as Bob’s Garage, three of us built it up at the corner of Santa Ynez and Chico. For the early 60s, Bob’s Garage was close to state-of-the-art. And all homemade.

The three of us knew each other from high school. We began serious training together as a result of the Sunnyvale Health Studio, one of those chrome plated gyms with M-W-F womens’ days, T-Th-Sat mens’ days, closed Sundays. All three of outgrew that place pretty quickly. They didn’t take kindly to banging out power cleans, rebounded deadlifts, and missed snatches hitting the wooden floor of what had for years been an old-timer grocery store. We moved on, forming our own garage gym.

The sixties were likely the last stand for garage gyms producing real athletes. That was the era during which coaches feared athletes becoming ‘muscle bound’, the era before gyms grew in number and popularity. Our best choice was to start our own training quarters.

Bob Kemper, Ken Sisler and I all graduated from Sunnyvale High School by 1962. Within less than two years they’d moved all their weights into the garage of the home of Bob’s family, all but taking over that garage. Soon outgrowing a scant quarter ton of old time standard barbells and weights — those old ones with the 1-inch diameter bars and plates — we added a York 310 lb Olympic set, along with all the 10, 25, and 50 pound plates we could find. Junk yards yielded flywheels as additional plates, while Markovich and Fox steel yard in Santa Clara became a source of hardened steel one inch diameter seven and eight foot long bars. A power rack custom fashioned from scrap 4x4” construction timber gave us a cutting edge in that early era of racks.

Back in the fifties and sixties there just weren’t many gyms, and hardcore training was limited to the Sports Palace in San Francisco and YMCAs throughout the Bay Area. Our little gym in Sunnyvale first drew friends from high school and college for occasional workouts, and more often pure curiosity about what we were up to. Our Saturday workouts became legendary 6-8 hour sessions, while the Sunday 4 hours of squatting were of less public interest. We overtrained for sure, following the rules of those days. Long workouts sipping gallons of milk and our radio blasting KYA top 40 AM rock.

It was only in the early 1980s that the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) divested itself of Olympic lifting, powerlifting, and bodybuilding. Before that time, the AAU sanctioned all amateur lifting and physique contests. What’s more, lifting events were combined with physique championships — most sponsored by YMCAs throughout the Bay Area and California. By 1963, maybe early 64, we were beginning to compete in those events. Of the three of us, Kemper was by far the most talented. By age 20 he sported more than 19” cold upper arms, was pressing a pair of 110 pound dumbbells overhead for sets of 10 after a day of body surfing at Santa Cruz, and was squatting well over 500 lbs. At 5’11” Bob lifted in the 198 lb class for some years, later moving up to the 242 lb class. At the 1971 Pan American Games, occasion of the last official competition in the Olympic press, Bob set that lift’s final record at 418 lbs.

During the mid-60s, Bob’s Garage became a magnet for Irongame enthusiasts. In that period, the lines weren’t draw really tight between Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and bodybuilders — nor wrist wrestlers, odd lifts, strongmen, pro wrestlers, and amateur athletes. We all trained hard together and tried all sorts of lifting. After all, we were a generation in the wake of those doing one arm snatches and cleans with 7-foot Olympic bars, bent presses reaching 300 lbs, dips for reps with 400 lbs over bodyweight, etc. A lot of those guys were drug-free naturals. Steroids were just coming in, and most muscle heads thought they were a new vitamin—and most wouldn’t take them. Up until his death in 1964, Ray van Cleef ran Gateway to Health Gym on West San Carlos near the old Sears store — Ray contributed to Strength & Health, and his gym was a stopping-off point for all sorts of athletes. After Ray’s death and with the then legendary rise of Kemper, Bob’s Garage became a visiting point.

I dropped out of competition by sometime in 1966. By then the playing field was no longer even. Dianobol had become rapidly and widely used. Records shot through the ceiling. What’s more, it was no longer confused with vitamin supplements: the dangers of oral steroid usage were becoming well known as casualties already were mounting. Given that situation, there was no point in competing. By 1967 I’d married, moving myself and my share of Bob’s Garage to my digs in Palo Alto. After several years of graduate school in Berkeley and a research fellowship in Japan, I returned to the South Bay in 1973. By then Bob’s Garage was a memory. Kemper had moved on to the San Jose YMCA, joining the living legends preparing there for upcoming Olympic victories.

Congratulations to Catalyst Athletics — your website photos evidence a dream come true, or perhaps a far more matured version of what we set out to be and do as Bob’s Garage. We of that time nearly 50 years ago were informed by visions of natural strength, health, and athleticism: to learn of a contemporary, far more sophisticated version of that vision brings gratitude and joy to this one-third of the Bob’s Gym gang. As I approach my 65th birthday, I’ve now trained for 50 years—I’ll cease only when nailed into a box! May the joy of the Irongame be a steadfast lifetime passion for you all.

Ken O’Neill
Austin, Texas