Marty Gallagher
BORN ALPHA!
It was a perfect Saturday morning in late September. Bob “Nacho” Del Grande and his old training partner Bobby aka Duke Nukem, both friends of mine, had come to visit and train with me at my home at the base of the Catoctin Mountains. The boys arrived at 7 am and after downing strong cups of Cuban coffee, we headed to my garage gym.
We decimated ourselves: six sets of deadlifts, everyone hitting in excess 550 for reps. After a top set in the deadlift, we tied into five sets of overhead presses done off the racks I worked up to 205 for 5, a “recent” PR. Bobby Nacho was too tall, he could not stand and push his arms overhead to full extension without hitting the rafters. He substituted seated dumbbell presses.
We alternated the overhead presses with heavy lat pulldowns using an identical grip width. We then dropped the poundage, upped the reps, and performed two sets in the press-behind-the-neck alternated with behind-the-neck pulldowns using the same wide grip as the PBNs. We finished the workout with a brutal series of five bicep/tricep super-sets: steep incline dumbbell curls alternated with single-dumbbell overhead triceps presses. We gave each other forced reps on the final reps of the last bi/tri super set.
Swollen, shattered, shaking, drenched in sweat, shock-blasted, exuberant, all three of us were enveloped in a post-workout glow state that only comes in the aftermath of a body-shocking workout. If a workout surpasses a certain intensity threshold, the body is flooded with hormones that cascade into the bloodstream, combining, creating a hormonal cocktail that produce a narcotic-like effect. Adrenaline kicks off the training session. During the session the body is flooded with norepinephrine, endorphins, growth hormone, serotonin, dopamine, anandamide…
Exhausted yet blissed-out, the three of us stumbled from the unheated garage to the redwood deck under the giant pine tree. The boys collapsed. Nacho sprawled face down on my heavy-duty glider swing. Nukem melted into one of my oversize deck chairs. He put his feet up and sat basking in the sunshine.
I went to the kitchen and made each of us a protein shake: Parrillo 50-50 Plus, a powder, orange cream flavor, double portions, mixed with cold, raw, whole milk. I spike it with organic honey. Each giant glass delivered 60 grams of amino-restoring protein, 100 grams of glycogen-restoring carbohydrates, plus insulin-spiking lactose and honey sugar: we want a controlled insulin spike, post-workout, to amp up the anabolic after effects.
The two men moaned as they sipped this incredibly thick, delicious, restorative concoction. I threw three, seasoned, massive, rib-steaks on my Green Egg grill. I had gotten the hardwood coals going in between sets of barbell presses. Now the egg was smoking hot: 600 degrees. I threw the heavily salted, dry-aged, grass-fed, grain-finished rib-steaks on the red-hot coals. At 600-degrees, the steaks attained grill-marked perfection after two-minutes per side..then one minute per side…then done. Letting the steaks rest ten minutes minimum was the hard part.
As soon as the steak hit the plate in front of him, Nukem began ripping at his meat. I noted that he ignored the steak knife I had provided and produced a razor-sharp switch blade knife of his own. He diced and sliced the beef into paper thin slices with a practiced expertise. He hit the beef with some kosher salt, took a bite, chewed, sat up straight, looked skyward and said, “This is better than the steak I had at Morton’s last month – for which I paid $80.”
“He eats this way every day.” Nacho said motioning towards me. Nacho had picked the steak up by the bone and was eating it like a cannibal knawing calf meat off a shin bone. His face was grease smeared, he pointed at me with his steak bone. “He eats like a hillbilly Jacques Pepin.” Apparently, Nacho watched HBO cooking shows. Within 15 minutes we were done eating. Stuffed to the gills and about to fall asleep, I suggested a restorative ride into the mountains.
I dropped the top on my jeep, we loaded up. Nacho, all 6-3 and 280-pounds of him, sat in the passenger seat. Nukem, 6-1 and 245, grabbed the exposed roll bar and pulled himself into the tiny rear jump seat with great fluidity. He was agile as hell and reeked athlete: at age 40 he still played guard and linebacker for a hardcore Baltimore semi-pro football team. He had played for the same team for ten years. He drove a propane truck for a living and came from a tough section of a tough city and was a genuinely tough guy.
There were once Olympic weightlifters training at the Dundalk gym, this until they fled in terror after the infamous “Crystal Night.”
A monster powerlifter in a drunken fit of ‘roid rage had broken into the gym after hours. Intoxicated past the point of stupification, the 300 pound goon threw a metal trash can though the glass window behind which were displayed the gym’s Olympic weightlifting club team and individual trophies. The glass display case was chock full of glittery trophies, ribbons, and happy-time photos.
The goon smashed all the trophies, broke the plaques, shattered the photos and then peed all over the mess he made. He then spray painted on the wall “Olypmic lifters suck! YOU get out! This means YOU!!” The Olympic lifters did not have to be asked twice: there was a stampede of Olympic lifters exiting the Dundalk facility.
The same lifter that smashed the trophy case later had to go into witness protection. Still, he had been a great lifter. Nacho had been a training partner of the goon at the time of the incident. The nationally ranked lifter had been captured within six hours, sleeping it off in his grandmother’s basement. His prints were everywhere. He had an extensive rap sheet for violence and drugs.
“Yeah, Jeff just went ape-shit crazy that night. He was on PCP and drank a quart of that cheap wine, Ripple. He was also sniffing paint and I think he had taken peyote….I miss him.” Nacho’s wistfulness reminded me of that old country classic, “My best friend has run off with my wife – and oh how I miss him so.”
Nacho was (physically) positively streamlined: he had taken 2nd place at the USPF national powerlifting championships the previous July weighing a shapely and athletic 325 pounds. Since then he had reduced to 280. “At three-and-a-quarter, I felt like I was about to blow a head gasket: I was street racing a '59 Cadillac body with a 45 horsepower VW engine.”
This was his typically cryptic and very Zen-like way of saying no matter how much size and muscle a man adds, his heart muscle is the size of that man’s clenched fist: granted, some men have big clenched fists, however, the point being, unless you are competing, why stay huge? Why power around a huge body with a tiny heart? Ego?
I drove the two men into a state forest that I can access two miles from my home. This is old growth forest, untouched since the beginning of time. I broke off the small paved road and onto a nicely-kept gravel road. I knew the endless intersecting that crisscrossed this section of the state forest like the back of my hand.
My passengers were loving it. To these boys it was like an episode on the nature channel. They were regenerating, sucking in the crisp, clean mountain air. The scenery was breathtaking. We headed up the side of a picturesque mini-mountain and as we crested above the forest tree line, the farmland to our left was revealed in a Norman Rockwell-like panorama. You could see for 20-miles. Little mini-houses, colorful mini-barns, ribbons of road, it all appeared on a colorful checkerboard, a cropland landscape that went on forever. It was intoxicating, surreal; there was wonderful sense of total aloneness. We saw no one. I put on some excellent and appropriate mood music. My sound system was pulsating. Someone produced a spliff….
I took a final semi-hidden turn. I dodged axle-busting pot-holes, huge rocks, and low hanging branches. The jeep bounced like a buckboard up steep switchbacks and down steep slopes that made you glad it wasn’t February and icy. A few hundred yards in, I parked at a wide spot, exited and motioned the boys to follow me.
I walked down along a barely visible game trail that led to a barely visible hole in an unending sea of seemingly impenetrable pine trees. Walking into the pine forest turned a sunshine-filled day into night; suddenly, the sun was blotted out and it was dark and cool. The temperature dropped 10 degrees.
“Spooky!” Nacho opined as we picked our way across a sea of pine needles. Everyone broke into broad grins when we existed the darkened pine forest onto the shores of a sundrenched mini-lake.
“It’s a mini-lake in the mini-mountains! Shiny, happy, mini-people should populate the mini-shoreline!” Del Grande yelled, he was stoned.
“Damn!” the hard to impress Nukem exclaimed. “Nice! Where are all the people?”
“No swimming allowed. Fishing license required. The locals hate it. They boycott this place.”
“Good for us!” Said Nukem.
I motioned them to follow me. We walked the circumference of the sunny side of the lake until we came to a beautiful cove hidden by tall reeds. We sat down on a large log not five feet from water so crystal clear you could see the stones on the bottom as far as the eye could see. Nacho was positively wistful.
“I could live here. I would live in a yurt. With a super model. But I would need to have Chinese food and pizza delivered. Otherwise I would starve to death.”
I became the hero when I unzipped my backpack, reached in, and retrieved three 16 ounce beers. We were hidden from sight here in the cove and could hear anyone trying to sneak up. I told them getting caught drinking by the game warden was a $250 fine. Sips were taken and cans hidden behind the log we sat on. Again, a spliff appeared.
Nacho stretched his legs. “Nukem had a close brush with the law a couple weeks ago – right Nukem?”
Nukem, a guarded man let down his guard and did something he had not done in a decade, he took several massive hits of the extremely potent weed. I dared not look at him. Out of the left corner of my eye, I could see that he had visibly slumped – but not in a bad way – in a relaxed way. He leisurely and expertly exhaled his fifth toke. I got it, he was not some weed virgin, he was an expert sworn off. Now the weed loosened his inherent controlled nature. “Yeah, I had an incident…a violent incident. I hadn’t had anything this intense in fifteen years…”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I had to unleash hell and hurt on two human beings.” (Read Part II of the Duke Nukem - Unleashes Hell)
To read more about the eclectic REAL men that have crossed my path over the years check out the posts below.
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