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A Perfect Fit: Wheeler's Fitness opened in 1986
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Anonymous user Mon Mar 20, 2006 13:47:42 PST
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1 response 0 comments When I turned 18, I had already been lifting weights for five years.

My dad took me aside one day and said, “You've done the weightlifting thing now for a while, don’t you think it’s time to do something else?”

That was in 1971. By the end of 1974 I had competed in my first powerlifting meet and was hooked for life.

It’s hard to believe that I have been weight training for almost 40 years, powerlifting competitively for 32 years, and that my hobby evolved into my livelihood.

In 1981, I started taking vitamin packs and bottles of amino acids to the gym in a shoe box on Saturdays and selling them to guys I was training with. I was working for PG&E at the time and trying to get my "work-out-of-my-home” business going.

It wasn’t long until I started to sell sports nutrition products by mail-order, eventually advertising in some of the top bodybuilding magazines and shipping products all over the world.

All the while I was reading books on nutrition and training and building my knowledge base.

In 1986, I left my fulltime job to open Wheeler’s Fitness Equipment Co. at 206 Bernard St. and expanded the business to include the sale of home fitness equipment.

In 1991, Wheeler’s installed its first corporate fitness center, and since then has offered a full range of services from home fitness, apartment complexes, school facilities and corporate gyms for employees.

In 1997 we moved the store to its current location in the Town and Country Shopping Center at Stockdale Highway and Coffee Road.

Leap forward to March 2006 and here I am, 25 years in the fitness business, introducing myself to the readers of The Southwest Voice in Southwest Bakersfield.

Some of you know who I am, most of you don’t and that’s OK –– I don’t know you, either. Over the course of time I hope to have a chance to meet many of you, and I look forward to any questions, comments or feedback about the information that I will be sharing with you in this fitness column.

I will try to inform, educate, and hopefully –– once in a while –– entertain you.

Let me emphasize one important thing: What I share with you will be based upon my education up to this point. I believe that I know what I’m talking about, but frankly I’m not all that smart, so take what I write with a grain of salt and don’t take me too seriously –– I certainly don’t.

Some of what you will read might contradict the latest and greatest information you just got from your current fitness guru. Don't be scared, this isn't rocket science. In fact, it’s much harder than that.

You see, to get a rocket to the moon and back, you depend on absolutes like trajectories and mathematical calculations that are already figured out and remain constant every time you launch a rocket. If you want to drop 4 inches off your waist and loose 25 pounds, now you have a challenge.

Why?

Because YOU are not ME and your metabolism might not react exactly like mine does to certain fitness or diet parameters.

So it can take more to get you into shape than just eating high protein and working out on that “robo-flex” machine you bought off an infomercial.

With all of that in mind, welcome to “A Perfect Fit.”

I hope you find the information helpful in your quest for better health, strength, size or just general fitness. 

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