Chalk, Sweat & Blood

THUMP... THUMP... THUMP...

It is February 2002 in Tucson, Arizona.

The camera is positioned approximately forty feet down a hallway inside Tucson Racquet & Fitness Club. At the far end is an ocean-blue door separating the relative darkness of the hallway from the brilliant Arizona sunshine outside.

The door begins to open. Sunlight floods through the opening. A figure appears.

For a moment, he is almost a silhouette against the Tucson sun. Then he steps through the doorway and begins walking toward the camera.

Red headband. IronMind T-shirt. Red Inzer sweatpants. White athletic tape wrapped around the wrists. Sunglasses shielding his eyes from the unusually bright lights being used for filming. Around his neck hangs a leather necklace with a genuine bone arrowhead.

And beneath everything is that heartbeat.

THUMP... THUMP... THUMP...

Then comes the voice.

"I'm Iron Warrior Robert Herk Sparkman, and the following battle with the iron takes place between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. on the most brutal day of my life."

The statement wasn't entirely accurate. The workout — and certainly the filming — would take considerably longer than two hours. But accuracy wasn't really the point.

The battle was.

And Chalk, Sweat & Blood had begun.

For years I had been writing Herk's Log for Cyberpump.com, sharing my training experiences, philosophy, enthusiasm, and occasional larger-than-life descriptions of what it felt like to wage war against heavy iron.

I loved writing those entries.

But eventually I began wondering what it would be like if the people reading them could actually see what I was talking about. What did genuine all-out effort look like? What happened when the words on the page — intensity, concentration, determination, hard work — were translated into an actual human being standing underneath, over, or in front of a heavily loaded barbell?

Part of my inspiration came from my friend and mentor, Dr. Ken Leistner. Dr. Ken had videotaped one of his own workouts as part of a charitable fundraising effort, and the idea stayed with me.

I began imagining something similar. I had written a small booklet, and my hope was that perhaps I could eventually offer it together with a training video and donate the proceeds to charity. The video would be called: CHALK, SWEAT & BLOOD.

It never developed into the finished charitable project I originally envisioned. The booklet and video were never released together and the film itself was never completely finished.

But something wonderful happened anyway. We made it. Or at least enough of it that, more than two decades later, I can watch those images and return almost instantly to that room.

And for that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Gary, the head tennis professional at Tucson Racquet & Fitness Club, and his son. Gary was already an exceptionally busy man, and yet he and his son devoted approximately three or four hours that day to filming me. Gary also spent his own time working behind the scenes afterward, trying to bring my rather ambitious vision to life.

The production was amateur. Some things didn't go exactly as planned. The music heard on the unfinished version was temporary and wasn't music I had selected. The voice-overs were recorded before the workout was filmed. The gym remained open, with members, trainers, and employees going about their normal routines while our little production unfolded around them.

And looking back, I wouldn't want to erase those imperfections. They are part of its charm. They make CSB a time capsule.

My bodyweight was approximately 220 pounds. I had previously been considerably heavier — around 265 — but by this period I had deliberately reduced my weight, in part because of increasing trouble with my right hip. I had been diagnosed with bone-on-bone arthritis, and traditional squatting was no longer part of my training at the time.

But there was still plenty I could do. And on this particular day, apparently I intended to do all of it.

The first major battle was the Parallel Grip Deadlift, performed with a high-handled trap bar. The load was 395 pounds. The objective wasn't a tidy conventional set followed by a comfortable rest. I accumulated repetitions, attacking the weight repeatedly until I reached 49 total reps. The first volley alone was 19 consecutive repetitions.

Before the exercise, my prerecorded voice-over announced what I believed this magnificent movement could build: well-developed thighs, a thick muscular back, monstrous traps and a viselike grip. In typical Herk fashion, I eventually suggested that becoming sufficiently strong at it might leave a man feeling capable of whipping his weight in grizzly bears.

Subtle? Not particularly. Enthusiastic? Absolutely.

Floating subliminally across the screen were words that represented much of what training meant to me: DEDICATION. PASSION. RESPECT. COURAGE. FORTITUDE.

They weren't merely words chosen for dramatic effect. They were qualities I genuinely associated with the Iron Game.

By the time 395 pounds had traveled from floor to lockout 49 times, however, I probably wasn't contemplating any of them very philosophically. I was trying to breathe.

Next came the Partial Deadlift. 460 pounds. 61 accumulated repetitions. Performed inside the rack, this was heavy, abbreviated movement through a shortened range — but there was nothing abbreviated about the effort.

My voice-over described the exercise as a way to build serious back thickness and rugged power. Then The Herk took over completely, talking about backs being subjected to a fifteen-round pounding from a heavyweight champion and muscles becoming so engorged with blood that shirts might be endangered.

At one point, the narration even announced: "Incredible Hulk, move over mister, there's a new beast on the block and he goes by the name of The Herk."

Watching it today makes me smile. I took my training extremely seriously. Fortunately, I never took The Herk quite as seriously. That distinction matters. CSB was meant to motivate — but it was also supposed to be fun.

Then came the thick bar. IronMind's Apollon's Axle, a two-inch-diameter bar that turned ordinary gripping into another part of the battle.

For the Overhead Lockouts, the Axle was loaded to 268 pounds. What followed was one of my beloved three-in-one "death sets": 20 repetitions. Another 20. Then 11 more. 51 total repetitions. The prerecorded voice-over says 50. Apparently by then The Herk's mathematical abilities were beginning to deteriorate along with everything else.

After 51 overhead lockouts, most reasonable people might have concluded that the pressing muscles had received sufficient stimulation. I was apparently not among them.

The same thick Axle was brought down for the Bench Press. 225 pounds. Starting from the bottom position, the bar grazing my chest, I fought my way through 17½ repetitions. Toward the end it became less a conventional set than a rest-pause negotiation between myself, the barbell, and whatever strength remained in my upper body.

The overhead lockouts had already torched my shoulders, triceps, chest and upper body. Now I was asking them for more. That became something of a recurring theme.

Next came Barbell Rows. A five-foot Olympic bar. 195 pounds. 60 accumulated repetitions.

By now fatigue wasn't something arriving at the end of the workout. It was a training partner.

The camera caught the realities that a written training log never could: the chalk, the breathing, the red towel, the half-gallon water jug, the moments spent on the floor gathering myself before returning to the bar.

At times I removed my lifting belt toward the end of prolonged standing efforts. It wasn't an attempt to demonstrate toughness. I simply needed to breathe more deeply and get oxygen back into a body demanding enormous quantities of it.

Around me, Tucson Racquet & Fitness Club continued operating normally. Members trained. Employees worked. Bill, the floor instructor, went about his responsibilities. At one point another gentleman can be seen performing light triceps pushdowns in the background while my own particular brand of insanity is unfolding nearby.

There was nothing wrong with what he was doing. Every person in a gym has his or her own purpose, abilities and goals. But visually, the contrast was almost comedic. The world continued normally. And somewhere in one corner... The Herk was having a day.

Then came the movement that has become one of the most memorable parts of the footage for me. The Barbell Clean & Press. Same five-foot bar. Same 195 pounds.

By this point I was exhausted. Not movie exhausted. Not dramatically exhausted. Exhausted. The kind where kneeling beside a barbell starts looking like an excellent life decision.

The repetitions increasingly became rest-pause efforts. I would attack the bar, recover, breathe, gather myself and return. And somewhere deep into that battle, I believed I had one repetition left.

I began talking myself through it. "I have one more left in me! One more... One more..." Then another thought came to me. "Rich, this last rep is for you! Be strong!"

Rich was my dear friend Rich LaBombard. Our friendship had begun through an unlikely chain of events involving emails he sent to Bill Piche, editor of Cyberpump, which Bill forwarded to me. Rich was married to Suzanne, who happened to be the best friend of a woman named Nancy.

Yes. That Nancy.

Life has an interesting way of connecting dots long before we understand what picture they are forming.

Rich would become very dear to me. Years later I would buy him a York barbell as a birthday present and eventually entrust him with my Dr. Ken Hardgainer collection. He had even stopped at TRFC to visit me once while returning from Mexico.

So when I said his name that day, it wasn't scripted. I was deep inside the effort and thinking about my friend.

I cleaned the 195 pounds. Pressed it overhead. And because I apparently hadn't made the dedication sufficiently emphatic... I pressed it again. A double press.

Surely that was enough. Except a short time later another thought entered my oxygen-deprived brain: "What the hell, I have one more in me... ONE MORE!"

Back to the chalk. Hands together. Gather myself. Walk toward the bar. Clean it. And press. Slowly. Painfully. Finally: LOCKOUT.

Twenty-four cleans had been completed, with an extra press thrown in along the way. And only now, looking back, have I discovered the obvious explanation. CSB was visually influenced in part by the television series 24, which I loved. Jack Bauer had twenty-four hours to save the world. The Herk apparently needed twenty-four Clean & Press reps to save the workout.

I doubt I was contemplating clever symbolism while lying on the floor trying to remember how breathing worked. But twenty-four it was.

The camera kept rolling. I was sprawled beside the loaded barbell, completely spent. Even my thumbs were sore. And just before that sequence faded away, I managed the slightest little thumbs-up. Then came four words that probably explained the entire afternoon — and, in some ways, much of my life: "I love this stuff!" I did. I still do.

There was still work to be done. The Neck Support carried three more words across the screen: LOYALTY. BACKBONE. CONFIDENCE.

For the Neck Support, I used an IronMind heavy-duty neck harness to support 275 pounds for a little less than a minute.

The Wrist Roller was two inches in diameter, supported at the appropriate height, and loaded to an actual 275 pounds. The unfinished video identifies it as 315 pounds, an innocent production mistake. Believe me, 275 was plenty.

Before beginning, the camera caught me kneeling and carefully wrapping my thumbs with white athletic tape. Then came the chalk. Hands into the bowl. Chalk coating the skin. Hands clap together. A white cloud erupts into the air. Then the work begins.

The objective was brutally simple: raise the weight with the wrist roller, control it, and bring it back down.

By the time it was over, CSB had earned the last word in its title. My right thumbnail was oozing blood.

Chalk. Sweat. Blood. No special effects required.

Ironically, some of the most entertaining CSB scenes exist only in my memory because we never got around to filming them.

Gary and I had planned a more elaborate opening. I would arrive at TRFC in my 1982 Honda "beater." The camera work was going to borrow a little from Saturday Night Fever: low shots following my legs as I made my grand entrance.

And we had something else available that Hollywood couldn't have provided nearly as authentically. Birds. Large, tall bushes surrounded portions of the TRFC parking lot, and what seemed like hundreds of birds sometimes nested in them overnight. In the early morning sunlight, disturbing those bushes could send an astonishing number of them bursting into flight at once.

So naturally we thought: Let's put them in the movie.

The Honda would pull in. The door would open. My feet would hit the pavement. The ground would rumble. And, if timing and nature cooperated, an enormous flock of birds would explode from the bushes as though The Herk's arrival had disturbed the natural order of the universe.

Subtlety was apparently not one of our production goals.

Then I would notice something horrifying. I hadn't parked between the lines properly. Would The Herk climb back into the Honda, start it and reposition the car like any sensible human being? Certainly not. He would walk calmly to the rear of the automobile... lift the back end... and move it sideways into the parking space.

Ridiculous? Absolutely. Unrehearsed? Not a chance. I had practiced lifting the rear of that old Honda and shifting it sideways on numerous occasions until I had the technique perfected. The stunt would have been flawless. There was only one significant production risk: the car might have fallen apart while I was moving it.

We had a closing scene planned too. After the battle, the camera would follow me back through the club and into the parking lot. But something would have changed. Instead of climbing back into my battered Honda, I would approach my friend's fire-engine-red Chevrolet Corvette. I'd get inside. Look directly into the camera. Smile. And wink.

The symbolism was intentionally outrageous but sincere. I had entered the gym in the beater. I had fought the battle. And I was leaving feeling like a million dollars.

The transformation wasn't financial. It was internal — that magnificent feeling after an extraordinary workout when you're exhausted yet somehow renewed, when you've asked something difficult of yourself and answered the challenge.

Would the scene have worked? I have absolutely no idea. It might have been inspirational. It might have been gloriously cheesy. Most likely, it would have been a little of both. And I wish we'd filmed it.

More than two decades have passed since that February afternoon. When I watch the footage today, something strange happens. For brief moments, I almost cease remembering that the man on the screen is me.

I watch him standing amid the chalk dust at approximately 220 pounds, approaching weights that once seemed simply part of another day's work, and I find myself thinking: Did I really do that?

Apparently I did.

At the time, however, I rarely stepped outside myself long enough to consider what I was doing. There was always another workout. Another plate. Another repetition. Another goal.

That's one of the strange things about living inside a period of your life that you will someday look back upon with nostalgia. While you're actually living it, it doesn't feel like history. It feels like Tuesday.

The iron itself kept everything honest. A barbell doesn't care what you wrote in your training journal. It doesn't care how strong you think you are. It can't be persuaded by enthusiasm, intimidated by bravado or impressed by yesterday's workout. Either you move it or you don't.

I loved that honesty then. I love it now. What has changed is the way I answer the challenge.

The maximum poundages, brutal rack work and relentless assaults eventually give way to greater attention to recovery, joint longevity, exercise selection and the dignity of training intelligently for the long haul. That isn't surrender. It is evolution.

I don't need to reproduce the workouts of the younger Herk to remain faithful to him. In fact, perhaps the best way I can honor him is to take everything those years taught me and continue training with enough wisdom to keep the journey alive.

When I look at him now, I feel a mixture of amazement, gratitude and fierce nostalgia. I'm grateful for what my body allowed me to do. I'm grateful that the Iron Game found me so early in life. I'm grateful for the friends it brought me, the lessons it taught me, and the countless hours when a barbell gave me a place to test myself honestly.

And if I could somehow walk back through time into Tucson Racquet & Fitness Club in February 2002, I don't think I'd lecture that younger man. I wouldn't tell him how impressive he was. He wouldn't have listened anyway. He'd probably have been too busy chalking his hands.

I'd simply stand nearby for a moment. Watch him work. Maybe smile. And tell him: