Much more than just a Backyard Gym

by Bria King

What do bicycle handles, scotch tape, wood and concrete have in common?

When they are combined with each other or with other pieces of material, it is quite possible to fashion one’s own gym equipment.

And this is exactly what Kendol Campbell did. Through his passion for fitness and bodybuilding, the South Rivers resident recycled materials available to him to build a gym in his back yard.

“I have couple dumb bells, barbells, homemade leg press, homemade chest press, homemade shoulder raise, homemade leg curls and a bench to do abs and pull ups, a pull-down machine too,” he told SEARCHLIGHT this week.

Having done his research via the Internet, watching numerous YouTube videos, and utilizing his skills in construction, Campbell has been constructing machines in the homemade gym since September 2013.

Enrico Nedd midway through his workout on the pull-up machine

The 25-year-old explained that he had always liked the look of bodybuilders and wanted to achieve that for himself.

In the six years that Campbell has had his gym, his body weight has moved from 175 to 225, with the majority of extra pounds accounting for his increased muscle mass.

He said that he has only been to a traditional gym once before. And while he enjoyed the experience, he was more comfortable working out at home with his own hand-crafted equipment.

“Anybody invited to come. [I don’t] turn down anybody at all. Better to be behind here than on the streets but anybody can come, free,” Campbell, who works out with a group of friends every day, said.

“One the benefit is I get to work out whenever I want, however I want really, without anybody really tell you anything, because unless for badword, anything goes. No special time of the day.”

Campbell’s friend, Aaron Thomas also expressed appreciation for the convenience of a free gym in his friend’s back yard.

He told SEARCHLIGHT that he works out five days a week, sometimes twice a day.

Clarence Thomas works out his biceps with one of the homemade barbells in the backyard gym

As he lounged on one of the benches made by Campbell, awaiting a chance to work out on one of the machines, Enrico Nedd said that working out in the backyard gym is much more difficult than working out in a traditional gym.

The former national volleyball and basketball player explained that this was because of the material that the equipment was made out of.

“I like the muscles. It attracts a lot of girls but comparing the backyard and a normal gym…I’m more comfortable here because these are the dudes I normally see in this gym every day,” the 21-year-old said.

“Being in a normal gym, you won’t real focus like you want to, you won’t put in the work that you’ll normally want to do, but for me, the backyard is like home.”

And many people who frequent Campbell’s backyard gym, do so for the camaraderie and homely environment that it offers.

“A good way to blow off steam”

In fact, it was one of the things that attracted Peace Corps volunteer, Chris Cannito to start working out with Campbell and his friends when he arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines in 2015.

“It’s a good way to make friends and it really helped with my service because it’s in the heart of the community. It’s a good way to blow off steam, because you don’t always have the best days working at the schools or on a project and stuff like that and it builds a lot of solidarity between the people that do it, but also you get a better sense of the community and the people around it,” Cannito told SEARCHLIGHT.

The Peace Corps volunteer said that he likes the “home-grown” aspect of the gym because it highlights how resourceful and hardworking people can be.

He also said that the gym has gone through a lot of changes since he first started as it relates to the creation of various equipment and additional weights.

“It might not seem like the glossy, like the advertised gym or something like that, but you can get as good or better workout here because you have to focus on what you’re doing so much more because it’s homemade. It drives you and the people around you because it’s a much more social environment,” the Philadelphia native said.

Keeping fit while having fun

Another regular to the gym is Marcus James, who told SEARCHLIGHT that he is a certified fitness trainer.

He said that the backyard gym has contributed significantly to the sportsmen and women of the South Rivers community as some of them use it as a place to train.

Having been a part of the building process, the construction worker said that whenever new persons come along everyone is happy to do their own little personal training to ensure that they do not injure themselves.

FROM LEFT: Enrico Nedd, Kendol Campbell, Marcus James, Aaron Thomas, Clarence James and Chris Cannito

“We make sure take up younger guys under our wings and train them,” he said. “We do this just to keep fit and to keep ourselves healthy as well but we enjoy it, we get fun out of it, we get the results we are looking for and it’s fully organic because we don’t work out with substances from the store.”

Campbell told SEARCHLIGHT that his gym carries weights ranging between 145 and 580 pounds for workouts like deadlifts and bench press.

The 25-year-old said the concrete weights were weighed on a scale when he first created them.

And because they are made of concrete, another gym regular, Clarence James said that there are several precautions that are taken by those that work out in the backyard gym.

“It’s much heavier so that means it builds you fast, gets you strong very fast, but you have to be careful because you can like injure yourself,” James, who has been working out for over two decades, said.

“If you just start to work out, you can’t go heavy, you will tear muscles and injure yourself, so you have to start light until your muscle becomes strong, so you can lift more but not because you see somebody lifting 200 pounds you have to.”

According to James, who attests to once having much more muscle than he does now, said that precautions include banding one’s knees when lifting extremely heavy weights, providing guidance on how to do an exercise correctly and spotting each other.