Lloyd took up athletics, thinking that this might be the means to gaining strength.
Avia Ustanny, Outlook Writer
LIKE A Zen master, the feet of 84-year-old Lloyd Young move with mesmeric yet purposeful slowness over the dry, brown-gold grass.
He is at his home in Montego Bay, where he leads the way to his famous gym.
Lloyd Young is the bodybuilder and weightlifter whose trophies and training prowess are the stuff that legends are made of, and whose health studio in Montego Bay is the stable of champions.
He is also the physiotherapist to whom both royalty, movie stars and two former presidents of the United States have called for therapeutic service while they were on holidays here. Young provided these services for United States president John F. Kennedy who had a bad back received in the last war.
"John F. Kennedy was staying with his wife Jacqueline at Cottage One, Half Moon. Before he became president, I told him of a dream I had had that he was being inaugurated. He answered saying that it would not happen, because he was a Catholic and also because he was too young. A few months later when he became president he wrote me a letter saying 'thanks'."
On call
Lloyd Young was on call to the clients of Tryall, Half Moon, Sunset Lodge and other getaways of the rich and famous. One was Millicent Rogers who inherited Standard Oil, an oil company in the U.S., and was also owner of the Wharf House at Reading in St. James.
Other clients he said were President Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King and his lieutenant Abernathy, President George Bush Senior, Sir Hugh Foot - a former Governor of Jamaica - Lady Sarah Churchill, as well as movie stars Eddie Murphy, Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford. Other clients were evangelist Billy Graham and the late Jamaican Prime Minister Donald Sangster.
"Physiotherapy and bodybuilding are first cousins," says the man who was the island's first Mr. Jamaica (bodybuilding competition) which he secured in December 1949. Young has also served as national weightlifting coach and physiotherapist to Jamaica at the eighth Commonwealth Games held in Kingston in 1962. He has also served as an international bodybuilding and weightlifting judge and remains a member of the British Amateur Weightlifting Association.
Chinese background
Lloyd Young was born on August 19, 1920 in Montego Bay to Chinese parents. His father was a shopkeeper and baker, his mother a housewife.
They coddled him because he was a sickly child, having suffered from malaria. But Young always had a dream of being the strongest man in the island. Where this idea came from, he told Outlook, he did not know. He tried cricket (a fast bowler hit him in the stomach and he vomited), boxing (his nose was broken) and football. He also tried chopping trees. All he got were corns and calluses from using the axe.
He took up athletics, thinking that this might be the means to gaining strength. It did make him increase in speed. Lloyd Young is co-holder of the 100 yard sprint record with Dr. Arthur Wint, a feat which they did in 10 seconds flat at Sabina Park during the Secondary School Athletics Championship in 1938.
At age 17, Lloyd Young met his mentor John Malcolm and his life changed forever. "When I saw the man, I nearly fainted. That was what I wanted to look like," he recalls.
On his way to Jarrett Park one afternoon, he heard the sound of iron ringing in the afternoon silence. Along with a friend, he went to investigate and discovered for the first time the weight trainer at work.
He became instantly fascinated. On that first day, he remained until nearly midnight. "I sat with my hands at my jaw for two hours. I saw a 95-pounder jerking 110 (pounds of weight). I wanted to try too. I was 148 pounds. But I could not even lift it to my knees."
His friends asked him, "You are a Chinese, what are you doing?" Chinese, they behaved, could never be as strong as other races. But, soon, he started weight training.
When his mother found out and expressed her displeasure, he kindly pointed out to her that he was not trembling anymore (a recurring effect of the earlier malaria infection).
Three years later, he opened his own gym, Lloyd Young's health studio, and it remains the longest-serving active gym in the Caribbean.
Young remembers that he searched the city's garbage dump, with the stifling smell of dead dogs, and John Crows aiming at his head, for old car batteries made of lead which he used to make his weights. He had no money to buy the iron weights. His father, he said, thought that he should be spending time in the shop and less on his pipe dream of becoming the strongest man.
"I had a crocus bag over my shoulder. One day it was so heavy that I rented a cart for a shilling and pushed it barefooted all the way up St. James Street to East Street where I was living. I decided to melt them and make my own weights."
Wet sand
His first attempt with wet sand led to an explosion which left 110 lead pebbles in his forehead and hands which he had used to cover his face. His mother had a screaming fit. But, just one week later, he was back at the coal stove. His father would chase him away, telling him to go chop the salt fish and mackerel. "You are damn fool," he said.
Then came the time when his mother started pressuring him to sign up for the war effort. She was relentless he remembers, telling him everyday "whose and whose son had already gone". One day, on a dare to his friends that he could pass the enlistment test with a higher score than the son of a neighbour, he sat the test. His score was over 90 but he also found himself in the war.
Serving in World War two in 1943, Young continued training in weightlifting and was winner of the Silver Shield, Britain's highest award for physique posing in 1944. One year later, he entered weightlifting competitions and was crowned as the middle weight champion of Britain. He also gained accreditation in physiotherapy while there. "All of England was blacked out in the night. When the boys were gone to bed I was under my bed using a flash light to do my lessons."
After his engagement abroad, he returned to Jamaica, still wanting to be the strongest man in the island. This Herculean feat he achieved in December 1949 when he won the title of Mr. Jamaica.
This is a saga told with humour and remembered pride by the 84-year-old bodybuilder. The old car which he hired to get to Kingston took 40 gallons of gas and he ended up travelling part of the way on a market truck filed with animals. Arriving late, and smelling stink, he pushed aside the gate man who blocked his entry. And with people running away from him, he made his way to the MC to plead for permission to join the contestants.
He was forced to wash off the smell while other competitors where impressing the judges. It was only his superior 'balance' which won him the title, he said.
When he called home to tell his parents, they were proud, for the first time realising that their time-wasting son might be on to something. When three years before he had printed posters announcing that he was 'Mr. Jamaica', and placed these in his bedroom, the latrine and in the back of his hymn book at church, everyone had thought him quite mad. Now he was vindicated.
Later, he went on to beat the reigning weightlifting champion, with an injured leg to boot (wrapped with bandages and hidden under a sweat suit).
PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Young, along with Ken Rhino, founded the Jamaica Amateur Bodybuilding Association in 1947 in Jamaica. His personal achievements include holder of the lightweight lifting champion title between 1947 and 1951. He also represented Jamaica at the Baranquilla, Colombia, as a weightlifter in 1948.
He is also the physical trainer who has personally and through his health studio produced more weightlifting and physique champions than any other gym, including the capture of the title 'Mr. Jamaica' on 12 occasions and Junior and 'Mr. Novice Jamaica' 13 times. The gym also produced every single 'Mr. Cornwall' since 1950.
Many of his protégés have gone on to do well internationally, including Chen Wint, Darrel Dixon (former lightweight professional wrestling champion).
Lloyd Young remains a life member of the Jamaica Amateur Weightlifting Association and the Jamaica Bodybuilding Association. He is also a member of RAFA, the Royal Air Force Association, founder and life member of the Jamaica Amateur Bodybuilding and Fitness Association, life member of the Jamaica Amateur Weightlifting Association.
Routine
At age 84, Young begins his days at 7:30 a.m. with a visit to see what is going on in his still very popular gym. Then he sunbathes and have breakfast.
He drinks two gallons of water a day and has cut out red meat, eating mostly fish and chicken, still trains three times a week. He can still, he says, lift 200 pounds on a good day and the dumb-bell press with 55 pounds. Young has remained a man determined to live his life according to his own ideals. For the last 40 years, he has never breakfasted on Christmas morning with his family. Instead, he delivers gifts to both HIV patients and old men and women who live next door to him in the parish infirmary and the AIDS hostel.
"I sing Christmas carols, read the Bible and we eat."
Then, he goes to downtown Montego Bay and feeds the homeless, giving them gifts as well. It is with them that he has his main meal also. As the end of the day nears, he visits his parents' graves and that of his sister and an old cook at Pye River. These he cleans and leaves with fresh flowers.
Wife Marlene Thompson-Young is more tolerant than his first spouse who left him, he says, because, according to her, he would not spend quality time with her. Marlene is the mother of Kimlen Young and step-mom of Lloyd Young Jnr.
After his hectic, self-styled sojourn through the city on Christmas day, he bathes and goes straight to bed, feeling good. For the strongest man, there is no need to hope for dreams. He has already lived them.
