Sabino's Gimnasio Hercules

It is written on the wall for all to read, "Soy Mas Fuerte ques las Excusas"
The man who put those words on his gyms wall is Sabino De Dezma Alcantara of Ciudad Constitucion, BCS, Mexico.





On February 2, 1988 Sabino opened the first gym in his hometown when he was 39 years old,raising a family and working full time. It was located in downtown Ciudad Constitucion and consisted of a few homemade exercise machines and barbells fashioned from iron rods with weight plates cast from molten lead. He told me he used a carnita pot, fire, molds, placing the lead in spoons to pour into the molds.. Sabino built everything himself using materials which were available at the time.

Today Sabino is 73 years old and his gym is now located in a large outbuilding on his homes property in the southeast outskirts of Ciudad Constitucion. I met Sabino four years ago in the fall while looking for a gym to work out in on the non fishing days. I looked at all the gyms in Ciudad Constitucion and while many were nice, clean modern facilities I did not feel the vibe I look for in a gym. Sure they would do but there was one other gym to look at, the farthest one of course, but I liked its name, Gimnasio Hercules, so I drove out to check it out.

What I found was a large, airy, window lighted space with a high gabled roof slash ceiling with a tin roof. It immediately brought back memories of the first tin quonset hut from college where I first learned about real weightlifting and weightlifters. The floorspace was populated with a wide assortment of obviously homemade exercice machines but even more obvious wasthe absolute brilliance and talent of the m person who did al this.


Then in walked Sabino. We hit it off from the first moments and every fall during my time spent in Puerto San Carlos fishing Ivisited Sabino and his gym to to three times a week. Last year covid had shut down his gym but they are open again whichis great news..

I so enjoy goin to see Sabino and visit his creation of a gym. He asked me today if his place felt like home to me. Yes it does I answered and we both had a big laugh and bigger smiles.















The pictures I post will not do justice to what Sabino has built. The thought and craftsmanship of these works of appropriate technology are to people like me, people who work with their hands, works of art. All the green iron in his gym he built from scratch while still working full time and raising a family. Unbelievable

It is often said but it bears repeating. The best thing about Mexico is the people of Mexico.

Indeed it is!