Many bodybuilding and health followers know Jake Wood because the proprietor of the Olympia. Thanks to efforts of Wood alongside together with his staff, the Olympia has reached a new degree of status, dimension, and consciousness. Bodybuilding could also be extra conscious of Jake Wood now, however he was conscious of bodybuilding lengthy earlier than he purchased the Olympia, and even earlier than he began Wings of Strength. He advised Dennis James on a current episode of The Menace Podcast that he obtained into the game whereas he was taking part in soccer as a teenager.
“I bear in mind once I was 16 years previous that I used to be lastly sufficiently old to go to Don Peter’s fitness center in Reseda, California,” Wood mentioned. “He was a bodybuilder within the 1960’s. Popular, traditional physique, and a actual onerous head within the fitness center typically. He used to like to yell at me and different individuals in the event you didn’t put your weights away.”
Wood was initially coaching for soccer, however he would finally practice for the stage. He wasn’t simply a fan of bodybuilding, he competed as properly.
“I competed in some very native non-sanctioned reveals in Oregon again in 1983 and 1984,” Wood mentioned. He admitted that he didn’t place in addition to he preferred. The reality that he’s 6’6” could have been a consider why he didn’t take that endeavor any additional.
“I by no means was a nice bodybuilder. My torso was too lengthy….plus I’ve humorous bowed legs,” Wood joked. He finally would cease competing resulting from household and profession commitments.
Jake Wood was a fan of every little thing bodybuilding associated, however he could also be greatest related to the ladies’s aspect of the game due to his efforts to create and run Wings of Strength. His first effort to advertise the division got here on the 2009 Tampa Pro, which James really received the Men’s Open present. Betty Pariso received the ladies’s bodybuilding contest.
“I’d been in search of a strategy to get into selling bodybuilding reveals for a variety of years. I didn’t know the way to do it. I’d attempt chatting with a few completely different individuals, and I didn’t appear to get wherever,” Wood defined. “Then at some point I heard of this man named Tim Gardner, and he apparently wanted some assist as a result of one in all his divisions was being cancelled, which was ladies’s bodybuilding. So, I messaged him and he mentioned ‘yeah, you could be a a part of it.’”
That alternative would finally result in Wood starting his bodybuilding empire, which culminated with the 2020 Olympia in addition to the return of the unique Ms. Olympia contest, bringing ladies’s bodybuilding again to the forefront of the game.
Wood and James talked about Wood’s household enterprise within the plane business, his unique weight set that included bowling balls and a bar, and a lot extra. This can’t-miss interview is offered on the Muscle & Fitness YouTube channel. Subscribe and activate notifications so that you catch each episode as they premiere every week.
https://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/interviews/jake-wood-was-a-bodybuilding-fan-long-before-becoming-olympia-owner/
