Chuck Amato was a scrawny eighth-grader growing up in Portland in the 1950s when he first saw Charles Atlas on TV. Amato's mother was watching 'What's My Line?' - the old game show in which a celebrity panel guesses a mystery guest's occupation - and there was Atlas, the legendary bodybuilder who'd invented an exercise program called dynamic tension.
'I was a skinny kid - in my grade school years I was underweight for my height,' Amato says. 'I had always wanted to be built; I had always admired men who were strong.'
Watching Atlas demonstrate his bodybuilding technique, 'I thought, 'Gosh, I can figure that out,' ' Amato recalls. So upon entering Cleveland High School that fall, he started working out and over the next four years grew 'from scrawny eighth-grader to muscled senior,' he says.
The summer Amato graduated from Cleveland, he started going to Loprinzi's Gym in Southeast Portland, 'where they said I was a genetic natural,' he remembers, and he began entering bodybuilding contests. He competed for the 1961 Mr. Portland title and won. He advanced to Mr. Oregon and won that, too, and was featured on the November 1962 cover of Mr. America magazine as the 'latest teenage muscular sensation!'
Amato competed in bodybuilding for nearly 20 years, judged competitions and put together award-winning routines for bodybuilding clients. But he also has used his interest in fitness and strength training to improve other people's lives.
Now 69, Amato is a personal trainer at Portland Parks and Recreation, a department he has worked for since 1962. He is specially trained to work with clients with disabilities - those who have suffered strokes, accidents or debilitating diseases and are limited to wheelchairs, walkers or canes.
'When I was younger, I thought maybe I could cure people,' Amato says. Since then, 'I've learned I can make people stronger, more fit, better toned, which makes for better quality of life.'
Pam Tallman is one of Amato's clients at the Matt Dishman Community Center in North Portland, where he works. Tallman, a Portland resident in her 50s, goes to the center for strength training in her arms and legs. When she was in college, she contracted viral encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain caused by a virus. She nearly died, and the infection left her without the use of the left side of her body. But she has started to get some of it back.
And she is starting to walk again. With Amato clasping her right hand, Tallman rises out of her wheelchair and slowly makes her way down a hallway at the Dishman Center.
'Chuck has been like a miracle,' Tallman says. 'I find my body working again.'
Juaqutter Jones, 55, who has multiple sclerosis and is in a wheelchair, has trained with Amato for eight years. Part of what he does is increase his clients' self-confidence, Jones says. 'Their physical capabilities aren't as limited as they think they are. When you can boost somebody's self-confidence beyond the physical, that's huge.'
Dave Brown also has MS. The 55-year-old Gladstone man goes to the Dishman Center twice a week for strength training with Amato.
'When he first started here, I told Chuck, 'I'm not trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'm just trying to keep my strength,' ' Brown says as Amato sets him up to work his legs on a weight machine.
'That's what's amazing to me - a man with MS is able to get stronger,' Amato says. 'The general public doesn't realize that people with disabilities can get so much more out of life.'
Personal training: a calling
Amato never aspired to make bodybuilding his profession - early on he wanted to be a car designer. So he enrolled in Portland State University and took design courses, 'and you know, I hated it,' he admits. 'There's lots of pressure in this.'
In college he saw a job posting for a 'weight lifting instructor,' which no one had ever heard of, he says. The job was with the city of Portland; Amato got it and started working at the Dishman Center. 'They said if I developed a program, I could have a lifelong job in this - from designing cars to designing bodies,' he says with a laugh.
He also continued in bodybuilding competitions, but by the late 1970s he was tired of the sport. 'It's like living in a box,' he says. 'You have to be aware of everything you eat, you have to train real carefully, you have to get your rest, you are on a regimen all the time.'
Growth hormones also infiltrated the world of bodybuilders. 'When I got into the sport it was still fairly pure, but it got out of hand,' he says.
Amato's interest in working with people with disabilities started in about 1970, when he was competing for the Mr. America title (he placed fifth overall and first in 'best abs'). A man with MS approached Amato and asked if he would help him with strength training; Amato admits his reaction was 'What's the use?' because the disease only progresses.
But Amato also had begun studying the Bible, 'and God spoke to me and said, 'You know, you've got quite a bit of knowledge - now what are you gonna do with it?' '
So Amato started working with the man and other people with disabilities through Portland Parks and Recreation. Though he retired as a full-time employee in 1998, he has continued part-time at the Dishman Center. Now in his 50th year with the department, he works with eight disabled adults.
'You have to be creative in designing routines for people and finding different ways to use weights,' he says. 'You get bored. The human mind keeps coming up with new ways of doing things.'
Family and healthful living
Amato, who lives in Happy Valley, is of Italian descent - his father was Sicilian, his mother northern Italian. He patterns his life after that of his maternal grandfather, who grew his own food and lived to be 93. Amato has a garden in which he grows 'all the typical Italian stuff' - tomatoes, basil, lemon cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, beets, lettuce, Swiss chard. 'I try to have something year round to eat out of my garden,' he says.
He's also an avid fisherman. 'I catch it, fillet it, vacuum pack it and cook it, and my wife gets to enjoy it,' he says.
His wife, Lori, does strength training at their home. 'I've got her on a home routine,' Amato says.
Their two sons, ages 17 and 26, also train. The younger son has played football and is going for track; the older one is training to be a firefighter.
Amato has no game plan for the future, but 'I just don't feel right if I don't do a little work,' he says. Working part-time three days a week 'is just perfect. I think if I didn't work a little, it would be detrimental to my health.'
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