Vicky fitness
By Vicky Waite
I met Tony Dalton about a year and a half ago while selling magazine advertising space, and Tony bought several ads from me. During that time we became very good friends. Every time I visited the store, he gave me tips for my workouts and how to acheive my overall fitness goals.
Tony, who is now in his mid 60s, is still very fit and in great shape. He exercises six days a week, eats right and promotes health and fitness to others, and he has been selling fitness equipment since 1990.
Tony’s philosophy is all about the customer’s needs and goals when it comes to selling fitness equipment. Tony said, growing up as a young boy he was infatuated with muscle movies, and he idolized strong men such as Tarzan, starring Johnny Weissmuller and Hercules, starring Steve Reeves.
At 7 years old, Tony was already doing pull ups, push-ups and other strength type movements and was enjoying the results he was seeing as his body changed. In 5th grade, one weekend, he went to his friends house and his older brother had some friends over who were on the football team were doing the clean and jerk over the head movement with weight, so of course, Tony wanted to participate to see how much weight he could press, and he only managed to get to 100 lbs, however, could not press the entire 110 lb set.
He tenaciously kept trying for the next 30-60 minutes while the other guys sat in the background laughing and teasing him along the way. Feeling very discouraged and defeated, the very next day, Tony asked his father to go shopping so that he could get a 110 lb weight set. When they got home, Tony was so excited and was determined to press the full set. After several attempts, he finally did it and cleaned and jerked the weight above his head and from there—the rest is history and he became a fitness guru.
In fast forwarding to 1975, his girlfriend at the time bought him his first illustrated muscle training magazine. He loved reading the articles and was like a sponge, soaking up all the information that he could regarding diet, weight training and physical fitness in general.
Throughout the magazine, Tony saw many fitness equipment ads and wanted to buy some equipment to add to his already 110 lb weight set.
A few days later, Tony and his brother Glenn, drove up to Brooklyn, NY and paid a visit to Dan Lurie’s fitness store and bought as many pieces that he could stuff into his Camaro. He ended up making several more trips back so to finish his own home gym in his parent’s basement. At 20 years old, Tony had decided that he wanted to have a great body and workout, although, he felt a little self-conscious because he was short—only 5’ 6” tall, weighing only 120lbs. He wanted to prove that small guys can be strong too. Now having a serious home gym and two great training partners, Mike Tagalieri (aka Smokey) and Vince Rossi (aka Joe Wiley), they were training six days a week and would also train kids who lived in the neighborhood whenever he could.
In the late 1970s, Tony opened his own gym, named Tony’s Gym which was located in the Frankford section of Philadelphia under the overhead elevated train (known as the “L”) and Smokey, of course became his manager and right-hand man. A few years later, in 1980, Tony purchased a building and moved the gym to the Tacony section of Philadelphia. After the purchase of the building, Tony offered free memberships to many of the neighborhood kids in exchange for repairs to the building. During this period of his life, Tony had been competing in body building shows and also judging, and he decided to become a body building show promoter with great success.
Tony judged bodybuilding shows from 1978 –1995 for the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) which was the governing body of the Olympics. He truly enjoys weigh training and helping others develop their fitness goals—keeping people motivated and preparing them for bodybuilding shows.
He ran the United States of America at the Tower Theatre in 1981 and also the Eastern Atlantic Classic at the Neshaminy Mall movie theatre. Funny, he rented the movie “Pumping Iron” and showed it on the big screen between the pre-judging and the evening performance. In between running the gym and promoting shows, Tony won the 1981 Jr. Mr. America in Wilkes-Barre, PA. He was by far the lightest guy (weight wise) on stage because this show did not have individual weight classes, however, he had that overall genetically perfect physique.
During my chat with Tony, he reminisced about some gym members who trained at his gym who had gone on to become pro bodybuilders. For example, Juan Marquez and Al Q Gurley, who would compete in the Mr. Olympia. Additionally, Tony grew up and went to grade school with a boy named Greg DeFerro who moved out of the area after 8th grade. Approximately 20 years later, Tony had the opportunity to meet a well-known seasoned professional bodybuilder who happened to be the same Greg DeFerro that Tony grew up with and Tony noted that it was amazing to know and be a friend of someone of this caliber.
Some other great memories included judging at the Mr. America competitions and presenting awards to classics such as Steve Reeves and John Gimmick etc., for their contributions to the sport. Another great highlight that Tony talked about was spending the day with Franco Columbo, who was a professional body builder who happened to be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best friend. They judged a power lifting meet in the morning and then the bodybuilding show later that evening, and he picked Franco’s brain all day and night about fitness and weigh training in general while hoping not to annoy him by bombarding him with questions.
Tony also had Larry Scott, a professional bodybuilder who won the first two Mr. Olympias 1965 and 1966, attend his gym for a weekend to give seminars. Tony would periodically see Larry and other professional body builders at various fitness trade shows. Lastly, Tony feels that
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rachel McLish were two of the original pioneers who took the sport to the next level, and he enjoyed following their careers in bodybuilding. Tony still stays in touch with many fitness professionals on his Facebook page.
Tony was telling me he purchased Rachael McLish’s pinball machine and was telling him that great things come in small packages.
In the early 1990s, Tony then moved from the gym scene to selling fitness equipment worked at The Fitness Factory Outlet in Quakertown, PA, and he eventually became the owner in 1998. What started out as small brick and mortar fitness store supplying to the tri-state area, has now become an international online business. You can visit their website at fitnessfactoryoutlet.com or call the business phone number at 215-538-1959.