NICO SAUCEDO: GYM IS LIFE

Three different people told me I had to meet Nico. There’s something a little odd about that. Like when you’re a kid and you get paired up with someone because they happen to be the only other kid around. Or when someone hears you’re from New York and they try to match you up with someone else who’s from New York. Those aren’t always good match-ups. Sometimes it goes better than that and, maybe, you make a friend.

I’m not sure Nico and I went that far when we met for this interview, but he did teach me a few things, like how the United States sought out and contracted Mexican men to work in the ‘40s and ‘50s; why some people don’t like playing team sports; what’s unique about Saladita’s waves; where a “Coconut Wireless” works; how to prepare to get the most out of using a gym and why we all need weight training.

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LOT: Where did you grow up?

Nico: In San Francisco, in the outer Mission district.

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LOT: How did how did your folks end up there?

Nico: My folks immigrated to the US from Mexico. My dad went there as part of the Bracero Program, which was an initiative, an agreement between the United States and Mexico, signed during World War II, that allowed Mexican men to come to the US on short-term contracts. It was designed to facilitate industrial development and provide labor while the war was going on. That program carried over to the Korean War, when the United States needed labor for munitions and transportation, particularly on the railroads.

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LOT: Where were your parents from in Mexico?

Nico: My dad came from Acapulco and my mom from Guadalajara. He came first; she came later. They met in San Francisco and then started a family there.

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LOT: What it was like growing up in the Mission District?

Nico: It was a predominantly Latin community, blue collar, working people. It was the backbone of labor for the city itself, for what we now call “the one-percenters”, the upper echelon of San Francisco. It was fun living there and participating in what was going on in San Francisco when I was a kid. I was born in ’59, so I got to experience the ‘60s in San Francisco. I was young, but I remember the hippies in Golden Gate Park, clouds of marijuana and a bunch of naked women.

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LOT: That’s one way of learning about life. How did you get into fitness?

Nico: I was about 13, just before my freshman year in high school. I wanted to try out for the football team, American football. I wanted to put some weight on, some muscle, some strength. I looked into weight training and I never stopped.

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LOT: What did what did you experience once you started?

Nico: Once I started training, I progressed really well and I started competing in Olympic lifting and powerlifting competitions.

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LOT: Did you make the football team?

Nico: I did, but I left shortly after I made the team. I found out quickly I’m not very good at it, and that I’m not suited to team sports, you know, the mundane practices, having to learn a playbook, having to memorize not only know what you’re doing but what everybody else on the field is doing. It just wasn’t for me.

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LOT: So, you progressed to other sorts of competition.

Nico: I did some lifting competitions and I did track and field in high school. I threw the discus mostly because it allowed me access to the weight room, where I could work out.

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LOT: When you were in high school, were you seen as a freak for working out?

Nico: No, it was an all-boys school. Sports were considered good; being fit and strong and athletic was a good thing.

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LOT: After you left high school, how did you keep working out?

Nico: I went to San Jose State for a while and did interscholastic sports, club sports. Football, mostly. Then from there, I went back to San Francisco, and got into a boxing program and a weightlifting program at City College, where I studied aviation maintenance. I wanted to get my license so I could work on commercial aircraft, so I could go to Hawaii, so I could go surfing in warm water.

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LOT: Ahh, the motivation was surfing.

Nico: Yeah. The motivation was definitely surfing. I just needed my wings.

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LOT: Where were you surfing while you were in San Francisco?

Nico: Ocean Beach and Pacifica. That’s what prompted me to get out of there as quickly as I could.

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LOT: How come?

Nico: Cold water, thick wetsuits; just brutal, nasty conditions. Relative to what I knew was in Hawaii.

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LOT: Did you find work in Hawaii?

Nico: I did. I signed up with United Airlines, did about a year in San Francisco, and then after that, I did 35 years in the islands of Hawaii, between Oahu and Kauai.

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LOT: Where did you end up surfing in Hawaii?

Nico: The majority of the time when I was on Oahu, I was on the east and south side. I would make the North Shore on occasion, but the North Shore waves everyone talks about requires another level of talent and skill. The famous spots break during the winter with really heavy surf–Pipeline, Sunset, Waimea. Those are better left for the professionals. But the North Shore also has these spots known as “townies”. That’s where the people from town, from the south and east side go to surf because it’s manageable. I would go to the townie spots. The people there have a high skill level, too. They know how to surf. On Kauai, my favorite spots were Hanalei, which is on the north shore, which is a very beautiful wave, and can be a big wave, a considerable wave. On the south shore, I went to Poipu.

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LOT: What makes Hanalei a beautiful wave?

Nico: He’ana, which is the western tip Hanalei Bay, is absolutely gorgeous. It’s a gateway to the Na Pali Coast, which is mesmerizing, lush cliffs, waterfalls, just stunning. In the winter the waves come in uninhibited from the north, swells turning out of the Aleutians, their fetch built up over 15-20 days by winds blowing at 80 miles-an-hour. That energy flows through the Pacific and arrives at Hanalei Bay, where it ends, but before it ends, it jacks up to 20-plus feet. It’s really a great wave to ride. It’s also a very punishing wave, if you blow it.

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LOT: Is that the size you went out in?

Nico: My top end was 15 feet, Hawaiian.

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LOT: Which is a 30-foot face.

Nico: Yeah, that would be my top end. I couldn’t get past that. 20 feet. That separates the men from the boys. That extra five feet to the 20-foot line, it’s yours, man. You can have it.

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LOT: What sort of circuit did you put yourself on to be able to surf those kinds of waves?

Nico: A lot of cycling, mountain biking; weightlifting in the gym to keep my strength up. Running the beach. Walking the beach. All that.

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LOT: What brought you to Saladita?

Nico: I was on north shore of Kauai one afternoon at a swap-meet [a surf gear sell-and-trade], and I ran into some friends who were going to Mexico to surf. Because I’m Mexican, they’re asking me about it, assuming that I knew. They asked me, “Hey, what do you know about Saladita?” I go, “You mean Sayulita?” And, they go, “No, Saladita.” I say, “Sa-yu-li-ta.” “No, man, Sa-la-di-ta.” And then, they show me the place. The location, the break. They were going for a month. I asked, “Hey, you guys mind if I drop in on this one?” That was like six years ago, before COVID.

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LOT: What did you find here?

Nico: It reminded me of Kauai 30 years ago. Saladita is a jewel. Everything’s natural. It’s super low-key. There aren’t huge hotels, commercial places. And there’s the wave. It’s a classic point break that works in almost any conditions, which is really amazing, really hard to find, really unusual. When you’re in Hawaii, you wait for swells to come in. You’re in the middle of the ocean and there are no waves until something’s generated, whether it’s from the Aleutians, or from Japan, or the Philippines. Major storms. You wait for those waves. Those waves aren’t always there. You can go weeks without those.

Here, there’s always a wave. It might be wind chop, but there’s always a wave. Even a tide change provides a wave. And the groundswells can be epic. That, plus the environment is very small-town. In Hawaii, we have what is known as the “Coconut Wireless”. That’s when everybody knows what you’re doing before you do it. I found it’s no different here in Saladita. You have to be respectful of everyone and everything around you in order to function in a place like this. Any disrespect to the environment, to people, and you get ejected. If you don’t understand the process of being in a place like this. You’re not going to be here for long.

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LOT: So, you came back?

Nico: Yeah. Real estate in Kauai blew up after COVID. People came to hang out. Even though the islands had shut down, there were these windows of a couple of weeks where people could sneak in and not have to go through a quarantine. People just flooded in. I was in a condo, living inside a resort, right on the ocean. It was great. I could see the break from my condo, grab my board and walk out into the surf. Along with that, there were pools, jacuzzis, saunas, the bartender who knew me, the guys in the kitchen who knew me. But the place traded hands a couple of times, and my HOA fees more than doubled, without any maintenance or upkeep being done. Then there was a crazy assessment on my unit, and I was looking to retire. It was clear that Kauai wasn’t going to be affordable anymore, so I sold everything I had and came here.

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LOT: Why a gym in Saladita?

Nico: That all started with me working out in my own place and, then, helping my roommate. She wanted to firm up her legs, her glutes; she wanted to get toned. She asked me if I would train her. We started training. She invited some friends and they invited friends, and before you know it, I’m training four or five people in my house. That’s when I realized there was a need for a training facility, a place to do a serious workout. I mean, here I was training four or five people, casually, word of mouth, not even saying anything. Frank Cruz [a partner in Hacienda Plaza] comes to me and says, “Hey, I hear you’re training; I need that.” Once we started working out together, Frank told me he wanted to put in a gym. He goes, “Why don’t we put a gym up?” I said, “Okay, let’s do it.” And we did.

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LOT: What sort of programs are available in the gym?

Nico: What I do is I bring everybody in, I show them all the machinery, how it works. I give them a basic program to start and then we go along from there. The ones that come back, I step up on their physical tasks. From there, we move to the more complicated, to more recent developments of training, which, include cardio, mobility, flexibility and strength training. What’s more important to me are personal goals. Do you want to get stronger? Do you want power? Do you want to trim down? I take it from there.

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LOT: Everything’s personalized?

Nico: Yeah. For sure.

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LOT: What do you suggest for people when they’re not in the gym?

Nico: Diet is always number one. If you’re not eating right, your training is not going to be right. And if you’re not sleeping and resting right, your training is not going to be right. Those are the two pillars of training.

There are other things that I get to know. First, your mental attitude. Where are you coming from? What is it that you thinking when you’re coming into the gym? Are you thinking about the muscles you’re working? Are you thinking about being critical of your body? Or are you more concerned about looking at someone else’s body? What is your focus? Where’s your head at? I start there because a lot of people have issues of previous injuries, issues of self-esteem, issues of not feeling that they know enough to come into a gym. Maybe they’re overconfident and have egos. I want to put all that in check for them. I start there, then the diet, then the rest, then the gym.

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LOT: What's behind the name Mana?

Nico: Mana is a Polynesian word describing the spirit that is everything.

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LOT: So, it’s prana or qi (“chee”)? A force? Like the Holy Spirit? Or Atman?

Nico: Qi. That’s close to what it is. If you’re rooted in Spanish Catholicism, it could be like the Holy Spirit.

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LOT: Who are you finding in the gym right now?

Nico: Everybody, you name it. It’s a cross section of the culture, the people who are here, the people visiting. Surfers, retirees, young kids, big guys who know the gym well, small guys who are just getting started. Everybody. Women of all ages. Weightlifting has proven to regulate the hormones of women going through menopause to a point where their hormones actually level out and offset the threat of osteoporosis.

It happens for men, too, at about 55, muscle goes into a decline and, I’d go so far as to say, into deterioration. If you’re not using, you’re losing and it’s not coming back. Between 35 and 55 is a beautiful window to get into weight training, maintaining strength and taking it to wherever you want it to go. Not doing it is not an option really, if you want to stay strong and healthy.

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LOT: What sort of new things are you bringing into the gym?

Nico: We’re bringing in jiu jitsu, boxing and spin.

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LOT: What goes on in your outdoor space?

Nico: Right now, we have a heavy bag, jump ropes. People have been going out there and doing workouts with their trainers. Trainers are welcome here. Pretty soon we’ll be bringing in a cold plunge, an ice bath, as well as a couple slings for hanging upside down and stretching out. I like it when working out is purposeful and fun.

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FYI: It's 200 pesos a day for drop-ins. 500 pesos a month for those with local ID, for example, a residency card or proof of Mexican citizenship. Tell Nico you read this when you meet him. See if that helps.