At a glance

Westside Barbell made an impression on a young Michael Fahey.

So impactful was the place that, as an adult, Fahey, along with former Westside Barbell member Carlos Carvalho, co-directed the documentary “Westside vs. the World,” billed on its website as “the world’s strongest and most notorious powerlifting gym.”

The movie will be screened at the Gateway Film Center from Thursday through Saturday, concurrent with the Arnold Sports Festival.

The gym, at 457 Industry Drive on the West Side, is well-known in powerlifting circles for its world records: Westside Barbell members lay claim to more than 140 of them. Gym owner Louie Simmons competed until he was 63, when injuries forced him to retire.

Weightlifters have to be invited to join the gym, which is known for its intense workouts and training atmosphere. The Westside mission statement: “Our goal is simple. To become the best and push every boundary known to man in doing so.”

In the film, Simmons equates training at the gym with “a journey into hell.”

As a nationally ranked 12-year-old discus thrower in Tallahassee, Florida, Fahey was in Cleveland for a track-and-field event when his father — John Fahey, a dedicated strength trainer — learned that Columbus and Simmons, his training guru, was just a two-hour drive away. (Simmons didn’t return several phone calls requesting an interview for this story.)

Fahey and his father entered the gym, then housed on Demorest Road — a cinder-block building with windows painted black, blaring music and clanging weights.

“I had never seen anything like this before,” said Fahey, 31, a resident of Orlando, Florida. “For years, it was the scariest thing I had ever seen.”

Fahey got a taste of the Westside way.

“At the end of the day, Louie took me into the parking lot and had me throw a medicine ball for — it felt like an hour. I was so sore the next three or four days … because I had never done anything like this before. (At the track meet), I threw 6 or 7 feet shorter than I usually did.”

In high school, Fahey played tight end on his football team. His father bought Westside Barbell equipment and coached his son in Westside training techniques.

“My dad basically assembled a nicer version of Westside in our garage,” Fahey said.

After graduating from Florida State University, the younger Fahey moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a cameraman, in post-production and as a field producer for the NFL Network and for shows that appeared on the Travel Channel and E! network.

At one point, Fahey made an offhand comment to his father that Westside Barbell would be an intriguing subject for a documentary, but he figured that Simmons would balk at being filmed.

Fahey was preparing to work on a documentary about former Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden when, one night around midnight in Los Angeles, his phone rang. His father, who occasionally called Simmons for training advice, was on the phone to tell him that he had set up a conference call with Simmons at 9 a.m. — 6 a.m. Los Angeles time — to discuss the movie idea.

Fahey spent the night scrambling to get a pitch together. When Simmons called at 6 a.m, his message, Fahey said, seemed short and not so sweet.

“‘The first thing I want to say is ‘No,’” Fahey recalled of the conversation. “That’s 12 seconds in, and he’s already told me no. Then he said, ‘Tell me what you wanted to do.’ So I laid out what I kind of figured I wanted to do. We talked for 40 minutes.”

“Westside vs. the World” Gateway Film Center, 1550 N. High St. 614-247-4433, www.gatewayfilmcenter.org 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday $15