MyLifeMyBody

It was strangely quiet with all of the commotion going on around me.  Apart from the barely noticeable whiny pop music playing overhead no voices stood out.  The lack of conversation was made all the more apparent by the clanking of the weights slapping onto the oly bars and the posturing done by the guys getting ready to lift.  More to bolster their own confidence than to attract attention from others, this type of body language was natural, just some innate movements that told their brains it was time to bench.

It was a Monday evening in the beginning of the summer and I was smack dab in the middle of the free weight section of my local gym.  I was there to do the same thing as everyone else.  Lift.  Since it was Monday, and I was back to doing one of my basic split routines I happened to be working chest.  It just so happened that everybody else was also trying to do chest.  Although its origins are unknown, there is an ancient code among muscle heads that has forever labelled Monday as international bench press day.  Just my luck.

To my amusement, all of the benches were taken.  I looked around a couple of times in quick succession to see if anyone was about to leave.  No dice.  Since I wasn't about to settle for working on the smith machine I figured I might as well squeeze in a little warm-up.  Loosening up the shoulders first with some arm swings and pot stirrers it was all I could do to not pump out pushups to failure to get the adrenaline out of my system.

The goal was hypertrophy though.  To increase the size, strength, and cross-sectional area of my pectoralis muscles was my aim.  Pushups wouldn't cut it.  I needed to force my muscles to do a lot of work in a short amount of time; high intensity was crucial. Translation:  put enough weight on the bar so that I could only complete 8-12 reps for a given set, sometimes less.

I calculated how much weight this would take while I systematically stretched my lats and rhomboids.  After one round of solid stretching I dropped down for fifteen solid quick tempoed reps.  The pushups weren't for show though.  The idea was to warm-up the whole anterior chain, especially the core, which, in responding to this movement by contracting isometrically, would be more prepared to assist my chest and arms in pushing heavy crap off of my chest.

Right after I got up from dropping my nose to the floor I looked to my left and saw an open bench.  Somebody had actually left two 45s on the bar, for a total of 135lbs, which was fine with me since that was my warm-up weight.  I hopped under the bar and pumped out 12 easy, smooth reps.  Light.

It was after I had loaded two more 45s on the bar upping the weight to 225lbs that I heard a voice over my right shoulder, "hey man, can I get a spot?"  I glanced to the side to see a younger guy, probably 15 or 16 motioning towards the bench next to me.  "Yeah, no problem."

I steadied myself behind the bar, solid stance.  It was force of habit, even though the kid was using my warm-up weight for his 4-6rm.  Clearly he was a lot more nervous than I was.  "Do you need a lift-off?"

"Yea.  I should be able to get five."

The kid got five.  Almost all on his own.  I gave him a little help on the fifth rep. Seeing him squirm and contort his body in an all out effort to force the bar back to the rack was my que to assist.

After I introduced myself and told him to let me know if he needed any more help it was time to get to business.  I got under 225lb and starting repping out.  I had debated going heavier but decided to test how many repetitions I could get with this weight.  (This is a common test done with college and NFL football players and it's useful because it illustrates an individual's muscular strength and muscular endurance at the same time)  I counted fifteen reps and then racked the bar.  I wanted twenty.  Truth was, this was the most I'd ever done, and it was pretty damn good considering I was tipping the scales at about 200lbs.

Honestly, it was pretty damn good regardless of body weight.  I simply knew more about this stuff than the average guy and tended to look at both absolute strength and strength-to-mass ratio as seperate but equal.  Point being?  I always wanted to get stronger.  This desire was and had been a sort of double-edged sword.  It was something that kept me always hungry for more and, right when I would reach a new PR, create a feeling of dissatisfaction.  Even though I had progressed nicely in the weight game over the years, it always seemed that the best lay ahead of me.  I had stopped comparing myself to average guys years ago.  This created a predicament at times.  Instead of comparing myself to average joes or swimmers (I had been a swimmer for the majority of my life, culminating in college All-American status as a freshman) who wouldn't need as much upper body power and mass as other athletes, I had no one left to look at besides upper level football players.  It was ironic really that a sport I never played as a youngster had become the only breeding ground for finding legitimate athletes who were as strong or stronger than myself.

Now, don't get me wrong, there were plenty of fellow meatheads who, especially with the help of ergogenic aids, i.e. steroids, could be at my level or sometimes venture beyond.  What was the difference between us?  The main thing, I suppose, was that I was and had remained (at least in my mind) an athlete.  I wanted to be the strongest sure, and the biggest wouldn't hurt either.  I just knew that training one attribute, i.e. size, strength, speed, was often done at the expense of another.  In my mind (and many would agree) you can't have it all.  An incredible athlete though often has a great combination of these attributes and can improve one while maintaining or even improving the other.  What did that mean to me?  I didn't want to be a one trick pony.  While some fellow weightlifters would settle for simply looking like they could bench press 500lbs, I wanted to actually be able to do it.  Don't get me wrong, looking the part is nice, and I'm all for aesthetics, but being all "show" and no "GO" doesn't turn me on.

So there I was, still sitting on the bench after my set, pondering what I needed to do to get my weights up when my neighbor came by again.  "What's up man?"  I was glad to see him, the interaction forcing me out of the bench press induced haze.  I thought he was gonna ask for another spot.  "So what do you bench?"  The question caught me off guard.  It's probably the oldest question in gym culture, predating gyms themselves.  It simply hadn't been posed to me in a while.  The mindset of the lone lifter, which was often like the HR policies in the workplace, was "don't ask, don't tell."  Simply lift.  I hadn't really compared myself to my peers since I had been in college, lifting with other young eager guys, who, half the time, wouldn't even give you a real number.  Still, for his benefit I did a quick calculation in my head. "340lbs", I replied.

Based on my 225 rep test that was the amount of weight that I could throw up once.  In all honesty, I hadn't done a 1 rm bench test for a couple of years, the last time getting 315lbs at 23 years old and a body weight of 187lbs.  Nonetheless, the 225 calculations are pretty accurate so I was confident that I was being honest, maybe even a little modest.

The kid, who had introduced himself earlier as David, gawked.  "Holy shit man."  He was clearly impressed.

I hadn't confirmed his age, but knew from studying his contorted adolescent face under the bar a few moments before that he was around 15.  He was just getting serious about lifting and he wanted to soak up as much sage advice as possible.  I proceeded to tell him that I didn't even get remotely serious about weight lifting until I was 19 but that I had been athletic since I could walk.  He wanted to know a number of things including (but not limited to) how to A. increase his max bench press to 185lbs, B. improve his 40 time, and C.  How to get, as he put it, "as jacked as you."

These were all great questions.  One even flattered me.  I proceeded to tell him that it was no problem trying to help.  I lifted weights by hobby and was a personal trainer by profession.  In a typically self-deprecating fashion I joked that if I was even half-way decent at either of these two persuits than I could probably help him find the right path.

I ended up talking to David for about half an hour before I realized that he would continue to assault me with questions if I didn't cut him off.  With David innebriated by his own enthusiasm grinning and inquiring non stop I felt like a bartender trying to ward off the one-to-many bar crawler.  I also felt like I had stepped back in time.  I realized that it wasn't too long ago that I was in David's shoes, just getting my sneakers wet, learning how to do all the right moves.  To him, this was a whole new world.  To me, it was my necessary dungeon.  He saw it as bright and new, shiny and polished with possibilities.  I saw multiple metal pieces of gym equipment forged long ago that had lost their luster, absorbing the sweat of the masses.

Was I jaded?  I wouldn't go that far.  I still had a zest for lifting.  I still even got excited when I saw a squat rack or a row of dumbbells.  I mean who does that?  I had sent David off with some wise words and an e-mail address hoping that he would try to reach me again.  After all, the questions that he posed were complex and unanswerable to him but simple and straightforward to me.  I felt good about being able to simplify the process for him.  I also felt good that I had seen things from his perspective.  Ultimately we weren't really that different, David and I.  I had ten years on him, and a lot of muscle.  This was probably how he viewed me: older, stronger, wiser.  Had I been there?  Of course.  In fact, sometimes that little voice that tells you to keep going, to keep improving, that double-edged sword starts whispering to me.  And you know what?  We all hear the same voice.