Chalk and Spit

Fitness Friday

This about sums up my expectations for life.

There’s something that I get from lifting that I don’t get from anything else. I’ve been considering the reasons for why I’m doing what I do and I find that the deeper I delve into this world of chalk, Oly shoes and spitting on the floor to get good grip, the more my reasons change.

As I’ve written, the beginning of my lifting journey started with the need to eat. Eat to train, not train to eat. It was helpful to keep the momentum going, and I could see discernible progress pretty much immediately. When we were younger, Ghost dabbled a bit in boxing. The kid was (and is) fit as shit. I watched as he went from trim to beasty in a short span of time, and always wondered two things. Firstly, I wondered what drove him, and secondly, if it was something I could do too. Back then, I was running and not much else … I hadn’t even discovered my love of yoga and the passion that ignited in me. Ghost bricked up so fast, and it was amazing to see how his self-confidence changed just as quickly.

I think men and women likely lift for different reasons. The root, of course, is to be healthy. But the nibbles of real truth – the actual reasons that we push weights are probably on opposite ends of the spectrum. My theory is (with Ghost, at least) that he started lifting and boxing to ensure that he was capable of defending himself. Living in ghettos and frequently being the only white dude undoubtedly put a bit of pressure on him to develop and maintain a level of strength and fitness. Most meat head stories are just the same.

Women are different, or at least I think we are. I see cardio bunnies on stair steppers and the mills running and running, trying to achieve some level of leanness that is showcased so often in the media. They run or step, dripping sweat and expending calories, all trying to achieve a level of thinness that they think men want to see. I don’t know that these women are even happy doing what they do, but they keep at it because social pressures suggest they should.

I lift because I want to know I can. I don’t even know if that makes sense … but every time I step into the gym, I put myself in the mindset that I’m there to fuck shit up. To push myself as far as I can, to dig as deeply into personal resolve and extend beyond what I think I can do. I wrote last week about knowing that I’ve gained mass over the last six months and the struggles that I have with seeing something different in the mirror. It’s a mind fuck for sure, but I’m to the point that I’d rather lift heavy and be a few pounds thicker because that means I’m stronger, more capable and further on my way to being a beast than being thin and rejoining the ranks of the cardio bunnies. No offense, bunnies, but I like having a booty. And I’m on my way to liking food. Food is good.