So it's my two-year gymiversary today. Here is my first year write-up. Pics coming soon :) second year write-up is below.
Many of you already know that June 4, 2013 was the day I decided to change my life.
However, a year later, much as it pains me to admit it―that life was only half-changed.
I had started out that summer full of youthful confidence and zeal. Knowing what I wanted and how to work for it, understanding the sacrifices and the work and the sweat it took to carve something beautiful out of myself, physically and mentally. I had learned the lessons from my last year of transformation, and learned them well.
My ego was at an all-time high―not that I had ever been in danger of having a high ego before, but for once it was up around the level of “assuredly confident.” People were telling me I looked good, and what’s more―I felt good. I finally felt like I was something to be admired. I had worked hard and I deserved the compliments I was getting.
But, as is always the case with me, it wasn’t enough. I had to keep moving forward. I had to focus on my weaknesses and turn them into strengths. So I kept up my string of extraordinary decisions and decided to undergo the most brutal squat program devised by man: Smolov.
The word sends shivers down the spines of weightlifters everywhere. Designed by a Russian powerlifter, the program is designed to take your squat―the most grueling, most physically present of all lifts―and make it explode. That explosion, though, doesn’t come without a price. You are constantly squatting, day in and day out. Taking full hours just in the squat rack. On the edge of throwing up or passing out. And you are constantly aware of what you could do better. How your back bends and your shoulders square under the weight. My squat was by far the weakest of all my lifts―I knew I had to kickstart my legs into being better. People were squatting more than I was after six months of lifting―weights that had taken me a year to build up to. So I swallowed my pride. Stepped up to the bar. Gave the finger to the voices in my head that told me I was insane. Down and up.
I began the program and immediately had a lot of trouble walking anywhere, to the surprise of nobody. I would come home from workouts completely taxed, crawling army-style up the stairs. “It’s worth it,” I’d keep telling myself. “It’s something you have to do.”
And yet doubt started creeping back in. To my progression, to my career, to my life. I remember dreaming about hitting a certain squat max, waking up the next morning fired up―and missing it. I also very distinctly remember crying in the shower after that workout. I was looking at PhD programs and many of the professors I was trying to network with were outright advising me against getting a doctorate, or even mentioning that I was interested in working with them. I was working my ass off…but for what?
It’s at this point that I ran into one of the greatest motivators of my training―the guy that really caused me to kick into high gear. While I owe many of you for inspiring me to go harder, to push more, to be better― /u/tjd777 was the catalyst for understanding the importance of the journey. First running into him on a reddit forum discussing my squat form and trepidations regarding the lift (Smolov ruling my lifting existence at that point), and finding out we knew each other in an actual physical capacity, his beginner enthusiasm became my second wind. Getting to know him as a fellow aficionado of the sport we both loved gave me an insight into the type of man I wanted to be. I unintentionally became a torchbearer for him, a lover of physicality and a bearer of knowledge; my collegiate self would have found me unbearable.
As the school year began and Smolov ended with my squat max up 40 pounds from when I started, I started lifting with /u/tjd777 in an actual physical proximity. He became an anchor for me. His general stoicism combined with my relentless and deliberate optimism gave us both methodologies of growth and adaptation, and we constantly pushed ourselves in the gym. We were accountable for each other; we were able to let each other know when we were slacking and when we were doing well.
The pressures of the year started setting in. School, papers, professors and people we couldn’t stand. The gym was a place to let all our anger out. An oasis of inner peace in a maelstrom of stress and freneticism. Extraordinary decisions that I’d made last year became the norm for me; I was living a life that others could only aspire to settle into. I was making most of my own food and counting my calories when I couldn’t. I had become normalized into the lifestyle. I made friends with people to the point of knowing their names at the gym; I found people to push me harder―even just catching a glimpse of some of them at their absolute limit gave me an idea of what I could be if I just kept pushing. If I just kept doing what I was doing.
At this point, the book should tend to write itself. I keep lifting, I keep eating, I keep growing, and my confidence keeps rising. I learned some lessons about self-love and those keep implementing and reimplementing themselves into the fabric of my humanity until I supersede the self-deprecation that had plagued me earlier. I become happy with my body and for once things start falling into place.
The book―should―tend to write itself. But I was still in control of the pen. So gradually, things started to…slip.
I began constantly criticizing myself when things weren’t moving like I hoped. I would beat myself up for weeks―no, months―on end, wondering why the results weren’t happening. I would become hypercritical of myself when I didn’t think I was pushing hard enough. Every week I weighed in, every progress picture I took, made me want to scream. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough. I was failing somehow; I wasn’t training smart enough, I was doing something wrong, I had to be because there are other people that are doing better than me now and what is wrong with you and you have to be more and you cannot be the fat kid or the weak kid or the loser and other people are looking up to you and you aren’t being extraordinary enough and you have to be more and more and more and
Stop. Relax. Focus. Deep breath in.
You are stronger than this, I’d try to keep telling myself. You are more than your reactions. You are where you are, and you can’t change it. Just try to be better. You aren’t going to the gym to avoid being worse. You are going to be better. You deserve more from yourself, and by God you are going to give yourself this.
Those moments still happened as the year went on, of course. But I did what I could to compliment myself every chance I got. Find something you like about yourself and get that positive ball rolling.
At any rate, I was able to do that with other people. At this point I would be remiss if I failed to mention the reddit bodybuilding community. I had always read through their discussions without posting, or as they would refer to it, “lurked.” But around the middle of January I decided I wanted to further normalize an already niche lifestyle, so I began to post every day on their daily discussion threads. I didn’t know how invested other people would get in my presence, nor would I have ever expected it either. But the more I posted the more I was recognized as “their resident carebear,” as one user put it. I didn’t think I was doing anything revolutionary; I was just being me and hoping it was enough for an army of buff, faceless strangers. But I was immediately accepted into the fold, even insofar as to have a tank top made and almost produced in my honor with “Never Skip Hug Day” printed on the front. People told me they would look forward to hearing from me―me!―and continuously gave me solid advice as well as the no-frills criticism that I’ve grown to love from the cadre of people who appreciate the sport like I do. There’s no sugarcoating―there’s no need for it. You are either correct or you aren’t. For some reason, this really appeals to me; maybe it’s because I was raised to find shades of grey. Posting about my struggles and triumphs, and finding other people that would give the same amount of gravitas to these milestones that I did further helped me to more wholly integrate the life that I had already wheeled into normativity. (Continued)