A Week Under The Bar

Each week in weightlifting is a similar journey downward into a hellish existence of aches, pain, fatigue, rage, and eventually, quasi-death.  It's easy to be blunt about this path, as there is no sugar coating the fact that despite feeling unable to rise from your chair without wincing in pain, there is another workout looming on the horizon every 8 hours or so, a workout that will force you into the deepest reaches of pain and misery, and still require every ounce of strength you've got left in that tired, wrung out body of yours.  Despite the pain, you must rise, again and again.

The first day is fantastic.  You feel renewed, rejuvenated, angelic, like a bird.  You feel like running, jumping, sprinting, laughing, and as if the world is once again with you, instead of on your shoulders.  The weight feels like nothing, your muscles work quickly and efficiently.  You rise easily from morning squats, throw your pulls through the roof, and the power lifts feel solid and lightning fast.  You hit them hard.  They feel like lightning, shooting overhead, explosive shots of force and velocity.  The bar slams down over and over into the platform, and you are sure this week will be different.  After all, you are the essence of the beast, a raging monster slamming the platform with wooden heel and flexing quads.  A monster, pure strength contained in the human vile.  

The second day, is a day of caution, and reassurance.  You spend extra time stretching, rolling, massaging, icing, and popping supplements to ensure that those aches and pains can't touch you as the week wears on.  You treat your muscles as tenderly and lovingly as you can, knowing they will respond to your treatment beneficially.  Maybe they'll stay loose this week, you hope.  Maybe they'll remain flexible and pain free as you slam them with heavy squats again and again.  You still feel strong.  The lifts still feel easy, though the fringes of fatigue are evident behind your eyes.  

Shake it off buddy, you've still got four more days.  

The third day, you wake in a haze, and you know hell's grasping claws are tickling your legs.  You can feel the devil's fingernails graze your neck.  Your legs don't seem sore as you roll them out, yet as you begin to stretch more deeply, the pain is there, only in small puddles at first, but potential lakes and rivers, ready to flow through joints and tendons alike.  You try to drain them, open the floodgates, release that soreness out of your body before it's too late.  Not hard, right?  Just keep stretching, keep protein intake high, and pop those B-complex pills.  Not bad, you got this, you got this.  

But no-matter your attitude, your determination, your god given strength, as the sun rises, that first set of front squats kick you in the face.  They feel so heavy it's as if your body is drained of everything.  You're tripped off your pedastal, and all that pain you thought you'd finished off, held back, chained up, comes roaring back up through your legs, settling solidly in your knees.  Oh god it's horrible.  You struggle through, every rep gasping for air, desperately forcing your core to stay tight as a drum as the weight attempts to break your upright position.  After the final rep, you nearly fall to your knees in grace, thankful to be alive.

That afternoon you sleep, deeply, if you're lucky.  

Day three's second workout is the full lifts, which add insult to injury.  Generally they don't go past 85%, and therefore aren't remarkably heavy, but you are so drained from those morning front squats that they feel vastly more massive than they should.  Legs are bent, folded, accordions pumped in an aggressive polka.  Tendons stretch across knees to maximum length, and despite their current warmth, the heart sinks in knowledge that your body will retaliate, freeze up, and become solid and unmoving.  Upon dropping the last weight, you stretch, roll, stretch, massage, and ice in frantic determination.

But it's of no use, for as you crawl into bed that night, you can feel yourself turning into stone.

The second half of the week becomes one blur, a hazy streak on the front of your mind.  It exists as a fog of pain and struggle, of pill popping, ice, and massage.  You can barely walk, yet must squat every morning.  Shooting pain rocks your tired body with every rep, and no bounce from the hole can be achieved without wincing, groaning, and nauseousness.  You must creep into the depths of every squat, and power out with any muscle that doesn't hurt.  Stay upright, stay strong, stay tight.  God it hurts, it HURTS!

The afternoon is ice and sleep.  B12 and protein.  More ice, more stretching, ice, nap, try to hold your lids open.  Eat and wince, groan and ice.  And then it's time to lift again.

Time to lift.....again.

This time it's not as bad, as your legs are so numb and tired that the pain isn't as evident.  You smear them with pain relieving creams, trying to break up those frozen muscles.  The rocks your torso sits on.  The slabs of granite preventing you from making those damn lifts, weights you threw through the ceiling earlier this week, just won't go above your head.  You try harder, force yourself lower, pull the bar as high as you can.  As high...as...you...can.

The last day is the trial.  The test of your true composition, what you're made of, the deepest fibers of your being.  When you cannot rise from your bed without coughing in pain, when all your muscles will NOT MOVE, when you are a brittle and hardened candle wick that has no internal strength, will not bend, refuses to light, and will shatter at the slightest touch.   This is the day you will lift the heaviest.  This is the day when plates are piled on top of each other and the bar wobbles freely up and down in your ripped palms.  You squat to max, and despite the lightning pain, you yell and shout and rage against the bar, and you make the lift.  You snatch to max, and despite the pain in your knees and your ankles, and your tired upper back, you make that lift too.  And when finally the reps upon reps upon reps of clean and jerks are over, and you cry in agony as the heaviest weight possible for that particular day is thrust overhead, and you make THAT lift as well.  Then you drop it.  You drop them all.  You fall over.  You collapse in sweat and numbness.

And you wait for it to begin...again.  

Moorestown

I consider it my first escapade into the realm of the greats.  Moorestown New Jersey, home of national champions and promising young stars of the weightlifting world.  We traveled there, my coach, his family, and I, to reintroduce our small group of Mainers to the rest of East Coast gold, the team we officially compete for.  Inside me my nerves rattled slightly, strung tight like the strings of a violin.  I knew the skill of those who lifted there, pure and practiced, and to me, a skinny tall tree of a weightlifter, I felt I had reason to be surely intimidated.  I wasn't sure of what I'd see, and whether I would be accepted, or shunned as amateur and out of place.

The club itself was small, nestled in a shaded brick building below street level.  But oh god, how beautiful the place was.  Ten platforms, racks and racks of Werksan plates, and squat stands on every polished plank of wood.  The bars shone brightly, and the air was refreshing and cool.  It was a weightlifting haven amongst the crazy streets and road rage.

The talent in that room was fantastic.  Darren Barnes, the national champion 56kg lifter, repping out snatches heavier than any I'd made.  Lance Frye, former 77kg champion, power cleaning 150kg off blocks, a relatively light weight for him, as he'd snatched the same amount in his hay day.  Newcomers as well, a short Asian kid only a few years older than me, perfectly squat jerking 110kg, descending deep into the realm of normally unattainable flexibility.  They've all been to nationals, some once, some multiple times.  I feel utterly outclassed, as was expected.

However I lifted all the same, snatching up to an easy 80, clean and jerking to an effortless 95, and squatting to a feather light 120.  The reps were what killed me, as was the norm.  Volume makes champions, not heavy singles.  The lifts were solid, however my muscles were tight, initially unwilling to bend into the crazy shapes they must conform to in order to complete the lifts.  Nerves perhaps? Entwined in my ever thickening fibers?  Hah.  Despite the impossibility of that situation, it seemed like that's exactly what was happening.

Here's a training video of myself

We lifted two days in that paradise of weightlifting.  As was usual, Gwen showed her great superiority, proving she deserved her spot in the top 10 women of the United States.  After the second day, we took Darren Barnes, the remarkable 56, out to lunch at a Tuscan grill, where we laughed and chatted over chicken and pasta.  He is a boy of great knowledge for his age, and great wisdom as well.  He comes from almost nothing, and has clearly made great strides for himself.  His achievements are truly humbling, and despite his 5'3" stature, I feel like I've never looked up further to someone's being.  His smile is always stretched across his dark cheeks, and I'm quite happy to now call myself his friend.

Darren I wish you the best, and hope to meet you again soon.  You better be coming up to Maine to train with us sometime soon.  You'll love the lobster!


To wrap things up, this trip was an experience like no other.  My first handshakes with true champions, my first sightings of pure determination and unbelievable skill.  And strength, how could I forget the strength.  Without a doubt, Moorestown is hallowed ground in weightlifting, and represents the future of the sport for this country.  With men like Darren, and hopefully myself someday, we will be back on top.