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| How tight do you wear your belt? (connect the dots) |
A picture is being painted in my mind before I even dress
for my workout. I know it’s going to be a grind, and this is just amplifying my
anticipation. Today’s menu calls for a double with 530 lbs on a 2 inch deficit
and then a triple with 600 lbs in the rack. Needless to say, today should pour
down PRs like flooding rains.
I walk into the weight room over confident already. I’m
sporting my navy blue “Adult males > 200 lbs” shirt when I step on the scale
for my regular weigh in. It blinks three times, struggling for some reason,
before it displays my weight: 199.8 lbs. Already this workout has begun with a
sense of undeserved ego. As always I line the plates up, one by one, until 530
lbs and a raised 2 inch block sit on the platform. I grab my phone and hand it
to the Assistant strength and conditioning coach and ask him to hit record
before I lift. I pull air from my belly out as a roar before I dip my butt into
the pull. The weight feels extremely heavier than it did last week. Perhaps it’s
the 2 inch decrease in arm length, or perhaps I was overconfident in my
abilities. Nonetheless I drag all 530 pounds up my shins and thighs for a 3
second grinder of a rep. Now all of the coaches are watching. The bloody grunt
has drawn a crowd that expects victory or death. The hype is feeding my
confidence like a fat lion; the only problem is that fat lions sometimes forget
to hunt. I lean back for my next rep and try to yank it off the floor. However,
speed seems far from me today and the bar barely finds its way off of the
ground. As the bar reaches my knees dots begin to flicker in my vision, but too
many coaches are yelling to stop. A few more inches up and a dark cloud floats
around my vision. Now I know that I’m hitching, no judge would white light me,
but the shouts are making my ego say that everything’s fine. I inch the bar a
bit more before blackness descends on my world. I hump into lockout before I
give in to gravity’s demands and drop the barbell. Confidence has left me
behind as I stumble off the platform, struggling not to pass out. It doesn’t
matter though, because I wind up on the ground struggling to tie together sentences.
Jake walks up to me and gives me a reassuring high five before he lets me know
that the first rep wasn’t recorded.
Sometimes God humbles us by letting the world forget our
successes and by exploring our failures. It is then, and only then, that when
something successful happens we are able to relay everything back to God.
Trying not to be too defeated I planned on doing a rack pull of 600 pounds
afterwards. A grunt and a tug leave the bar glued to the rack. Once again over
confidence has laid genocide to my workout. I, regretfully, drop the weight a
hundred pounds and perform 8 reps. The bright red and bruised dots under my
eyes make some people think that I don’t sleep, others think that I’m a secret
UFC fighter, but to me they mean that humility is the only way to success. So
for anyone willing to listen I leave a wake of vulnerability for you, only so
that when I actually do succeed I will be able to thank God truthfully.
Today’s tips are simple: Be confident when you pull, but not
overconfident. Sometimes the lift is left solely to what your mind can do.
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