Getting Serious

It feels really good to be back in the gym. Feels really good to have the iron in hand again. It’s been a three-year layoff. Gotten fat and soft. Crissman and Baker are already crying, thinking, “Great, here it comes. More spiritual lessons from the gym…” read it and weep, losers.

As I said before, the last 8 or 9 months we were in Winchester, I got interested in Olympic weightlifting—bigger motions incorporating lots of muscles, all the major joints. The discipline of it is attractive in and of itself; you have to want it, because for the first 6-8 weeks, your strength is going to go down in the ways you’re used to measuring it. You won’t bench or curl or even squat as much. But after that initial period, everything starts going up, even though you aren’t focusing on isolation exercises. It’s like starting over; you feel like a real girly man because you start with a stick. Seriously—if you even start with an empty bar there is a good chance you’ll smack your face (it can happen) or fall over on the upswing (did happen). And over the long haul, you still don’t get to any monster weight. Most folks who can bench 400 will never clean and jerk 200.

Anyway, as I was getting closer to really putting a whole lift together, the guy who was teaching me said I should set a goal. I said, “What if I can squat-snatch my weight?”

He said, matter-of-factly, “That’s a lot of weight.” Ouch.

Then I said, “What if I lose a bunch and then we start from there?”

This gets deep. He made a raw sound of disgust and said, “Would you ever give somebody that kind of spiritual advice?” Listen, this guy and I had only briefly talked about faith. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was a pastor, but apparently he did. He went on, “don’t set your goals lower. Don’t try to work down to them. Lose the lard and lift the weight.” Like I keep saying, the children of this world are so much wiser than those of us in the light.