WEIGHT TRAINING, OR “WAIT, TRAINING? FOR WHAT?”

Weight training takes people to whole new level of confusion, but not for the person lifting.

“Why do you waste so much time trying to break a sweat? Who are you trying to impress?” is a question often asked.

“You’re going to look like a meathead. Is that the look you’re going for?”

“Do you want an aneurysm? I heard about a guy once.”

And no answer is good enough, but the foolish still make an effort.

“To stay strong,” is one dumb answer.

“It’s to keep fit,” is another.

Some may respond with, “Maybe it’s time to grow up, jock sniffer.”

Which is wrong in so many ways, beginning with . . .

The only jockstrap I’ve seen in a public gym was worn by a guy who had it on when he changed into his workout gear, lifted, then got dressed and left with his jock still on.

I was in the dressing room by coincidence, not by stalking Jock Man.

And I came way wondering, ‘Who does this?’

If any of you have an answer to why a grown man doesn’t shower and wears a jock all the time, this is the place.

How many permanent jock strappers are out there? One more than I thought, but I don’t think about it much.

Weight Training Debut

Growing up in a family with three boys, we got a few weights to lift growing up. In those days a large weight disk was a purple plastic container full of sand. A big weight still weighed only ten pounds.

The bar that came with the weights didn’t seem strong enough to hold the weight.

I don’t remember anyone touching the weight set after opening the package, but they stuck around for years.

The serious training began in high school before football season. The star of the weight room was a new multi-station Universal weight machine. Who ever toted it upstairs had to be strong.

One problem in the high school weight room was supervision. There wasn’t any, which resulted in some weird weight lifting.

Needless to say, I wasn’t convinced it was the right place for me. Besides, weight training hadn’t taken off yet. Some concerned adults still advised young athletes to avoid weights if you wanted to stay flexible, while they smoked another cigarette.

I’m so old that stretching hadn’t made it to the mainstream yet.

How old?

Phil Knight was still selling Tigers out of his trunk. There was still a finish line.

College weight lifting for freshman year was about as organized as the high school gym. Team workouts were the thing.

When There’s No Team Training?

Adult life leaves out the directed, sports related, training. No competition, no game, no winner winner chicken dinner.

I took the leap to gym membership in my fifties after my wife’s observation. And it wasn’t about being fat.

Being middle aged fat is no shock, but how fat is too fat?

I was too fat. How did I know? I stopped getting on the scale and and backed away from the trough. That fat, but weight wasn’t a motivator?

At the time I was a home caregiver in my house for my Parkinson’s afflicted father in-law.

“Honey, maybe you should join a gym to get out and around people more,” she said.

What I heard was, “You might be slipping.”

I was slipping alright, slipping a second helping of dessert, slipping an extra beer.

One slip was asking, “Are you going to eat that? Don’t throw it away.”

In short time the gym felt like a new lease on life, or a new lease on flab, and the lease was up.

I transformed myself from middle aged fat to not so fat. Still fat, but stronger fat. Looking back, I think my self esteem had been slipping.

But, scales don’t lie.

A dance with cancer interrupted the fun.

I checked out of the gym a fat man with a lumpy neck, then checked back in a skeleton in baggy clothes and baggy skin. 260+ lbs dropping to 195 was the cause. And no cancer. Yay.

Covid Pandemic Lifting

I went from gym to garage weight lifting during the shutdown and didn’t miss a beat.

The main reason was my lifting partner. I’ve never had one and discouraged the notion whenever it came up.

In the gym: “We ought to lift together.”

Me: “I don’t follow a schedule, show up on time, or offer encouragement to anyone, so you’d have a very disappointing lifting buddy.”

In the garage with my sonny: “Are we lifting today? Later? Okay, I’ll wait.”

Lifting with my kid was a golden time for me. You’d have to ask him for his feelings. He was a powerhouse like his brother and they both inspired me then, and now.

The truth is, my kids have inspired me beyond any expectations. I’ve been a part of their lives from home birth on, but not as a ‘follow me, do what I say, and no backtalk’ parent.

Give a kid the freedom to talk shit and you’ll find out soon enough what kind of people they are,

They given me high expectations as adults who know things. If they feel there’s something I definitely ought to do, I do it, like being kind, forgiving others, owning my history, not arguing with my wife like a kook.

With those goals in mind I broke my heart from feeling a little too much too soon. My new gym is cardiac rehab, which has been going well. I like it, my heart likes it.

I compared medical notes Wednesday with another heart guy who’d spent thirty days in ICU.

(I spent overnight.)

He called getting a broken heart syndrome sounded Shakespearean. I took the Shakespeare sequence at UofO and remember a few things.

And he’s right, but which play? I hope it’s not the one where the old man gets his eyes burned out by hot coins. Or the one with the damn blood spots that won’t wash out.

A New Weight Training Day

After two, two and a half months, away from lifting anything I did a workout yesterday.

It was a push day of chest and triceps with body weight squats and a core sequence, which felt Shakespearean.

In the middle of it my wife asked if I wanted to take a walk with her, but I was on a roll.

The walk is probably more beneficial than lifting, so I lifted faster for the cardio. (Gym joke.)

Did I load up and pick up where I left off? I left off with a 225 lb bench for a sixty-six year old.

I’m not sure about the percentage of sixty-six year olds who can do that, and don’t ask because it feels like a humble brag.

So, no I didn’t injure myself right out of the gate.

Didn’t tweak a shoulder. (Hey Dale)

Didn’t fall off the pull-up bar. (Hi Hans)

And didn’t rip my shorts. (Hey Jamie)

Just a nice routine of seven exercises three times through at fifteen reps each.

When my wife came back from her walk I offered her a beer. She said no.

I said, “Cheers,” to her and to weight training. Feels good to be back.