Exercise is good for you.

I exercise because I sit in a chair behind a computer all day, and refuse to let myself become decrepit. Of all the exercise in the world, only two have ever really appealed to me: martial arts, and lifting weights.

I would still love to actively study martial arts, but schedule doesn’t permit.

But I can lift weights.

I have lifted on and off since I was a teenager, but most all the lifting I did in the past was more bodybuilder-style, and well… it never really panned out. I would lift, then something would make me lose interest. It often came from boredom and lack of progress. But since I started lifting again about 3 years ago and discovered things like Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program and EliteFTS, there’s been no boredom. It’s been a lot of growth, and growth in the areas of physical strength and muscle mass has probably been the least of it.

You’d think it’s just “lifting weights”, and a stupid and unengaging thing mentally and emotionally. But this go-round has been anything but. I have found myself constantly challenged, and achieving things I never thought I could do.

I think the biggest thing for me to date was squatting 315#.

It’s not just that I squatted 315. I mean, that’s cool and all. But what really gets me is the achievement and what I overcame to get there.

Squats always intimidated me. Squats are hard. If you can’t lift the bar off the floor or drop it while deadlifting, it’s not that big a deal. Dropping a bar while benching is potentially fatal, but yet, somehow that doesn’t come to mind (maybe all the male “how much ya bench?” ego?). But something about squatting and getting stapled to the floor… or getting hurt coming back up… or whatever. I dunno… maybe too much worry from my teenage years, Mom’s voice of worry still ringing in my ears? Who knows. But I always hated it.

Then this go around I got stuck at 230# for a long time. I couldn’t overcome it, and I know a lot of it was mental. Yeah, getting deep in the hole can be a scary thought, and it doesn’t feed the ego either. And so lots of things would run around in my head, which only served to drive me down the road of continual failure.

Then… I missed a squat and had to dump the bar.

Oh sure, it hurt. When the bar rolled off me, over my head, yeah, I was sore for a few days. But that failure was great, because it didn’t kill me. In fact, I knew what failure felt like and it wasn’t all that bad. Sure, it wasn’t great and I don’t strive to seek out the experience again, but geez… once you fail, how the pressure comes off you! Yeah, failing isn’t something I’m good at. It’s part of how I was raised, it’s also something that keeps me from doing some things, because sometimes I’d rather not do something than risk failure.

*sigh*

Hate admitting that, but it’s truth.

But I failed. I dumped the bar, and lived to tell the tale. In fact, I dumped it again another time and still lived to tell the tale.

And then I got smarter. I paid more attention to things. I started to study more. Read more. Listen more. Learn more. I changed up my lifts to focus on what I perceived as weak-points. Sometimes I was wrong, but I knew I could be wrong going into it and that whatever happens I should just do what I do and see what changes as a result; learn, adjust, continue.

But even bigger was I started to silence the doubt in my head.

Oh sure. I can still freak out about the weight on the bar. I might start to plan how to bail out, or ensure I walk-out far enough so that dumping the bar will dump cleanly and not into the rack. Heck, when I was working up to my 315# PR, because I was having knee troubles and did fear injury (knee gives out half-way up and I totally collapse), I even found myself positioning my phone in such a way and place that I could drag myself over to it so I could dial 911 (instead of where I normally perch it atop the rack). I mean, yeah, there’s still doubt and future-planning driven by doubt, fear, and insecurity. But I found it was more about an ounce of prevention (because if my knee did give out, I would be really screwed if I couldn’t reach my phone), not just pure intimidation and fear.

The biggest change?

I stopped thinking about things too much.

I just kept telling myself: you go down, you stand up.

That’s it. Oh sure, that’s not a way to teach the squat. It’s not proper form, it’s not right technique (tho some try to pass off squatting as being that simple). But at least mentally, that’s all it is.

It’s not a chattery voice of doubt.

It’s not the spectre of deep-seated fears rising up.

It’s just squatting.

Yeah, it’s a big weight on your shoulders. Yeah, it’s going to be heavy. Yeah it’s going to scare you. But you willingly heave it onto your shoulders. You get comfortable with it. You embrace it. And while it will drive you down, you will remain strong, tight, unbending to it. And you will stand up. You will conquer. You will be triumphant. You will overcome, and take yourself further than you thought you could.

As I work up, the only voice I (try to) let in my head is one saying: you go down, you stand up.

And that philosophy is spilling over into other areas of my life, which I’m happy for. Yeah, I may be an older fart, certainly heading into my afternoon years… but I’m still learning and growing, still overcoming.

Oh I know. This isn’t some huge overcoming of things, because I know there are people in this world that overcome far greater things that are far more meaningful. Still, I learned a lot.

You go down, you stand up.

Who would have thought squatting would be so deep.