Let’s keep the party rollin’.
So, we all have our thing. Our outlet. Our place of peace. Some place in life where we can let go of our internal screams and silence our internal critics.
For some, it's writing. It's reading. It's walking.
For me, it took a long time to find it. I would write. I would exercise. I did boot camps. I ran even though I wasn't a runner. I would take drives. I really hated running, though.
But then, I found something.
When I walked into Iron Athlete for the first time at the recommendation of a friend, I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I needed to find a new gym where I could feel...something. Those first few days, the apprehension was high. I had lifted weights in the past. From high school, through college, and in my younger adult life, I went to a gym or rec center and lifted. I didn't TRAIN, I just went to the gym to exercise.
I started going every day. Still not really understanding what I was doing, I would just work opposing muscle groups and legs and do some cardio.
And then, something happened. One night while spending way too much time on my phone, I hit up my gym's website. Reading that they had a Westside Reverse Hyper and were one of the few gyms around to have one, I started digging deeper about the machine and where it came from - Westside Barbell. Power lifting. I started thinking about goals and how to get stronger.
I read articles from EliteFTS, Eddie Coen, and other legends in the powerlifting world. I really just started to learn. I just tried to absorb the information.
Mind you, this is all before I ever put a barbell on my back.
See, I have a condition called Spondylolisthesis, which is when one of the bones in your spine slip forward. It was diagnosed when I was in the fifth grade after I was injured in a basketball game. Doctors always told me to never play football and never lift weights. They were so wrong, at least regarding the lifting weights. What I didn’t know was HOW to lift weights.
I played one year of middle school football, and I was in pretty serious pain after the season, so I retired. But I always stayed away from the gym, which, in hindsight, was the wrong thing to do. Getting stronger could have only helped me.
So, I was afraid of putting that bar on my back. I was even more petrified of deadlifting, since EVERYBODY tells you that deadlifting is bad for your back.
The more I read, the more I learned that I could realize a lot of benefits by getting stronger. So, I started to train that way. Get strong.
I've since found that the training and not just lifting or walking on a treadmill was my outlet. It was my time to get away from things, unplug a bit, and learn things about myself that I didn't know before.
One thing that I was truly never aware of before training like this is that one four letter word that nobody ever wants to dial in.
Food.
Since joining Iron Athlete, I've learned how to train for performance. I've learned how to eat around workouts and to eat for the next day. What to drink, how to use carbs before and after. I'm in no way perfect, but I understand how the body can use food to grow and get stronger. It's a learning experience where you try to see what works and what doesn't work.
I’ve worked with strength coaches, nutrition coaches, talked to countless people about how to succeed, but through all of this, I’ve found a lot of peace in myself. A peace that was never really there, and a peace that’s always been within me, but I never knew how to bring it out.
Althought Father Time is undefeated in the strength game, I’ll always strive to make myself better, stronger, and more at peace than I ever have been.
So, to you, I hope you’re as lucky as I am to find that peace. Some of us will never find it, some of us have already found it, and some of us know exactly where it is.