This post is inspired by my new workout routine. It isn't really new as I have been doing it for 16 weeks now. This routine has taught me to focus and to push myself like I had never done before and that took me to a new level. This plateau busting is one of the things that triggered me to stop posting in my old log and on this board every day in fact. I had become a new person in the gym and that gave me mixed feelings. Mostly I felt alone. As my body changed and people started to recognize that I was different, it caused me to rethink what I was doing. Now I am more comfortable with what I have become and have found strength through this acceptance. This article sort of reflects this introspective time for me and also describes exaclty how my every workout is now.
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I am alone even in the crowded gym, the laughter, the talking, the music that is always there all are white noise to me. I am one with my work, with the cold iron with the sweat dripping from my brow, with my body. When I am very quiet and very focused, I go inside myself and I can hear my muscles tearing, the tissue rebuild begins and I am happy.
One set finished and I collapse to a bench. My body shakes without control. I set the timer for my rest. My heart pounds in my throat I am too weak to move. My rest times are not wasted in idle chatter or watching the TV on the wall. I stare without seeing, I plan, I breathe, I focus or I will not make the next press, the next pull, the next
PR. I pick up the weight and start another set. My workouts, like my breath have a rythym that I must keep to stay alive to stay uninjured to make the best progress.
When it is over I come back out of this strange world and I look around. The gym is hopping alive. I was never alone. There are a lot of people working out together and laughing and joking around. The girls with the little pink dumbells, the guys doing bicep curls with their hips, trainers balancing clients on bosu balls, the rows and rows of people mindlessly doing cardio....
And sometimes I will spot another sitting quietly, body shaking, focusing and breathing, starring without seeing, unaware of the surroundings. I then realize that there are more people like this out there and I feel even less alone...