Rhubarb Pie

I did the first unassisted pull-up of my life at age 37. From a still hang.

Sugar, I just wrote a post about weightlifting, but I didn't say the part I've been meaning to say to your post on falling apart.  I guess I think two things.

Thing the first:

I fervently believe that your body loves you and wants to carry you strongly and comfortably.  I believe that it is never too late, that it will always respond to you.  It will forgive any amount of neglect or abuse, and it will always, always respond favorably and predictably to doing the things it needs.  It needs good fuel.  It needs to be used, along the whole range of intensities.  It needs sleep.  It needs daylight.  It needs touch and (for many people) sex.

Your poor body.  It is mute and it is trapped there with you.  It can't say what it means.  It can only send you signals, sensations that your bossy, dominant mind can ignore.  Your mind wants other things, like information to chew on or distractions.  It will find them while your body tries to get attention.  It sends lethargy or a pounding heart to tell you you didn't eat what it needs.  It sends an ache to ask you to please twist and bend and lengthen it in more directions.  It sends joint pain to say that you've gotten out of alignment, please come back to your spine and work from there.  It gets weak when it wants you to know that you should fight your limits.  As soon as you do, it will rejoice by pushing those limits away and teaming with you to charge down the new limits.

As soon as you are moving in the right direction, you have no greater cheerleader than your body.  It LOVES you.  It is SO EXCITED to do things with you.  Your body wants to go on walks with you.  Your mind is seeing things and whirring through the details of the day.  But your body will send you rhythm between your legs and your breath.  Your body will give you pink cheeks, or that delicious sweatbreak.  Your body will thank you for sufficient nutritious food within a day, with a steady grateful energy that makes the Diet Cokes unnecessary.  Your body CANNOT WAIT to pick that up, and here your mind should urge it to go a little slower, focus on technique.  Because your body is JAZZED!  It loves hefting things!  It floods you with euphoria after!  It begs you to throw that heavy thing around afterwards!  Then jump over it!  Maybe roll on it!  It all feels good!  Do more!  Your body is sort of a golden retriever puppy.  It has no sense.  But it loves you and it wants to bound.

Thing the second:

Neglecting your body is sad, because it is a mute creature that is at your command.  We should tend our bodies as we would tend any creature under our control.  It is sad because it the feedback is so immediate; the signals come as soon as we move in a direction, healthy or neglectful.  It is a shame to pass up that source of gratification.  That said, I know it is hard to fit it in and the world is full of distractions from the pleas of your body.  I fully think that working out as much as I do is a selfish treat.  I'm lucky to be able to do that because I don't have other strong demands on my time.  I don't know how I'll balance it when I have a family with equally good claims.

If you can make time, I think you should.  If you are basically healthy, you can repair your body and bring it to whatever state you want it to be in.  After a lifetime of rolling my ankles in sports, they are now fixed, by strengthening and a lot of painful massage that realigned my legs.  You can make your body stronger than you dream, or fast or bendy or springy.  The ways to do this are known; your body will react in predictable ways.  You just have to make that What You Do for a while.  It takes a pretty wholehearted focus (which is fun, when it is fun).  It is never too late.  I see people at my gym make drastic turnarounds, to become glowing and pink and proud of themselves for doing things they dreamed they could.  Your body is on your side.  If you do this, it will give you every help and encouragement it can.  It will send you good sleep; it will crave dark green foods; it will breathe deep and full; it will grow strong; it will be euphoric; it will wake and feel alive.  It loves you, and you will feel it.

This is why change is bad.

Wednesday is bench press night, as you know, of course.  My lifting is unremarkable these days.  I don't have my heart set on a goal and it shows.  Let's not talk about my lifts.  Let's talk about spotting.

A new guy, big dude, joined our group last night.  Also, Mike wasn't there.  I've told you about Mike, right?  How he's my lifting partner and he's so perfect?  We've been lifting together for more than a year now; he totally knows my form and the cues I need and he is completely, completely focused when he spots me.  I trust him absolutely, which makes my lifts that much easier.  I spot him, and I think the trust goes both ways.  But this new guy!  He doesn't trust my spots!

I suppose it isn't his fault.  He's big.  He lifts heavy weights.  He doesn't want them to fall on him.  He doesn't know what I can lift.  But dude.  If I'm standing on the bench to spot you, I can deadlift what you are benching.  Besides, the thing I figured out about spotting someone's bench is that you don't have to catch the whole weight.  The bencher can lift all but the last few pounds.  If you can give any kind of assist, the bencher can get the rest of it.  I wouldn't do that, of course.  If I'm helping lift a failed press, I'll help with what I've got.  But the spotter only needs to be able to give enough help to get the increment, not the whole weight.

This new dude!  He didn't know me, and I saw him pull our trainer aside to suggest side spots.  Of course the lifter should have whatever spots make him trust the lift.  He shouldn't have the faintest hesitation distracting him.  If he wants side spots, he should have them.  BUT I HAD THE SPOT.  It was safe.  Perfect Mike already knows that.  Perfect Mike would never doubt me.  (For that matter, I would ask for side spots before I let myself do a spot I wasn't certain of.)

For that matter, the new dude didn't spot me right.  By "right", I mean, exactly like Perfect Mike does.  He handed me the bar more abruptly.  He didn't coo and murmur and shout at me exactly the same.  He took the weight off too fast.  I trusted him; he's a giant and I got the feeling he could twirl my loaded bar like a baton.  I didn't ever think it would fall.  But you know.  He's not Mike. 

I shouldn't let myself get as dependent on Mike as I am.  I think there's a strong tendency for lifters to get into OCD rituals, down to tiny details.  I know lifters who like the bar to line up with the ceiling tiles when they bench press.  TheAre's a lot to having every lift be as close to the same as you can make it.  But (and this is tragic), Perfect Mike has an independent life and can't always be there to spot me.  I suppose I should be able to be spotted by other people who aren't perfect.

Whatever.  The new dude is going to join our group for a while, so he'll get to know me.  Next week he'll watch me and Mike, and see that another man trusts my girl spotting.  (Unless he has Mike spot him, in which case he's lucky, because Mike is a great, focused spotter.  I may have mentioned that.)  I'll get over myself.  I'm sure the new dude will become one of us soon enough.

Giving actual numbers is so gauche.

Psst, I think she’s gone! We got the place to ourselves for a while! Just you and me, baby. Let's do what comes natural, do what feels right. There's no one here but us. I know you want what I want. 

The gym has been pure awesome for a while. I'm over a plateau and my numbers keep going up up up. I have to say, it is extremely gratifying. I recommend this stage to everyone. Skip the plateaus, which are boring and try your patience and feel like work. Go straight to "all gains, all the time", which is way more fun.

Flamboyant but straight Rob has instituted cheek kisses at the gym. Yep, now arrival and departure requires a round of cheek kissing; real kisses, not air kisses. I completely love this, since I am nowhere near my capacity to absorb kisses. I wish it would spread to other gyms. I wish it would become the norm for powerlifting. I love thinking about the giant triangular men* stopping by each platform as they gather their stuff, murmuring to each other and leaning in for kisses. "Strong lift tonight, bro. Good fight. Besos." *kiss*

I started something that is catching on, although I didn't mean to. After Sherry mentioned that people have a deep need to be seen, I started working that into cheering for people. I say it a lot these days. As a friend sets up for his lift and we gather to cheer, I say "I'm here and I'm watching your lift." Or "I see you lift and you are so strong." I told my workout partner Mike, 'I watch all your lifts'. It is surprisingly intimate to tell someone directly that you see them, but I didn't realize what it felt like until a couple months later, when Mike said (in the middle of our usual course of figuring out what to lift next and chatting) 'I always watch your lifts.' It took my breath away a little, to hear that said so straight. Oh. That's what the receiving end feels like. The several of us who work out together will always gather to watch someone's important lift, but hearing that aloud was very, very nice.

I'm still bemused by my relationship with Mike. He's a baby, in his early twenties. I don't know much at all about his life and we never talk outside the gym. I think he grew up a lot harder than I did. For all that, and within the very limited roles we play for each other, we know each other extremely well and the trust has become absolute. I really do think I've seen 95% of his lifts over the last year. I can say things like 'you know that when you make a jump like that, you get a hitch on the left and have to push your way through.' He always spots me. These days I give him credit for about 20% of my lift. There's the trust, of course, how I give my safety entirely over to him. He's become so good with cues, perfectly timed and specific to flaws in my technique. But mostly, I trust him to never take my lift away. Sometimes you're lifting and you get stuck. An overeager spotter will help too soon, lift the bar away or nudge it up. Not him, not ever, and I only hit my new bench PR because he waited for seconds as I pushed through. He said he knew I had it all along. I adore him.**

So my gym life is going well. We're having a intra-gym mini-meet next week and I'm hoping for more PRs. My opposite from the morning workouts is still on injured reserve, so there won't be anyone in my weight class to go up against. Booo! The rest of my life is pleasant summertime and friends, the usual.

If I can't brag here...

After being stuck at 135lbs for a year, my bench press max went up to 145lbs last night.  I am so psyched.  Now I want 150lbs.

It was a fun, quiet night at the gym last night.  The evening crew waits about thirty seconds after the owner walks out the door to change from his punk and thrashy metal to glorious hiphop and funk.  After that, it is all dancing between lifts for me.  Sometimes we make a big production out of trying for new personal records, but last night it was all calm and casual.  "Of course you are going to bust through old records.  Ten pounds more? Whatever."  Maybe next week we'll try it with 'all eyes on the lift' and everyone shouting "UP!  Push!"  Maybe that'll get me the next 5 lbs.

Tov was there.  I've seen him around town for three years and he used to be too cool to give me more than an eyebrow raise, but now we're gym buddies, so I get the big smile I'd never seen before.  He called me over in the middle of my lifts to tell me how pretty my bike is, which is candy for my ears.  That was fun too.

We pretended we were casual about my new benchpress max, until it was over and I ran around the gym telling everyone.  Stood on the sidewalk and told passersby.  Announced it on the internets the next day.  There might be strangers who commute from out of town who haven't heard yet, but I plan to fix that at lunchtime.

Post meet wrap-up.

Hey folks.  Thanks for your good wishes.  They made me feel good.

Overall, I'd say that I got the meet I deserved.  After all my ambivalence, I had a pretty ambiguous meet.  Sadly, most of the experience was of getting steadily sicker and sicker throughout the day.  I was croaking and dragging by the end of the day, just wiped out.  If it weren't for the competition, I would have been in bed all day.  To counterbalance the yuckiness of being sick, it was completely wonderful to see my old friends there, to have my sister see what I do, and have my gym friends cheering for me. 

Technical stuff:

(Overview - in a powerlifting competition you squat, benchpress, then deadlift in that order in one day.  You get to try each lift three times.  It is pretty common to lift 90% of your max on the first lift, your max on the second, and try for unknown territory on the third lift.  You adjust by how you feel doing each lift.)

First event was squat.  I did fine.  Hit all three lifts, no red flags (I'm not naturally a good squatter and always want to cheat the depth a little.  Managed to do nice deep squats each time).  First one was an easy 170lbs.  Second one was my old max, 185lbs, which felt fine.  Went up to 190lbs and hit it easy.  New PR, but I started wondering if I should have gone heavier.

A couple hours of sitting around.  I fell asleep in a corner for a while.  Noticed that I really wasn't feeling well.  Then, I blew the benchpress.

I think a lot of things went into my blowing the benchpress, all of which are different forms of "I got sloppy."  The squats had been so smooth that I thought that perhaps I should have been more ambitious.  So I planned large jumps for the bench press.  I didn't warm up very well.  The gym was chaotic and it was hard to work in, both of which are bullshit excuses.  If competing well drove me harder, I'd have forced my way into a better warm-up.  (That includes forcing myself to do it right, just on principle.)  At any rate, I got my first easy weight (120lbs) and blew my second and third attempts (135lbs, my max).  This is a large jump for me.  We know that I do better with lots of small jumps.  I should have adhered to that more rigorously.  My third attempt took a dive towards my face, which scared the audience.  I was fine with it.  The spotters were right there, and I thought I had enough strength to lower it slowly, face or no.  I didn't think it would hurt me or anything.  But it drew a gasp.

So I blew the benchpress.  Thanks goodness for conservative first lifts that guarantee you some results.

By the last lift, deadlift, I felt pretty bad.  (Not emotionally.  I'm not one of those people who scourge themselves for mistakes at competitions.  Sick.  Couldn't breathe, ached.)  I re-couped and did my full warmup all over again, starting with stretching. The warm-up felt so heavy I lowered my opening weight from 245lbs to 230lbs.  Did that fine.  Hit 245 for the second lift.  People said my lifts looked fast and easy, but they felt so hard.  Decided to go for a mild gain on the third, went up to 260lbs.  That's five pounds over my old max.  Hit that too.

So, mixed results.  Very mild gains on squat and deadlift.  Pretty complete failure on benchpress.

Getting sick is a mild shame, because it would have been nice to know what I could have done if I'd felt strong that day.  On the other hand, it will allow me to say forever that "If I hadn't been so sick, man, I could have totally lifted 9000lbs."  At any rate, I'm done for the foreseeable future.  My priority for the rest of the year is getting and being pregnant, so I'll be lifting to maintain, not to gain strength.  Hopefully, it'll be a few years before I have the option to compete in a sports event.

Emotional part:

The part that wasn't ambiguous at all was how nice it was to have friends there.  My old friends and my sister and the boys came and went during the day.  The boys sat on my lap as we waited for my turn to lift.  (The little one asked me why were doing this, and I had a hard time answering.  Picking heavy stuff up and putting it down is pretty pointless.  On the other hand, it feels good.  Except for now, when I want to go to bed.)  My gym friends were there the whole time and that was great.  It was great.  They cheered for me.  I cheered for them (except that it ripped my throat up).  I mingled and people said nice things to me as I walked through the crowd.  It was basically great.

I was so grateful to my friends for amusing themselves.  I felt bad that they were watching people do stuff they never showed any other interest in.  But they did watch and said they liked it.  Anand's new lady is some sort of sports doctor, so she was intrigued.  Chris knew lots of people there.  My sister said it was super inspiring, watching people try so hard.  That is inspiring.  My favorite moment might have been watching a mom as she watched her daughter hit a new PR.  The mom was beaming, just estatic and amazed at what her daughter can do.  Chris and my sister watched the giants lift crazy heavy stuff at the end, so they got a big dose of the grunting and shouting and pawing the ground and hitting each other.  I didn't stay for that.  My day was long enough.  My plan for today is to read, nap and take a bubble bath.

Pictures:

There are pictures of me, but not on my camera.  If any of them are flattering, I'll post them when I get them  My sister filmed me lifting, so I might put those up.  If I look good. My favorite picture was of the kids waiting:

When it's over, I can wear the singlet when I fight crime.

The big day is tomorrow.  So far, I'm mostly chill about the whole thing.  I'm bummed 'cause I'm sick.  I don't remember getting sick in the past couple years and I get sick now?  I'm past the fever and ache-y stage, now it is all respiratory.  I'm hoping that doesn't make filling my body with air difficult.  Well, there's nothing to be done.

The big news is that my rival from the morning workouts hurt her back working out yesterday*.  She's out.  Now who has a natural lifting body?  My too-tall back is fine.

I look at the singlet and I just shake my head.  I remember each step of how I got into lifting and I remember the choices I made.  Shoot, I may even have written them down.  But somehow none of that adds up to the fact that I'm in a powerlifting meet tomorrow.  I'm going to put that on and do what in front of my family and friends?  I lift things?  For sport?  For the life of me, I can't think how I got here.

*More seriously, I wish she hadn't gotten hurt.  It is better to go up against opponents for real, win or lose.  And I don't want anyone to be hurt.

Our friend had a shaky meet, but was amazed we came out for him. Of course.

I've been such a grinch about competing that I think I should mention that I do like some parts of it.  Saturday morning, a few of us from the gym went to watch a kid from the gym compete in Olympic lifts.  It was a small local meet of the sort I complain about, and it was very, very sweet. 

I love watching the support when a competition has a good vibe.  I love when people cheer for a scrawny kid who isn't lifting much.  He's working as hard as anyone, so I love when the (small, sparse) crowd gets behind him.  The announcer was kind and casual.  When someone missed a lift, he'd say assuredly, "He had a lot of speed on that one, so he'll come back and make that lift on his next attempt."  It must be nice to hear that over the loudspeaker, you know?  I like watching coaches tell their lifters they'll make it, watch them fail, give them a correction and tell them they'll make it.  I like how coaches draw their lifters in for a hand on the shoulder or pound on the back or some other touch after a lift.

For all that I snark about amateurs, I also don't run out of stuff to watch.  We're all joking about the singlets, but I always think people's bodies are beautiful.  I like seeing that musculature and different builds.  There were a lot of high school kids there, and it was fun to see how different they are.  One kid had the most amazing concentration.  He was lifting in the heavy rounds, but his focus was the thing that stood out.  I like seeing people come off the platform, lift or fail, and get a clasp on the shoulder from the coach and a breakdown of what to think about for next time.  You'd think it would wear out, but the drama of seeing someone try, fail, and try again never gets old.

I'm still a grinch about competing.  I still think it is the price one has to pay for the good part, the training.  But I've told you how much I hate it, so I should also tell you about the parts I like.

Now we taper.

I only have a couple minutes before guests arrive, but I wanted to get these up.

We're a week out, and my recent (and all time) maxes are:

Bench press: 135 lbs   (I feel like this is low, relative to my size.)
Squat: 185 lbs  (Decent, and I like that it is proportionate to my deadlift.)
Deadlift: 255 lbs.

Obviously I wish all of them were higher, but that's where we are going into my meet.  In a week we find out how I respond on competition day.

(Also, the trainers are (in the kindest way) trying to prep me for a loss to this other girl at the gym.  "She just has a lifting body," they say.  "She's much shorter, so everything is easier for her.  Shorter distances to lift, shorter levers to haul about.  She's just build for it."

I can't believe that after all those years of being too short and stocky for tkd, I am now too tall and willowy for lifting.  BOOOO!!!)

I think that singlet is about 70% of my sister's enthusiasm for my meet.

Honestly.  It is not as if I WANT a singlet for the competition.  I am resignedly willing to wear one.  I'm already bummed I have to buy an item I don't expect to get any repeat use.  But I will.  Because I said I'd do this thing.

So it is all the more galling that the website can't place an order correctly and they aren't picking up their phone.  I have to persevere to get a singlet I don't want?  That is testing the bounds of my motivation.

And I'm pretty stoic.

Have I told you about the massages?  I don't think I've told you about the massages.  I've been getting near weekly massages since we started training hard.  If that makes you sigh in envy, you should suck that breath right back in.   They aren't nice massages with tinkly music and aromatherapy.  They're sports massages with the sortof odd masseur* who treats nearly everyone at the gym.  They hurt. 

Holy cow, they hurt so much.  The whole session averages about a six or a seven, on a one-to-ten for pain.  That spikes up to an eight or nine when he finds a knot.  Christ they hurt.  He's been working on my hip flexors/knee, so he feels along my quads, probing the muscle.  There comes the instant where the pressure feels different, with a sharper pain I've come to recognize.  I always stifle my flinch, in hopes that he'll move on.  I don't know what it feels like to him in my muscles, but he never misses one.  I feel that sharp pain and then it starts.  He digs in, and I gasp to keep from screaming.  I try to keep still, wide shocked eyes on the ceiling.  I breathe into it for as long as I can before my whole body starts jerking.  He tells me that he is relaxing muscles that are permanently clenched, that he is untangling knots of muscles.  I don't know how literally to take that explanation, but OK, dude.  All I know is that the areas he works on hurt to the touch for four days, and I have bruises the size of my hands the next day. 

After the sharpest pain, he tells me to hop off the table and do squats.  I don't hop off the table so much as spring away from him.  But it works.  I can get lower before the hip flexor squawks.  My knee tracks better and doesn't pop so strongly.  He asks me how it feels, but I don't know how to answer. 'Well, I'd say that compared to the recent screaming pain, the original complaint doesn't bother me so much."

It is working, or I wouldn't do it.  The improvements are detectable and they last.  In a way, I guess it is my fifth workout of the week.  I gotta say.  I'm just lying there, but it is definitely the hardest.