Hello all my fellow BigFellas. It's been a bit since I've been able to post due to my move to Morehead City from Raleigh. Thankfully now the cable and Internet is hooked up, the basic necessities are in place (meaning my television is mounted on the wall, the XBox works, and there's room for my recliner among the boxes) and it's time to get back to writing!
It's currently 3:30 or so in the morning and there's something eating at me so badly that, aside from a little nap earlier, I can't sleep for crap this evening. Since I know a lot of you that read this blog can relate in one way or another, I thought I might share the name of my pain with you and hopefully get it out of my system enough to still try to manage a little shut eye when all's said and done. So, with your indulgence, here goes:
I had a ROUGH night at the gym tonight.
Now before some of you get all stiff upper lip on me and tell me to shrug it off and just get the hell over it and move on, allow me to expound and elaborate a bit. There's more to this story than just a simple case of butthurt over missing a weight. You see, one of my major concerns about this move was the availability of a suitable gym to train in. Over the last year or so I've started to fancy myself as an entry level power lifter. Now, granted, that designation came from the fact that one of the experienced lifters and a generally overall beast of a human being at good ol' Clayton Fitness complemented me on a overhand grip 405lb deadlift and told me I was making good progress. But, the way I figure it, when those already in the club take notice you've got your foot in the door so I'll take what I can get and run with it happily. I knew when this move came about suddenly that the only way I'd be able to continue to train properly was with the right facility, which I was lucky enough to find in the Sports Center in Morehead City (huge plug by the way - if you're in the area run to the back end of 35th street and beg Cathy to let you sign a membership app right damn now - the rest of this will be here when you get back I promise). SC has three monster free weight rooms that are damn near dungeon like, so my feeling was good things are bound to happen.
The truth of the matter is that since the move down here in mid-January, I have been admittedly off my game. My diet has gone to crap, I was in and out of the gym due to auditioning different clubs and adjusting to the new work schedule and the like, and my daily cardio exited stage left due to nothing more than flat out laziness. However there's a bit more to it than that going on. I don't know if we just both miss Clayton Fitness that badly or aren't adjusting well to the move or what it is but my training partner and I have both noticed that we just can't seem to get settled into a routine in our new home. It seems like lately every other workout is off, and that's averaging nearly two a week.
Now fast forward to last night, our weekly Monday night deadlift session.
Sports Center has a dedicated deadlift platform, which is awesome except it faces the good old fashioned mirror wall. Needless to say watching yourself deadlift, sit around, or just generally fart off up close and personally when you're out of cardio shape and know you've gained 20lbs or so just sucks. Anyway, my training partner and I started out as we usually do: a warmup set of 135 for 5 then moving on to sets of 3, adding a plate each set. 225 - great. 315 - no problem.
Then 405 comes up.
And I can't get the bastard past my shins.
Period.
This pissed me off. I haven't missed 405 since the week before the aforementioned overhanded lift, and that's been almost a year ago. In fact, I'd just smoked 495 doing a rack pull a week ago. I knew I had this with no problem. I decide I just whiffed it, backed up, filled my head with appropriate imagery of my proud Viking ancestors hoisting the carcass of some slain enemy (that just happened to weigh 405lbs) in the air, and grabbed the bar again.
Four f'ing inches then nothing.
By this point I was rolling right past losing my temper and strolling right on up to that Grizzly Bear vs. Silverback Gorilla streetfight throwdown level of anger. I grabbed hold of that bastard so hard my knuckles when white, dropped my ass like a good little power lifter, and snatched that s.o.b. as hard as I could.
I think I hit the UnderArmour logo at the top of my socks, in other words mid-shin.
And yes, like a douche, I lost it and kicked the barbell.
The fact is that I know what happened. I know the myriad factors that contributed to that epic little piece of fail. I won't waste your time and list them all but to paraphrase the all-mighty Tin Cup, my "lift" felt like an unfolding lawnchair. And now for some reason that particular miss has rattled around in my head all night to the point that sleep is evading me like a big dog. Am I being overcompetitive and WAY too hard on myself - of course I am. Will I get over it? Of course. I'm just wallowing in being buttsore over it for a while.
Simply put it's something that all of us as heavy lifters, competitive or otherwise, have happen to us on occasion. Everyone has a shitty night once in a while. I guess sometimes we all just need reminded of the fact that each and every one of us is just one rough night away from Less Than Mighty and Slightly Squishy. So for those of you dealing with a shit night like I am, believe me I'm right there with you brother!
Have a good one!
