I broke my body, my mind, pretty much everything in 2016. The body part was a bit rough. I suffered a hernia and then had to have surgery. This left me weak, fat, and recovering very slowly. There is something about an injury, it can light a fire. That little psychopathic voice in my head is starting to get louder, telling me to come back from this better than ever. This voice is probably best to be ignored, but this time I am not doing a good job of it.
Before the injury, I was starting to get in shape again and getting some nice strength levels. Then everything crashed and burned. It has been years since I hit a PR in any lift. I miss that feeling, of working hard and of the accomplishment. I want to be a weightlifter one more time, just have a good run for a while and walk away in a good state. The gym is home in ways so many other places cannot be.
My time with the iron has been a grab bag of success, failures, misadventures and laughs. I have never actually gotten into shape to a level I was proud of. Almost 20 years in the gym under the bar, and I never actually went all the way. I have never dialed in my strength, nutrition, weight, and endurance at the same time. There has never been a point where anyone would really have looked at me and said that dude is killing it. I have all the tools to get there, I may not have them much longer. There was never an end point, never an end goal, just the pursuit of more.
4/17/17 it all started, I started training to get into the best shape of my life. I want to be strong as ever, lean as ever, and have some semblance of endurance. The goals are fluid and still developing. I know I want to squat big, get lean, and run like I used to be able to. The big goal though is to be in great shape by my 34th birthday, so that is 58 weeks of time. Great things are possible with that kind of runway. Succeed or fail, once it’s done I’ll just happily be one of those old dudes that fuck around in the gym and just do it for laughs.
I am a week into this process and loving what is happening. My workouts have a new purpose and intensity. The workouts themselves are a lot more fun. Physically I feel great since I am doing recovery work, my body seems to be holding up to everything so I just have to sit back and enjoy the process. It looks like for the next several weeks more weight will get added to everything and when that stalls, the real work and programming will start.
Beyond the physical changes that are starting to happen, the mental changes I am seeing are fantastic. I seem to be happier in general now that I am getting to work out hard again. It just feels so good to get to attack the weight like I want to. I seem to be a bit more driven and fired up with my work projects as well. I think the mental shift to one of attacking and focus is bleeding over into other places, and that cannot be a bad thing.
I cannot say where this whole dive back into the gym is going to go. I might break myself. I might get in great shape. Everything in between the extremes is possible. If I am not choosing to be awesome, I am choosing to suck.