The Fire

I’ve just had seven months off from training, and I’m beginning to think it might have been the best thing to happen to me.

If you read my previous article, you'll know that I’ve had some kind of disc injury and, consequently, had to put training on the shelf for a while. But I think I’m all better now. In fact, by the time you read this, I should have had my first few sessions back in the gym. I can't wait. This is more than just regular excitement though. It’s more than Christmas Eve or a new car or just your run of the mill ‘looking forward to something’ excitement. I have such an urge to get back under the bar that there are few things I can compare it to. The interesting thing is I don’t remember feeling like this before the injury. Sure, I wanted to train, break personal bests, vent some aggression in the weight room. But now I want all that and more. I used to watch videos of guys with monstrous weight on their backs and think I wish. Now I think one day. It’s quite subtle, but it’s a whole paradigm shift for me.

Looking back now, it almost seems that I trained out of habit as much as anything. I used to go the gym, bash out my workout, break a PR every now and then, and that was it. I didn’t have much of a fire in me. I used to think, "There isn't any way I’ll ever be the best, so why try?" But now I think, "If they can do it, why can’t I?" Now I want to be ranked along with the strongest in the world.

One of my friends who doesn’t train once asked me what I could deadlift. I told him. He asked, "Is that in pounds?" I told him it was kilograms and his jaw hit the floor. As I said, he doesn’t train and so doesn’t know how weak I am in comparison to others. But that’s what I want—the jaw dropping. Rather than watch videos of other people and think holy sh*t,I want to be in the video. And it isn't a vanity thing. I don’t want my fifteen minutes. I would just be proud to do something that other folks think is worth capturing. There isn't any better compliment to me than when friends ask for advice and help in the gym.

Now it’s all changed. I’m not working out anymore; I’m training. I don’t just dabble in a bit of powerlifting. Now I’m an athlete. I’m striving to achieve the best I physically can and then smashing that best to pieces. And due to this shift in mental attitude, I threw out all my preconceived notions on training and spent hours and hours relearning everything. A whole new regime has been drawn up (somewhere between 5/3/1 and what I’ve learned from speaking to some very experienced lifters). I can’t wait to see what results it yields.

I don’t know what happened during my time off that ignited this fire. Maybe it’ll be extinguished as soon as I remind myself what a heavy barbell feels like…but I doubt it. I think it’s more a case of 'you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.' I never really realized, but I used to define myself through weight training. It’s how I identified with the world around me and it played a major part in shaping my life. Then it was taken away from me. I was almost relieved at first. No more DOMS, no more force feeding, no more bloody shins from deadlifts. But then, strangely enough, I began to miss all that. All of a sudden I was just an average Joe.

I was in Denmark during some kind of CrossFit competition. The people walking around the airport were in serious shape. I felt…flaccid. It took a lot of reassurance from my girlfriend that, yes, I was still a man. And now I’ve missed it so much. I sat here typing this with a fire roaring in me. I'm ready to release and channel seven months of pain and frustration into training. I know that the weight I move at the moment isn’t very much, and I understand that powerlifting is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s going to take time and effort and pain to get to where I want to be. But thankfully, it’s a big f**king fire.