I’m at the end of my driveway, which is a couple hundred feet long. The two hundred feet make it pretty handy to just count the length of the drive as one set. The tire/wheels are bolted together so I can drag them behind me. I always pull them behind me for the first set... just to keep an eye out for moose, a fairly common event here in rural Alaska. It isn't a good thing to disturb 1000 pounds of critter that is deceptively fast.
Beach House is playing through my headphones. (Yea, I know it would probably make Jim Wendler lose his lunch, and I’d never use it to get ready for a heavy squat or deadlift. But for Saturday morning tire dragging, it hits the spot.) The raindrops hitting my jacket make tiny sounds that I can vaguely hear over my music. It’s been raining all week, and the road to town has completely washed out. This will add about thirty-five minutes to my drive to work. The drive home doesn’t add that much time because the gym is on the way home.
Monday’s workout starts going through my head. I plan to hit some speed deadlifts against the bands and then go up to a fairly heavy triple on my deadlifts against the bands... None of that right now though. I'm busting my ass. I'm standing in the rain with tires and wheels behind me, securely tied to an old lifting belt. My legs are wobbly and my lungs burn. I’m feeling great. It isn't just the physical feeling that’s so good, but also that psychological feeling of accomplishment. You folks reading this know what I’m talking about. While most people are attempting to expand their asses to the full width of their couches, we're out busting ours. Oh, and if your squat is 800 pounds or more, the ass expanding example doesn’t apply to you.
I’ve reached 59 years of age, and the only person I need to understand the enjoyment I still get out of my gym time is my lovely and amazing wife. Fortunately for me, she does understand this aspect of my life. Non-lifters more often than not think that we’re bat crap, howl at the moon, stark-raving nut jobs. That’s just fine with me. It ends up being easier to get in the power rack for stuff that really matters. And no, Skippy, the curl isn’t a main lift even if you’re trying to hog the power rack to do them.
So, like the title of the article asks, "Why do we do this?" Because we enjoy every ass-busting personal challenge that lifting gives us. It doesn’t matter if your goal is an elite total, if it's your first meet, or if you are just jacking your gym lifts up a bit at a time. It should still be fun after the pain stops and you catch your breath... That reminds me, I need to make sure my knee sleeves are clean for Monday’s squats. Got to go. Damn, the 75–90 seconds between pulls goes by pretty quickly.