Left Behind

After three days of stories straight from Stephen King’s merciless locker, tales that tore at even the most cold and embittered hearts, I feel as if it is time for the relation of a life lesson I picked up from an old-timer, those vessels of wisdom too soon forgotten.  It’s game day in Louisiana; the gym in which I work is suspiciously devoid of life, likely sleeping the day away in preparation for the night’s festivities.  I’m sitting behind the front counter, shivering with the smell of a burnt out heater lingering in my nostrils as I watch the two sole occupants, young men both, embrace that cold iron bar.  I’m reminded of myself at that age, trying most vigorously to outperform everybody that came across my path no matter the consequences or ridiculous body contortions I had to go through.  It dredges up a memory of some advice I got from an old school Olympic lifter a while back, and sounder lifting advice you’ll not likely find.

Anybody who knows my story knows also that I have been an athlete since young.  I’ve talked big, with both successes and failures littering my path; I’ve been around the block and cut through yards; you name it and I’ve probably done it.  This year past, both knees groaning every time they even heard about a set of stairs, I switched from racing to the weight room.  I attend one of the best gyms in the south, in the nation even, Red’s.  Beginning with intentions of adding some muscle to my lean racer figure, and being able to lift something more than your medium-sized kitten, I began my first real workout in that gym as the smallest person there, bar none.  My legs were no bigger than your average weightlifter’s wrists (okay maybe slightly) and my headphones practically dragged my head toward my chest.  But, being the person that I am, I watched.  I kept watching, and then I started researching.  I kept researching, and I learned. Now, a year later, I am able to keep up with anybody there, pound-for-pound.  I’m not the biggest person there, but I’ve moved up in the unspoken ranks of iron.  Does this matter to me anymore, this comparison to people I’ve never even meet?  Not at all.

Those same people who know I’m an athlete know that I’m not an Olympian, professional, or college athlete.  Evolution chose not to bless me with the proper genetics nor the drive to become one; it’s simply not something in which I want to dedicate my life.  But fitness is a huge part of my life, and consequently I spend a certain number of hours per week in the gym.  I brought with me to Red’s the dedication and willpower it takes to run twenty miles through the woods, cycle for four-hour cross-country rides, and push through the fire-breathing limits of a sprint triathlon.  Other than that, I was pretty much useless.  I had no form to speak of, no programming, and no clear goals.  Soon, through study, I developed all of those, but one thing stood in my way.

Ego.  I have an abundance of it, and it’s in constant need of being tempered lest it run out of control and engulf the earth.  I was swapping stories with a retired Olympic lifter one day, and by the conversation’s end he told me something that has stuck with me ever since; “Leave your ego at the door, because to be honest, once you’re in here nobody really cares about you.”  What?  Everybody cares about me, this is common knowledge.  I thought the eye of the world was constantly trained upon me, and I needed to act as if this was so.  It took me a while to realize it, but the old man was right; I just had to take a step back from the game to understand what he meant.

Step into a gym like Red’s and you’re confronted with a vast variety of athletes.  Walking its floor are triathletes, Oly lifters, powerlifters, bodybuilders, Crossfitters, yoga elites, cyclists, and spin bike professionals (lol).  Nobody really gives a damn about you, because they’re so concentrated on their self.  Trying to out-lift the person next to you may result in a slight euphoria of victory, but then a three-hundred pound behemoth walks through the door and crushes your deadlift PR while warming up.  You walk into the locker room with a pump and take your shirt off to admire your abs in the mirror and a juiced up bodybuilder walks by, taking a second to glance at the pitiful six-pack you’ve built only to proceed to take off his own shirt to admire a drug-induced twelve-pack.  Come in from a long run and you’ll see a guy in a hot tub telling admirers about his most recent ultra-marathon, ten times the distance of your last outing.  Whatever you do, there is always somebody in there that’s going to be beating you in something.  Letting your ego rule as emperor is bound to have you feeling like the wimpiest wannabe ever to step into a gym; you’ll never want to come back.

If you’re a professional, then by all means try to outdo every man, woman, and child that walks through the door; if you’re me you’re not even going to worry about it.  I’m far past the point where I want to compare the girth of my arms to that fool flexing in the corner.  I don’t care how much more you can squat than me, and I really don’t care how big your bench is.  Honestly, if you people would kindly clear the gym and leave it open to me to do as I please I would be most appreciative.  I disregard almost everything and everybody in the gym; I’m in there for myself.  If you are lifting for yourself, that means you can make yourself happy by your own abilities and rely on no other.  Break your PR’s, run a mile further than ever before, obliterate that power clean you were working on the other day; all of these will make you love being there and love what you’re doing.  If you rely on being able to lift more than the next guy or run faster than that freak of a man out-sprinting your car then you’re going to be in for a world of hurt.  You’re working out for yourself, not for others, and relying on everybody else to validate you performance is going to leave you a sad and broken person.  Those people in the gym don’t care about you, it’s common courtesy to return the favor.  Leave your ego at the door, not attached to your gym bag.