I got into this sport because Joe Rogan thought it was cool
I got into this sport because I wanted to impress my Dad.
I got into this sport because I was sick of myself and thought that exercise was the answer.
I walked into a gym, fully unaware of the people like Greg Panora and Zydrunas Savickas who had held those bars before me, having never so much as centered one on my back. When asked what I wanted out of training I replied confidently, as if I knew what it meant, that I wanted to be functionally strong. I wore gloves doing my first set of farmer’s carries, trying so hard to not acknowledge the glances as I struggled to walk 50 lbs. kettlebells down the hall.
I did not want to compete.
I did not want to become someone who spent more time at the gym than anywhere else in my life.
I did NOT want to learn how to force feed myself.
I did NOT want to learn how to set the rest of my life aside and dedicate myself to the big three.
I remember walking up to my first deadlift, my coach Matt, who had seen hundreds of people walk up to that same bar with anywhere between 5 and 800 lbs. loaded, calmly coached me through my first deadlift. I had no idea how to use my hips, I had no idea what flexion or extension meant, but something very natural occurred there.
I fell in love.
I had to know what it felt like to keep going, I immediately realized that I had to be the best at this.
I had to learn to love squatting.
I had to learn how to somehow love bench.
You could not stop me from deadlifting.
I was a warrior with a polearm.
That single spark, with 245 lbs. dangling haphazardly from my soft hands was enough to ignite a wildfire in my head. It forced me to confront how little in which I cared for the vessel I was piloting. In a dark, cold, unfeeling way that reminded me of my own personal shortcomings every time that bar patiently did not break the floor. Silently lecturing me on how far I had to go, staring back at me as I unloaded the weight to something more appropriate. Bar don’t lie, after all.
What I did not expect, walking into a room full of people built like extras from a biker show, was an overwhelmingly supportive community. We were all there, in our most vulnerable state, escaping dead end jobs or bad marriages, to catch our breath, hold it, and out it all into that bar.
Even in failure I was met with warmth and encouragement, words of wisdom from people who have been doing it longer than I’ve been alive. But never a source of negativity, somewhere we could do what the rest of our lives demanded we avoid at all cost, just be us.
From that day my life changed, I started working at gyms, first at the front desk, and now as a personal trainer. Got back into college to learn about Kinesiology. I found success in that community, and a passion for life that I had never really experienced. I enjoy coaching people, helping find that magic formula that helped people unlock more and more of their potential day after day. It is my calling; weights are my higher power. And it is my responsibility to share that with anyone who’s willing and wanting to learn more about themselves than they ever knew before.
