The other day I was in the middle of a session and I thought about an important distinction. I started to realize that what I was doing was practice. My entire lifting life I’ve been saying that I am going to go “workout” or something like that. Well, it hit me during a session the other day. I’m not working out at all. The phrase “working out” brings to mind images of rep after rep, of ipods and earbuds, and lots of sweating. It is thought of as more of a fitness type of activity, where you are trying to work out muscles. I am trying to do nothing of the sort.
When I walk into my little gym here I am there to do one thing. I have one goal and that goal is to get stronger to win more powerlifting competitions. That’s it. I’m not there to look at myself in the mirror. I’m not there to make sure my heart gets a good “workout”. I’m not there to shed the pounds. I mainly do singles. I lift in the 90% of 1rm + range. And I only do Squats, Bench Press, and Deadlifts. This is not what I consider working out at all. Every single I do is to get first rep practice, to make me more used to handling heavy weight on the platform. And I do this every single day but Sundays. We are not working out. We are practicing these movements in order to be better powerlifters. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind when someone feels my back and says “wow you have a strong back”. I like having large traps and thick legs. I like looking strong. But that is NOT at all why I do this. I go into that gym to practice.
So from now on I am going to change the way I view and refer to entering the gym to lift weights. From now on I will call it practice. Sometimes the word “session” is ambiguous enough to suffice. But when I can remember I will call it what it is. Practice.

Maybe it’s because I’m growing older. But I cannot seem to walk around lately without seeing something that annoys me. Little twerps in tight jeans and fedora hats, guys with stick arms and chicken legs, usually wearing V-necks to expose their concave chests, wispy temporary beards; they make me sick to tell the truth. When I’m in line at a store and I see some dork twerp on the cover of a magazine, which professes the ability to make me more of a man, all I can do is shake my head. Everywhere I go I see the same thing, weak people telling other weak people (and some strong people) to run and become smaller, to eat grains instead of meat, and to drink fat free milk. Everyone seems to be fascinated with images of puny people. The ones touted as “strong” are usually those that have some semblance of definition, i.e. good mirror muscles. Well I have nothing against grains, skim milk, or definition in muscle tone. Each has its place. However, I do have something against the twerpification of my fellow man. Yes, I coined that term. You heard it here first, I hope. Over the years I’ve been on both sides of this fence. As a youngster I did the usual split routines with a philosophy of getting muscles bigger. I never really cared but I kind of thought in the back of my mind muscle size=muscle strength. I should’ve known better than that just by the chicken breasts I eat from the store. Just cause you push a bunch of water into the breasts before you package them doesn’t make them stronger fibers or anything of the like. Actually, I’m guessing that would even hinder the performance of that muscle. “WTF are you talking about??” you are probably thinking. Well my point is if I could go back in time to tell myself some things to do differently I’d go back and emphasize a strength component. I would stress this to my fellow man as well. Stop letting women make you think that you are better off at 6’2”, 165lbs. I am even convinced they don’t know what they want either. Evolution would lead me to believe the opposite of what I hear from the opposite sex. But that’s another post altogether. The entire world stresses that you get smaller and more compact. Perhaps this is to fit into smaller places as they move us all into urban areas. Or maybe it’s for the general health of the population, catering to the least common denominator in hopes of lowering health care costs, yada yada yada. I’m here to tell you I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that nonsense. Sure I’ll get on a treadmill to warm up my joints, but it is in preparation to do the real work, the heavy work, the work that makes monsters of men. I watch my blood pressure, and keep track of all of my vitals etc. But I take great care to distinguish between gaining and maintaining. If you all want to succumb to the masses doing their jumping jacks, with their headbands on go right ahead. Put on your spandex and go to your cross-crap boxes to do cartwheels or blow your WODs. I really don’t care. I’ve decided not to let it bother me anymore. As a matter of fact, the less people interested in what I’m doing, the more I think it’s the right thing to do, especially as judged by my contemporaries. In the end we need a front line, we need men to defend the village when it’s under attack. So you fitness weirdos and those that try to straddle the line between strength and the all other nonsense can put on your fitbits and train like hell to flee like insects. Some of us, however, have to train to stay. And we have to train to fight. And most of us take great pride in it.