“Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron has taught me how to live.”
― Henry Rollins
The other day I ran into an old client of mine in the gym. I was working out (deadlifting to be specific) when he came up to me and jokingly said, “Life is already so hard! Why make things harder on yourself by lifting such heavy stuff?”
Now as I said, he was joking and I know the question was asked rhetorically, but I think it’s one that actually deserves a reply.
Life is hard. So why choose to add more hard stuff to the mix?
Why squat until your legs feel like jelly?
Why snatch a kettlebell until your hands bleed?
Why put what feels like the weight of the world on a bar and attempt to stand up with it?
Why push your body and mind past their point of comfort? To the point of pain even?
Because nothing good comes without hard work and a certain amount of pain.
Pain can build mental and physical toughness the way few other experiences can and hard work - consistent, concentrated effort - teaches patience, humility and dedication.
Strength training changes you and not just physically.
It increases your threshold for discomfort.
It reveals your ability to transform.
It shows you a glimpse of your power.
You start to see the challenges in your life with a new perspective.
For example, on Friday afternoon I did some grocery shopping. I made the mistake of using a cart rather than a basket, which meant that I ended up with 3 bags of groceries to carry up and down the subway stairs and through city streets to get home.
As I made my way into my building I started to think “these bags feel kind of heavy”.
Now I should also mention that I had a fever that day, so I was unsure if the bags were indeed heavy, or if my perception was skewed because I wasn’t feeling well.
Musing on the comment made by my client earlier in the week, I decided to find out just how much I was carrying around.
When I got home I weighed myself with just my coat and shoes on. Then I put on my backpack, grabbed the groceries and weighed myself again.
The difference...58.8lbs. I carried home almost 60lbs of stuff, without much trouble, while running a fever.
After checking out at Whole Foods and assessing the damage I didn’t think to myself, “Oh no, I better take a cab home” but instead “Oh well, I guess I’ll have to carry all of this”.
Thanks to strength training I am more resilient and I am more capable.
Capable of meeting physical challenges and resilient to the mental and emotional challenges life throws at me.
So yeah, sometimes we have to do hard things and sometimes we choose to do hard things.
And the more hard things you choose to do, the less hard the other things seem.
How will you choose to challenge yourself today?
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