Friends may come and go, but two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
- Henry Rollins
I am now the strongest I’ve ever been. I’ve lifted weights on and off for about a decade, making incremental progress several months at a time, with this latest stretch being about six months long. Over the last several weeks I’ve gone beyond my previous peak, and continue to improve.
Lifting weights is probably the single most effective thing men can do for their health. The benefits are well documented, immediate, and lifelong. Strength training improves the functions of the body in direct, measurable ways. Gaining muscle is likewise externally visible.
For me, the interior experience of getting stronger is a broad spectrum of sensations.
The most obvious way in which I feel stronger is that I’m able to lift more weight. Across each of my lifts, I watch the plates stack on session after session. Over time I notice that what used to be the heaviest I could lift, my ‘one rep max’ in gym jargon, becomes my warm-up. I’m lifting weight for reps which I would have once found hard to pick up off the floor.
The other cues are more subtle, even subconscious. Occasionally I’ll notice myself making a completely ordinary motion with my body, one that I may not even perform during exercise, which suddenly feels much faster, more controlled than before.
I approach physical space with more confidence and creativity. Many problems are simplified by being able to lift and move them out of the way. The world is easier to navigate.
My posture and bearing are subtly improved. I can’t help but stand straighter, the stronger stabilizer muscles required to successfully complete heavy lifts also contribute to staying upright without thinking about it. At the same time my bearing is more relaxed, because in some senses my body expends less effort while staying still.
For the same reason, the risk of physical injury is also reduced. I feel safer, to do more, with more confidence, because I feel my body will back me up more often. More muscle mass also better protects more vulnerable body parts.
Being stronger reduces frictions that I’m not always aware of, which I believe also contributes to a heightened sense of overall well-being. It’s likely that I’m also projecting this to others around me.
I’m sore in most parts of my body, most of the time. My glutes in particular are victims of heavy squats performed deeply. They ache. The soreness is not entirely unpleasant, it’s another reminder of progress established by routine. It creates a pleasant physical tiredness at the end of the day that balances the mental exhaustion of knowledge work.
Though I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, I have friends and acquaintances who are even stronger than me. Often their physical strength is expressed in ways different from mine; more agile and acrobatic, more explosive. I wonder how this influences their experience of the world relative to mine, and relative to other people’s. I wonder what people who do Pilates feel like. Circus arts.
I will keep getting stronger. I recommend that you do, too.