His back is sore.
His legs are numb. He sits
alone, propped up on a small bench that rests near the gym’s right wall. Just outside the large garage door at
the front of the gym, clouds have set in.
Rain pours down, pounding the cars sitting on the gravel just outside.
The wet weather provides no relief from the oppressive
heat. The air in the gym is heavy,
making it difficult to breathe. A
bead of sweat runs down his face, hanging briefly from the tip of his nose
before falling to the floor to take its place alongside others, forming a small
puddle. His shirt has been
completely soaked since the moment he finished lacing his shoes.
He slowly stands, and begins to make his way over to the
metal canister in the center of the gym.
He reaches in, rubbing the block of chalk against the inside of his
thumb, up his index finger, and across his palms. Across the gym the bar rests in the center of a long
platform. He never turns to look
at it. The entire time he prepares
for the lift, he never looks at the bar.
The weight on the bar is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it’s 80 kilos or 140. He knows it has defeated him before and
it will again unless he is able to use the technique he has been drilling day
in and day out for months.
There is no crowd, aside from the other three lifters that
sit, silent, scattered throughout the small room. There are no medals or trophies. There is no money or glory on the line today. But even so, as he walks across the
room to the platform and approaches the bar, everything stops.
A young woman sits on a block in the far corner of the room,
watching intently. On another side
of the room, a man in what was once a light blue shirt stands a bright yellow plate
on its side as he directs his eyes to the platform.
He bends down, and begins to set his grip. The air is so moist that the chalk has
already liquefied on his hands.
The tape that protects his thumb is soaked through with blood, and has begun
to peel off slightly. He tucks his
thumb under the bar, ignoring the sharp pain. Immediately the sweat on his hands makes the bar slick, but
he tightens his grip anyway, rubbing the chalk on his hands into the bar.
He drops his hips and fixes his eyes on nothing, a point
somewhere out in the world just above the horizon. His focus is sharp, and he notices none of the eyes watching
him from throughout the gym, or the silence that has fallen on the room. He exhales, and allows his hips to rise
up, then takes a deep breath in, holds it, and drops his hips again.
The lift lasts seconds. Months of training come down to this moment. It lasts no more than three seconds,
but to him, it feels like an eternity.
He notices how heavy the bar feels as he begins the first pull from the
ground, but he continues to accelerate the bar anyway. Keeping his shoulders out over the bar,
he pulls harder, moving the bar into the second pull faster. Then, his instincts take over, and he violently
extends, pulling on the bar with all his strength and power, while pulling
himself down and under.
It’s the moment of truth. He snaps his upper body into place, locking in his arms and
upper back, allowing his legs to relax to absorb the weights momentum. He pauses, the bar extended over his
head, squatting so low that he feels as if his ass must be inches from the
floor. For a second he feels the
bar wobble, but something inside him refuses to allow the lift to slip from his
grasp now.
He stands, his eyes still locked directly ahead, the bar
raised triumphantly above him. The
other lifters in the gym clap and cheer, each of them able to identify with and
share in his victory. He slams the
bar back to the ground, and lets out a roar. In that moment, he is a champion.
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