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Nov. 16th, 2007 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzSpecial today - no editing!
Storytelling: I overheard an educated looking guy noting that in basic training he was being yelled at by a St "a toothless Mexican standing about 5'1". 'He said "I have a GED and (mumble mumble). And I'm going to teach you how to dig a hole." ' Not my story, but it made a fun picture in my head. I wonder, was that his story?
THE GYM, MIRRORS, ME
I look in the mirror when I lift weights. I look...fantastic. It's confusing. I'm tiny, but my proportions are amazing, my definition clear, my form tight, my face...well it looks like I'm constipated. Unnnnngh! But...who is this? I feel confident looking at myself, but I'm 1/2 the size of the guy beside me. Lots of guys "do it wrong" but are larger and stronger than me. Besides that, what is this? Am I proud that I have made myself this, or have I created a long-term costume? It's weird - I'm comfortable with what I look like, but sometimes I wonder if that skinny long-haired boy (one of them, I've been several) looks out and into the mirror, and sees Henry Rollins looking back at him. Am I changed, a grown version of who I was, or a different person entirely?
I had a bit of a breakthrough in the gym last night - no one saw. I lowered the weights. I squeezed my muscles more. I was too involved in how much I was lifting, how many times, and stopping when I felt too much pain. I was not stopping because I couldn't - I was stopping because it hurt. I would take so much pain, but had a threshold. I was lifting tiny 10lb weights out sideways, and stopping as the burn screamed through my shoulders. I looked at myself, my face, the effort. But I felt my shoulders - there was more there. I moved away from my face, the mirror, the people, the music, the noise, the smell, and went into my shoulders. I moved them. My arms went out straight and held. The shoulders screamed, but I moved into them. They could lift higher, and did. It hurt like hell, but I pushed past the pain and found "Could" and only stopped at "could not." Hurts was very different than "could not." Breakthrough.
I pushed through the pain. I hear that term all the time, but no words really do justice to the feeling when you accomplish it. I pushed through it. Scottie was down there screaming from the engine room, but the damn ship still had some more in her! Warp 9.4! 9.5!
Last night I wasn't very strong, but my stamina was good. I did every last set. I was never exhausted or tempted to wait too long in recovery. It's confusing to me how all my abilities are on the increase yet my bench is flatlined. My old injury isn't gone, but I keep wondering what else is holding me back. I know I don't need the bench, but it's a fun um...benchmark, if you will.
There were three smoking hot women in the gym last night. You can gauge my attraction in someone by how much I avoid looking at them. I don't know when I went from being so flirtatious to this, but in the gym I just don't want to piss anyone off. This makes no sense, I have no problem with people checking me out - almost never interested, but always smile or just look away - never a negative hurtful rejection. I just don't want to annoy anyone - and girls are far more used to and annoyed by being gawked at in my experience.
One of the smoking hot women was an absolute amazon - maybe 6'2", very trim, very muscular. She had done a strange exercise with a ball on the seated-pull cable machine, then moved to the smith machine. I moved to the seated-pull machine, and was setting up when she returned and walked around the machine for a minute. I asked her if she was still using it, and she smiled and asked if she could work in as she had 1 set left. I laughed and joked any excuse to give me a break was welcome - she did her last set and I did my routine after her.
Later before my little breakthrough I was in front of the mirror with my tiny free weights when she was behind me on the bench pressing almost as much as I had been. I finished a set, and to be really honest I was gawking at her. I had completely forgotten the interaction on the shoulder machine, but while I lifted she was facing the other way, I was facing a mirror - and I was totally staring. No way, no way she noticed or could see (which is why I gave in to that gawking urge). I faded into my own workout, when to my surprise she interrupted me (between sets) to ask for a spot. Funny thing was, while I was all kinds of impressed with her amazony hotness, when she asked for a spot I totally entered another mode. Across the room she was smoking hot eye candy, but work is work and I moved to spot her with no awkwardness or um...gawky thought patterns...at all. She gave me a sermon on exactly what she wanted me to do, where the hands were, speed, technique - it was funny. I gave her the spot she wanted as requested, and she did a good set. I did another set of mine in the mirror, and when done she was near the end of her next (didn't ask for a spot) and I walked back over and spotted her for the end - though she finished on her own, she thanked me for the spot. Once I walked away I was back to "Wow, this totally hot chick asked me for a spot, neat!"
FOR NON GYM FOLKS
Lots of people see you spotting on the bench as some sort of crotch in face sexual thing. I'm not saying no one has ever had that thought or even practice, but I don't think most people do or that they do most of the time. I have had a lot of people spot me, hot and not, m/f gay/straight, and it's just a spot. It's not a dick in your face, it's a place you stand when your hands are under the bar. It's not staring at someone's body while they exert themselves with a fuck-face, it's helping them lift without giving too much help. The lifter is staring at the ceiling and may not see anything at all depending on how they use imagery to lift. The spotter is watching their movement, shoulders, hands...mostly just focused on how the bar is moving and whether they can lift it or how fast - you intervene the tiniest bit, trying to keep them doing more work than they could do safely on their own - pressing their threshold to exhaustion and a little beyond. You don't have to understand or even agree - I'm just saying when you're doing it I don't think most people are hot and bothered in a sexual sense.
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Date: 2007-11-16 08:46 pm (UTC)