Pain. I felt surged through my quads, hamstrings, hips, glutes, lower back, abs and traps as I slowly tried to stand back up with an iron bar loaded with weights balanced on my upper back. It took me roughly 5-6 seconds to squat down and stand back up again. Now that’s pretty fucking long for a single movement, something that could’ve been done in probably less that 1 and a half seconds. What took so long? Oh, it’s just the bar and weights I decided to put on my back that day. The very pieces of metal that not only lengthen the time it took to squat, but gave me a burning, throbing pain that seared through almost every part of my body every second of the way.
You know what? I liked it. A minute later I’m back under the bar slowly descending and ascending, for the rest of the half an hour in the gym that day.
That was last Monday morning. By that night the muscles that were in pain during the workout, had a tingling feeling to it, almost like it was stiffening. Come Tuesday morning, It also took me 5-6 seconds to just get up from bed and walk about 3 steps towards the bathroom from my bed. And that was just halfway. My muscles screamed in pain as I winced at every step I took. It felt like my quads were on fire. It felt like someone stabbed me in my hamstrings with a knife. It felt like my butt cheeks were tasered every time I took a step.
You know what? I liked it.
Today(Saturday) is the first day my legs were pain free, aside from a little stiffness. I read this quote somewhere, but I cant remember where or by who :
Pain is weakness leaving the body
I believe in this. I went through 5 days of pain, now I know come Monday, it’s gonna take more weight, or more reps, or even both to make me feel the same amount of pain again. Now I know it will take more than before to weaken me, because I am now stronger from the pain.
That’s how weight training works or everything for that matter. You train, feel the sores the next few days as your body recovers and when it does, do it again. It tells us that we’ve done enough and it’s time to rest and grow. When it’s all good and healed, go at it again.
We’ve all endured the burning sensation whether it’s in the gym or in the ring or on the tracks. To some it deters us from going further. It scares them that they may not be able to pull through, so they give up. They let the weights fall, they throw in the towel, they stop taking any more steps, they let themselves down. It’s common to see the person walking away chin down and head hung after all this. They simply gave up.
Then there are those that have the voices in their head and heart screaming and roaring “one more” “keep going” “you can do it” “you can make it”. These roars get so loud they overcome the pain. They numb us to it which helps us power on. And when we do drop the weight, or hear the ring of the bell, or cross the line, we’re the ones with our heads healed high. We’re the ones that found it in us to to power through the pain. We’re the ones that now know it’s gonna take more than before for us to feel pain like that again because we can take it. We’re the ones that didn’t give up. We’re the heroes.
Pain is weakness leaving the body, only to bring strength in.
