Strength Training
2026-03-14
This week has been marked particularly by fatigue. While not out of the ordinary for me, it's always frustrating to run into my own limitations. I was only able to hit the gym twice this week, on Thursday and Friday. I'm still feeling sore from my strength training on Thursday, which I'll take as a good sign. I recently started implementing strength training in my workout routine. Prior to that, I only did zone 2 cardio on the treadmill, which typically consisted of 45–60 minutes of walking. The walks themselves have gotten a lot easier, even though I still break quite a sweat and feel some pain in my feet after a while. I realized that in order to get a better base of physical fitness, strength training had to come into the picture.
For a long time, I felt reticent to include it. It's always been a frustrating thing for me. Back when I was on my middle school's football team, we would do strength workouts with free weights during the off-season. We would hit different exercises in groups of four: bench press, squat, power cleans, and other basic movements. Of course, when fifty fourteen-year-old boys are all in the same room working out, there was machismo peacocking around every corner. There were boys who could squat over four hundred pounds, and others who could barely bench press the 45-pound bar. Back then, I was around slightly below the median of this wide spectrum of physical strength. Throughout my K–12 schooling, I never prided myself on my fitness. I was uncoordinated, clumsy, and a bit chubby. My masculine-eyed way of compensating for that was by being studious and clever, but in the football program, that didn't count for much.
There was this one boy I remember from back then. He was in my small group when we'd hit the free weights. When we'd work out, he would always try to motivate the rest of our group to lift heavier. His intentions were benevolent, and he tried his best to be encouraging when making those efforts. However, I'd have to push back his encouragement because it was clear that his efforts could have led to one of us getting injured. I would try to tell him this, saying that "we need to be safe," but he found that to be a ridiculous excuse. Ultimately, he acquiesced and didn't push the issue further, which I remember appreciating back then. I hope he's doing well these days.
Those adolescent experiences were formative in how I saw strength training. For years, I found most of it to be flashy, overcompensating, and at times masturbatory. As I've gone through my experience becoming a frequent gym-goer, my perspective has matured quite a bit. Gyms can often be places of vanity; all the mirrors and people recording their workouts for social media make this an annoying facet of it. But after building my own habit over the course of almost a year, I've observed the people who go and the ones who keep coming back. What I've found is people of all ages, sexes, ethnicities, and creeds all cohabiting the same space with a key objective in mind: physical and mental wellness. For many of these people, the gym is an important part of their self-care routine. Regardless of skill level, most generally have the same attitude—maintenance, gradual improvement, and mental replenishment.
Going to the gym has really helped me let go of my pride in that respect. More than that, it has helped me take that look in the mirror and not see vanity as the only option; there's a real opportunity to be honest with myself, and I try to make that effort every time I go. My skill level, especially for a man my age, is particularly low. Really, I often see myself on par with guys twice or three times my age, which really puts things into perspective for me. However, I've found that the environment my gym provides helps make certain aspects of training I felt insecure about more approachable. For my strength training, I do a 30-minute full-body workout twice a week—three sets of twelve reps on four or five machines. The weights I lift on those machines are embarrassingly low, but I know that the real victory comes from lifting any weight at all. Even further, the real victory is in getting in my car, making the drive, and showing up.
I hope that as I continue making progress with my physical health, I can see more opportunities open up. I've already felt better able to do things in everyday life, and I know that as I keep making progress, I'll see the results compound over time. In these ten months or so that I've committed to this practice, I've been a bit disappointed in the slowness of the progress. It makes me feel a certain sense of grief over what I lost, particularly compared to my fitness in my early twenties. Despite that grief, I know that I have the chance to achieve levels of fitness beyond what they used to be even back then. It might take several years, but the journey in getting there will be sure to bear plenty of fruit on its own.
One foot in front of the other, day in and day out.
Bitcoin address: bc1qtgqvj6qjxnaxkns20x5rcwnxvv3jqzhduvvxfc