I can't wait to get jacked again

An ode to weightlifting

I can’t wait to grab my water bottle and my shaker bottle and head downstairs to the basement. I can’t want to turn on my JBL speaker, turn on Bluetooth on my phone to connect, and open up Spotify and load up the lifting playlist.

Like many parents, my fitness journey was rudely interrupted by a baby three years ago. After waiting out the newborn stage and returning to work and establishing a new lifestyle and getting through many sleep regressions, I started consistently weightlifting in our basement. I am very fortunate to be able to work from home full time, which allows me to take what should otherwise by a lunch break and turn it into a workout session, and my heart goes out to all the parents who do not have such a luxury and who have to try to insert fitness into an already overstuffed schedule. Now that all the progress I’ve made over those many months has been (almost) nullified by a second baby, I cannot wait to get back to lifting.

I can’t wait to listen to Let’s Go by Trick Daddy and start jumping around to the cowbells to hype myself up. I can’t wait to pencil in today’s date into my workout log and look back at the last time I did a pull/push day to see what numbers I hit. I can’t wait to rub some liquid chalk onto my hands and have that smell mix with the musty scent of the basement to get me back into the zone. I can’t wait to start warming up my over-thirty shoulder joints and doing some feeler reps with light weights to get the movement technique right.

I can’t wait for Bodies by Drowning Pool count me down into my first set.

One, nothing wrong with me

Two, nothing wrong with me

Three, something’s got to give NOOOW

Rep, rep, rep, rep… as the bodies hit the floor.

I can’t wait for the first round of movements to be over and to feel my body heat radiating off and to take my t-shirt off in privacy and admire how the beginnings of a solid pump look in the mirror on the wall. I can’t wait to laser focus on every movement, trying my best to keep my elbows in place on bicep curls while imagining a metal rod running through my body. Can’t wait to mentally track the arc of my humerus on pull-ups and drive my elbows to my hips.

I can’t wait to feel the ssstreeetchhh of my pecs at the bottom of a dumbbell bench press, letting my chest expand and take a second’s worth of an uncomfortable pause at maximum muscle length.

This is my alone time, and even though I feel exhausted at the end of a workout, I come out feeling rejuvenated. Sure, it will be harder to lift my kids up and I’ll be too tired to do dishes. It’ll suck when I won’t get a full night’s rest even though my body craves it and know that I’m missing out on progress because I’m not optimizing.

It’ll be worth it—the routine, the exhaustion, the pump, the soreness—it’s all a part of a very important package that I’ve discovered I need to feel like myself. I like it when my arms stretch out my t-shirts. I like it when my friends commend me on my progress and comment on how good I look. I love it when my wife touches my shoulders and my arms and my back and admires her husband’s body.

I can’t wait to come back downstairs and do it all over again the next day, and the day after. I can’t wait to play Down with the Sickness by Disturbed and let it lead me into a set of rows.

Get up, come on, get down with the sickness

Row

Get up, come on, get down with the sickness

Row

Get up, come on, get down with the sickness

Row

Open up your hate, and let it flow into me

I can’t wait to get angry. I can’t wait to let out some primal yells to get me through the last difficult rep. I can’t wait to finish the second or third round of sets and make an ugly face in the mirror. I can’t wait to flex at my self and see how massive I look. I can’t wait to feel myself losing motivation and slap my face to focus back in. I can’t wait to swear at myself and call myself names in a mixture of English and Russian. “Come on, блять. Давай, сука.” I don’t know how people lift in commercial gyms with other people around. I look psychotic. I look demented. I look like I shouldn’t be around civilization, let alone kids.

This is a part of why lifting is so therapeutic for me. I suddenly rediscover that teenage angst and testosterone, and Linkin Park lyrics stop sounding cheesy and start connecting with me. Every step downstairs leads further away from normality and family life and closer to inner demons and inappropriate words. I can’t wait to listen to DMX’s most homophobic lyrics. I turn into a different person downstairs, and that helps me be a present father and husband upstairs. It’s nice to feel that aggression and remember that you’re still a man and an animal, not just a butt-wiping, food-prepping, boo-boo-healing, no-you-can’t-watch-TVing dad.

I can’t wait to exorcise those inner demons, infuse the iron with them and trap them in the weight handles in a pagan ceremony of sweat, swearing, and whatever incantations Rammstein is singing in German.

I can’t wait to start a load of laundry in between sets. I can’t wait to scoop two rounded scoops of protein powder and one little scoop of creatine into my shaker bottle. I can’t wait to walk upstairs on wobbly legs and poorly mix my double protein shake because my arms are too weak to properly shake it. I can’t wait to religiously weigh myself every morning. Shit, I even can’t wait to track calories.

It’ll take a little bit to get back to where I was when I stopped lifting months ago, but this time progress will be faster. Not all the muscle is gone. My body remembers. When I do get back to that point, I will feel jacked. It’s not about an objective metric. It’s not about being more muscular than the other guy. It’s about feeling bigger than you were before. I can’t wait to get jacked again.