The PR
The metallic ring of the five- and two-and-a-half-pound plates and the thud of the 45-pound rubber and metal bumper plates roar, making contact with the rubber horse stall mats. You stand up from out of an awkward squatting stance, with your head back, eyes closed, back arched to the back of the room. The sound of this missed lift deafening. This was your fourth chance at increasing your personal record in the back squat. Now you have one final chance to log that result into SugarWOD and watch the digital, colorful confetti dance in your glass smartphone screen.
The burning sensation in your legs and arms and shoulders subside. Your breath cadence grows quicker and quicker, as air moves in and out of your mouth quicker, and you feel your heart racing.
“Damn it! I was there! I had it!” runs through your head, as you’re trying to calm down from that lift that seemed like it lasted forever. Everything slowed down and your vision got blurry; every single part of your body was squeezing and shaking. At the very last second, something told you that you couldn’t stand up with that weight anymore. You decided to bail in that split second.
“Tough lift!” you hear, volume muffled by the ringing in your ears, from next squat rack over. “You got this!”
You open your eyes and notice the fireflies, as the ringing subsides.
You have been successful in today’s training session up to this point. Five-pound increases in the last three sets. You’ve been through this before. It’s nothing new; hitting a new personal record is, and should be like this.
Your buddy comes over and helps you reset the bar for your next and final attempt. Both your guys’ hands grasping hold of, and feeling the chill run up your hands and up your arms, from the American-made steel sleeves of your barbell, and performing a version of a clean and carry and press onto the J-Hooks.
“Easy day!” you hear from behind you.
Calmly, from your front corner of the room, “drives your knees out more on the way up.”
You look over and make eye contact and nod.
“Let’s calm your heart rate and breathing down. Give it another couple of minutes and hit it again. You got this!”
Taking that cue fills you up. Your confidence is reloaded.
“Get those knees out,” echoing in your head.
Grabbing that shaker bottle half-full of your BCAA and water mixture, that watermelon taste hits the back of your tongue and mouth. The sharp snap of the lid sounds as you close it.
In through the nose, out through the nose, as you feel the crisp air enter your nose and warming progressively, deep down to the bottom of your lungs.
One heartbeat every second now, as you’re feeling it tick away with the red flashing numbers on the gym wall clock.
“Let’s do this.”
“Hell’s Bells” fades away…
Your vision narrows. You feel the eyes upon you.
Steadily your heart rate starts to pick up, but your breathing is still even and controlled.
Time slows down, as you deliberately step up to the bar. Staring right at the shiny black coating, you actually notice the white LED strip light in the reflection.
Your hands simultaneously wed themselves to the bar; one thumb’s-length from the center of the bar, into the knurling.
Your focused gaze turns up from the center of the bar to directly ahead of you, onto the wall in front. The dumbbell rack, the other stored barbells, and posters…they start blurring…
Like thousands of times before this, you set your feet, align your body underneath, and duck down, making yourself one with the bar, settling it on your trapezius muscles.
Feeling your abdominal muscles tighten up as the crisp air enters your body, you also feel your gluteus medius muscles fire up.
“Knees are out…keep ‘em out!” runs through your head.
One slow second later, the bar is off the J-Hooks and you’ve freed the weight from its owner, now intending for it to serve you.
Standing tall with your chest up, the adrenaline starts to fill your arteries.
Two deliberate and robotic steps back, while keeping everything in your body tight, you inhale and hold.
Feet set, “go!”
Three seconds later, the room is deafening.
PR.