“There is no such thing as a bad life event. Either recover or quit. There are no other options.”
– Wall Street Playboys
After seeing it endorsed on Danger & Play, I decided to start doing 20 Rep Squats.* The program is brutal and I can barley walk after my gym session. I stagger around, looking like I’m about to die.
Last Friday I got to the gym around 4 pm, later than usual. While my gym is usually open until 10, it closes at 6 on Friday afternoons. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal since my work out doesn’t take too long, but today was different. Some dudes had decided to bring their girlfriends to the gym, and were taking up all the squat racks. After patiently waiting a good 15 minutes, I decided to do the rest of my workout before I did squats.
This turned out to be a horrible idea.
When I finally returned to the squat racks, I was exhausted. My back was sore, my shoulders ached, and I was tired. Still, I loaded up the bar and started squatting. On my 16th rep I went down and didn’t make it back up. Luckily I had a spotter and safety bars, both of which prevented me from being injured.
After getting bailed out, I was embarrassed. I tried to save face by making a lame joke, but it didn’t help. In fact, it made me feel like more of a loser.
I went to get a drink of water and hit the showers, but my shame was far to over powering. Halfway to the locker room I turned around. My goal was to do 20 consecutive squats and I needed to achieve it. Nothing, was going to stop me.
I marched back to the squat rack, reloaded the weights, found a spotter, and started all over again.
“1, 2, 3…”
On the 12th rep my forehead felt like it would explode. Still I burned with rage, refusing to quit.
On the 15th rep, my vision began to blur. I yelled at myself, my ego wouldn’t let me give up.
By the final rep I knew I was going to die. I couldn’t see anything and could barley stand. My mind was long gone, my ego dead and buried. I was too incoherent to talk to myself. Yet my primal anger continued to fuel me.
After I finished my program, I was the happiest guy on earth. As I stumbled to the locker room, I was smiling like an idiot. I’d just done something that even I had thought was going to be impossible.
*Expect a comprehensive review sometime next month.