Life Chalk

Well, it’s a New Year and that means a new, commitment to regularly updating my blog. Maybe this year I’ll make it into April before something shiny catches my eye and sidetracks my progress. I feel like I have a ton to say, and there are probably even a handful of people who’d like to hear it (and, in turn, a handful of them who may find some value in my thoughts). Settle in, this one turned out to be kind of lengthy.

Over the next couple of posts I’ll touch on 2020 and share my thoughts on covid and how it’s affected both me and the world at large. I'll get to that down the road, but today I’ll share a thought that came to me today as I was standing over the bar on the holiest of weight lifting days: deadlift day. 

In a statement that will foreshadow a future blog, there were plenty of positives that came from 2020. Sure, I put on 12lbs, but I also didn’t miss a workout (surplus of both time and calories). Due to that caloric surplus, I gained some strength, too (instead of saying “I gained weight”, I’m saying “I gained strength”). The weight lifting program I’ve been following over the past four years is "5/3/1" as outlined by Jim Wendler. It focuses on the 4 big compound movements (squats, deadlifts, bench press and standing military press). Each lift is performed once a week, and rep and set schemes are based on your “one rep max” - or how much you can lift one time, with all out effort. I use a spreadsheet in which I input that “one rep max”, and it spits out 12 months of workouts - how much weight to lift each time, and how many times to lift it. The catch is that it is based on linear progression. This means that each month it re-calculates to add weight to the bar (5lbs per month on bench press/military press, and 10lbs per month on squats/deadlifts). Those increments don’t sound like much, but they start to add up over time - especially when you consistently perform the lifts.

I’m at a point in my life and weightlifting “career” that I would consider myself "respectably strong". My lifts are a joke compared to competitive powerlifters and there are female collegiate athletes that could outlift me, but if you grabbed 100 random 45 year old men off the street and put us in a gym, I’d probably be in the top 5, and maybe even the top one or two in terms of strength. Of all of the lifts, I like deadlifting the best. I’m long limbed, and my body is just better at pulling than pushing. 

 After consistent workouts for the past few years, the weights are getting heavy. For the sake of this blog, I’ll stick to deadlifts since that lift is the one that’s relevant to the point that I still haven’t quite started making (hang in there, it’s coming eventually). At 44 years old and 195lbs, my one rep max on deadlift is 465lbs. The issue with deadlifts is that regardless of how strong the big muscles that do the lifting are (glutes, hamstrings etc - the biggest and strongest muscles in your body), you have to hold the bar in your hands to lift it. Therefore, after a while, it’s your grip strength that will limit how much weight you can lift. Sure, you could use weight lifting straps to help - and I have in the past - but at this point, I’d like to avoid it.

It’s hard enough to hang on to a 400lb metal bar to lift it under normal circumstances. Now imagine being in the middle of a workout and trying to grip the bar with sweaty hands. It’s that much harder. For that reason, I recently got some chalk to put on my hands before lifting the bar to absorb the sweat on my palms (this is common practice among weightlifters, gymnasts and rock climbers). This allows you to hold onto the bar more easily - but it doesn’t make it any lighter. 

As I was standing over the bar with chalk on my hands to help grip the heavy load I was about to lift, an interesting metaphor came to me. As always, my metaphors and analogies are less than perfect (and sometimes downright obscure), but stick with me here. It occurred to me that sometimes living life is similar to deadlifts insomuch as it can feel very, very heavy and hard. The heavier life feels, the harder we have to grip to be able to, metaphorically, lift it. In addition, we cintinuously throw couple of other factors that make holding on harder (just like sweaty hands do for deadlifts). 

I think that over this past year, life has started to feel very heavy for many people. Levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are skyrocketing over almost all demographics due to the stress, fear and uncertainty surrounding both covid itself as well as the lockdown measures put in place to attempt to mitigate its spread. We’re all starting to have to hold on really tightly to just “lift life” every day. Many can feel their grips weakening, and the weight of life starting to slip from their grasp. I’ll even admit that if I allow myself to, I can have those feelings. I can honestly say that despite all the shit I’ve been through in my life (or more accurately, shit that I’ve put myself through), this past year has maybe been the first time I’ve really felt it on any regular basis.

So what do we do when we feel the weight of life slipping from our hands? We find “life chalk”. Just like actual chalk doesn’t make the bar any lighter (but rather allows you to grip it stronger, tighter and longer), “life chalk” won’t make the burden of your life any less. You’ll still have to show up every day and strain to lift the load. But your grip will be stronger and more sure. It will allow you to hold on to that load longer and stronger on the days it feels the heaviest. It will stop that sensation of feeling like your grip is failing and your life is slipping away, out of your grasp. 

As wonderful of a metaphor as that is, what does it actually mean? What is “life chalk”? It’s different for everyone, but you need to have a version. Basically, it’s anything that you can focus on that gives you strength to get up in the morning, make your bed, and take on the day. It’s a thing (or things) that charges your batteries and brings you joy. It’s something that you can focus on, and by doing so, keeps you focused and centred on all the good and positive in your life. It will be a little different for everyone, but just an example I thought I’d share my personal “life chalk”:

1. Family
2. Friends
3. Fitness
4. Nature/outdoors

I won’t go through the details of how each of those things helps me get through tough times and gives me hope for the future but I think you can of figure it out. I can be having the worst day and I could be feeling like my world is crashing down around me, but hearing one of my kids laugh, getting a good workout in, hanging out with friends (in the case of jiu jitsu - two birds, one stone) or getting out on the lake or into the woods can make it all melt away. Hell, sometimes it can be as simple as one of my dogs coming to me for a cuddle and belly rub. Regardless of who you are or your circumstances, I'm confident you can find at least a couple of things in your life that you are continually grateful for, even if they look very different than mine (not everyone centres themselves by pretend-choking their buddies).

One last little bit of wisdom: beware of “false chalk”. There are things that you think are helping you cope with the burden of life, but are in fact probably not helping at all (or even making things worse). The last thing you’d want to do before lifting a heavy bar is slather it with vaseline, but these things are the equivalent:

1. Liquor and drugs

2. "Retail therapy"

3. Junk food

4. Social media

 These all can give you short lived “dopamine hits”, but are ultimately destructive in the long run. They won’t make your bar lighter to lift; they will distract you from lifting it altogether. Continued, habitual use will set you back in life, rather than propel you forward.

The last parallel that I’d like to draw between life and deadlifting is the concept of adapting to progressive load. How is it possible that 225lbs felt heavy to me years ago, but is now light as a feather? How is it possible to add weight to the bar each month and still be able to lift it? It’s because lifting heavy weights signals our bodies to respond by making more muscle, and thus more strength. By continually adding weight, we continually get stronger. If I lift the same weight every time, I won’t build nearly as much strength as I do by adding weight to the bar each time. As a result, weights that at one time felt very heavy to me are now light. 

Now when I stand over the bar and think “man, I'm not sure if I can lift this”, I remember that there was a time not long ago that a weight that feels light to me today felt heavy then. In the same way, the weight that feels heavy today will feel light some time in the future. Also, had I tried to lift today’s weight 4 years ago, it wouldn’t have budged. It was just by making the bar heavier that I got stronger.

The same is true for life. Many of us will look at the burdens we carry today and compare them to what we thought were legitimate stresses in highschool and chuckle. But at the time, those stresses seemed very real and heavy to us. I’m sure I’m not the only adult that would trade burdens with a teenager in a heartbeat. But the truth is that at the time, we were only strong enough to handle a few zits and our girlfriend dumping us. As we grew older and our responsibilities began to pile on, we developed the strength and life skills required to handle them as they came. Chances are that at each stage, we questioned our ability to do so. Yet here we are. The good news is that today, should you choose to wake up, stand over the proverbial loaded bar, rub some chalk on your hands and “grip and rip”, the load you lift will make you stronger tomorrow. And soon, you’ll look back on what you are able to barely handle today and it will feel quite light.

This whole concept leads me back to the story of Atlas from Greek mythology. When Zeus punished Atlas by forcing him bear the weight of the heavens, his response was:

“I ask not for a lighter load, but for broader shoulders”