I think his exact words were, “Hey man, you’re about to rip your shoulder off!”
Or maybe it was, “Hey man, that’s a good way to shred your pecs!”
Or possibly, “Guy, if you have three brain cells in your head, you won’t do that!”
I was “doing” what I don’t do: lifting weights.
There are exactly three reasons I don’t.
1) I’m scrawny — like two string beans lashed together by a rubber band.
2) You can rip your shoulder off.
3) Big, huge guys who look like 12 sacks of potatoes strung together with mooring lines stand around and say things like, “Hey man, you’re about to rip your shoulder off!”
“So what if I am, big potato sack dude?” I want to say. “Just go over there and dead lift a car or something.”
He was right, though. I overloaded one side of the bar with too much weight. I pictured myself toppling over sideways while lifting it. Pinning myself to the floor. My shoulder running for the exit while I meekly called out, “Yo, potato sack dude … Little help over here!”
November is no longer so far away. The Tough Mudder is coming. It’s part endurance race. Part obstacle course. Part insanity. There are big walls to get over. Ropes to climb. Things that require muscles and upper body strength. Things I don’t possess.
All my life I’ve been a runner. My idea of weightlifting is grocery shopping. Even that’s a stretch. I ask old ladies if they can put brownie mix boxes in my cart. Don’t want to strain a muscle. “So sad,” they say about me while walking away.
But a Tough Mudder is going to require strength. So a work buddy has been helping me out in the gym. He says motivational stuff while I lift. Things like, “You’re done!?! You only did two! Even the sweaty towel over there is laughing at you.”
I have no form. Everything I lift threatens to buckle my elbows and crash down on my Adam’s apple. “That would be a horrible way to die,” I think to myself. “But on the bright side, the workout would be over.”
My buddy continues with his encouragement: “You lift like a three-legged kitten,” he says. “Now keep going until it burns and something rips out of your body like an alien.”
Such a violent sport!
Running is easy. You go outside. You point yourself in a particular direction. Then you concentrate on not getting hit by any cars. I can do that for miles on end.
But lifting is exhausting. Muscles ache. And burn. And tremble. “Keep going!” he commands. “Two more! Like you’re giving birth!”
What does that mean?
“My bones are cracking!” I say.
“Good,” he says. “That’s how you know it’s working.”
And off to the side I hear the potato sack guy mumble, “Totally going to rip his shoulder off.”