Blind-Sided

I tend to try to have blinders on when I’m in the gym. That’s not meant as an arrogant comment in any way. 1st, I know I’m not the biggest strongest guy around. At this point I would describe myself this way in terms of size and strength: if 5 “in shape” guys of comparable age are in the gym at a certain time (including me), I’m on average the 3rd strongest I would say…so, somewhere right in the middle of the pack. 2nd, it’s not as if I have nothing to learn anymore, so if I notice someone doing something that I think I can borrow from I’m not going to just sweep it under the rug out of spite or something. I guess what I mean is that I try not to get caught up in “how much” other guys are lifting. Outside of using some questionable performance enhancers or just being blessed with superior genetics, small incremental gains are how muscle is built. In that respect, you can’t be worried about the guy benching 300 lb. next to you…you need to worry about what you need to do that day to get stronger. Now, competition is a healthy motivator also, but I also know that if I try to bench the same weight/reps as my personal trainer friend Scott or my other buddy Mac I am probably not going to accomplish much, and more than likely I’m going to hurt myself. So like I said, I’m still probably only middle of the road in terms of comparing myself to other people I see at the gym, but in this way I’ve at least gone from the 5th strongest guy to the 3rd strongest I think.

Now, I have this friend from work, Chi, who is straining my “blinders” philosophy. I have never been to the gym with Chi, but he boasts of putting up weight in most lifting categories similar to what I can do, albeit slightly less. For example, I think he said his 1 rep max bench press was around 205-210 lb (with a witness supposedly as well), which is only slightly less than where I think I’m at right now. This may all very well be true, but without taking his measurements I would eyeball Chi at about 5’4” and 125 lb. If it was true, it wouldn’t be the 1st time I was to bear witness to something like this. The 1st time I ever lifted with my friend Allen was when we were back in college. I probably only weighed 170 lb. at the time, and Allen, who is about my height, probably weighed 5-10 lb. less than that. Allen admitted that he hadn’t really lifted since high school, but on his 1st working set I saw him do 5-6 reps on the bench at something like 265 lb. As I guy who had been busting his ass in the weight room (using poor training practices though) it was somewhat of a soul crushing experience.

The other factor in this is that while if you know Chi, you can’t help but like the guy, he is a bit of a sports nerd. For example, he is a diehard University of Florida football fan, and he is the type to follow the team’s spring practices, depth chart wars, and recruiting prospects from a year or 2 out. Similarly, he acts like somewhat of a know-it-all about just about all things sports, whether it’s Spanish Premiere League soccer, the proper technique of throwing a cut fastball, the intricacies of a 3 quarter court zone trap, and everything in between. If you ever get sucked into a sports argument with Chi, good luck getting out alive…even if what he’s arguing for makes no sense at all. (Last summer in a debate about where LeBron would end up via free agency, Chi argued against Miami because he didn’t think Pat Riley would necessarily want LeBron on his team…you can’t make this stuff up.) Anyway, in that same light I wouldn’t put it past Chi to embellish some of his own personal athletic prowess. So, in the same way that I question his team leading 2 home runs on the company softball team (How close are these fences exactly? Were they just inside the park homers that he legged-when an outfielder took a bad angle?), I have a hard time seeing him bench press over 200 lb. (Does he only bring the bar down 8 in. from his chest? Is he actually talking about a real bench press station, or is he trying to pass off one of those chest press machines as a real bench?).

The last time he was talking about it, I came “this” close to calling bullshit. I think I said something like, “I can’t believe that you can actually bench that much,” but quickly followed it up with something like, “That’s pretty amazing. You must be incredibly strong for your weight.” Pretty sure I saved it before the awkward silence came rolling in, but either way it’s apparent to me at least that Chi has gotten under my skin…which in and of itself I find annoying! My “blinders” mentality has gone completely out the window on this one. Maybe one day I will actually witness Chi in the gym firsthand, and the myth will be disproved…or maybe he really can lift that much (like some compact super-strong Chinese gymnast superhero or something), and it will just be another Allen-like soul crushing experience times 10.