I’ve always enjoyed physical training. When I was in high school I fell in love with cross country running and track and field. I loved the physicality and individuality of track. I was a smaller kid, and team sports often left me picked on by teammates, or feeling like I had let them down with my poor performance. In track, it didn’t matter; it was me against me, and my smaller stature and high pain tolerance made me good at events like the 1500m and the 300m hurdles. I ran a 4:56 1500m and went to the state meet multiple times for the 300m hurdles. As I got older, bigger, and stronger, I picked up the javelin and won 4th overall in Vermont Division II (whatever that means).

Cross country was similar. My family’s driveway was on a hill. Out the driveway to the left was a 1-mile hill at 5.4% grade, for a total of 285-feet in elevation climb. That was my warm-up in the off-season. My best 5k was 18:19, and I even won a small meet in northern Vermont.

College was when I started seriously training with the barbell. Like track and cross country, I loved the individuality of strength training; everything depended on me alone. Getting bigger and stronger was the confidence boost I had always needed in life. I became confident in my ability to improve myself through consistent effort, and I became known amongst my friends as “the guy who lifts”. Training was an obsession, and more pounds on the bar fed the addictive cycle.

I ended college with a 455lbs squat and deadlift, a 330lbs bench press. After college I went on to deadlift 485lbs, squat 500lbs (in single-digit weather in my buddy’s garage), and overhead press 215lbs after a power clean. All of these lifts were done around 200lbs bodyweight; the squat was done at 210. That 500lbs squat had been a goal of mine forever, and is still my proudest accomplishment under the bar.

I also began training olympic weightlifting, which in retrospect was the biggest detriment to my strength training of anything. The energy requirements to complete a weightlifting session only make recovery that much more difficult, but I still managed some decent numbers. My best lifts were a 405lbs front squat (I may have done more, I can’t recall), a 250lbs snatch, a 330lbs clean and jerk, a 315lbs power jerk, a 350lbs rack jerk, a 235lbs power snatch, and a 300lbs power clean. This was my peak physicality. For a stretch of a few months, it was routine for me to walk into the gym, warm up, and clean and jerk 300lbs.

The pandemic of 2020 completely derailed my training, along with everything else in my life. It was a few years after that that my strength numbers even approached what they were before, during the winter of 2023-2024. Then, my son ended up in the hospital shortly after he was born, where he needed a daily dose of doxycycline straight to his heart for three weeks to stop a case of bacterial meningitis. I lived in the hospital with him, and trained like a prisoner with bodyweight workouts.

My life had changed forever. There was no going back. Now I have two sons, both healthy and happy, a small farm, and a house with never-ending home improvement projects. I’m advancing in my career, I’m a deacon at my church, and my ambitions continue to grow. These are all good things, but they’re all more things too, and training has taken a backseat. The gym did its job: it was always a means to a happier life.

This winter I tried a linear progression with the barbell, like I had done many times before. This time was frought with many setbacks and injuries, even after starting light. Workouts left me feeling worn out and low energy the next day. I almost surely wasn’t getting enough and calories or rest, and my stress load outside the gym was likely higher than ever. I lost weight, I didn’t gain it. The internal motivation to train, that inner fire and addiction to the process of learning and progressing, wasn’t there at all.

For me, the most enjoyable thing about training is the process of improvement. The new numbers on the bar, the new skills, and the new movements are the things that always kept me coming back. I enjoyed how training made me feel, and what new abilities I gained from it. I found solace in my training as preparation. Each new pound on the bar, or second off my mile time, meant that I was more prepared for whatever loomed off the horizon of what can be forecasted. I wanted to be a good man, and good men are ready men.

Now I’m at a point in my life where the things I aspire to are not numbers on the barbell. Even if I did aspire to those things, the likelihood of achieving some novel feat is extremely low compared to what I achieved before. The sacrifice I would need to make to go beyond a 500lbs squat or a 330lbs bench press is much more than I’m willing to make anymore.

And as silly as it sounds, I remember grieving a little when I realized that my best numbers will always be behind me.

This living business is a grievious one. The earthly life that God has given to man is Sisyphian; the eyes are not content with seeing, nor the ears with hearing, and yet everything is a repeat of what was before. Man strengthens and weakens, he increases and he declines, he wins and he loses; there is a time for everything, including youth and strength and weakness and death. Our bodies are mere vapor in light of eternity, and any physicality which is not oriented to the eternal ends of the Good Life is a waste of time and energy. Lifting weights built my soul, and humbled my pride.

I need a different way of training for the present season, that benefits my soul like the old ways did in their time. Maybe running will draw me in again, or I’ll take on something new like calisthenics. Maybe I’ll take on some new responsbility in my life that requires some new strengths to be developed. I’ve done some grip training recently, and it’s been fun; I can feel the sparks of the old fire again.

Whatever happens, I’ll keep pressing on. But it’s time to stop living in the past, and embrace the change.