It’s late in the afternoon on a Friday and the last possible thing I want to do is push my body beyond last week’s breaking point to lift heavier weights. I’m exhausted after a long week of work and although it seems like a bit of a gym no-no, I stand next to the squat rack clutching a coffee, wondering how I’m going to make it through what’s to come.
It seems my four classmates feel the same. No one has arrived early and as each trickles through the door, they line up beside me, with the enthusiasm of prisoners preparing themselves for a firing squad.
Then our mighty master comes striding across the room. She greets us with her typical enthusiasm and starts issuing instructions for warm-up. Pull-ups, dips, and squats are on the menu. Our reluctance to jump into the workout fades as Jenika’s energy and excitement about the heavy lifting class ripples out and draws us in. Somebody makes a joke and the dread starts to lift.
Jenika divides us into groups according to height and has two of us prepare for the warm-up set of deadlifts, two for the overhead press, and the final person for squats. Although this is not our first class, Jenika takes a few minutes to go over form again. She knows that form is key to reducing the risk of injury when it comes to heavy lifting and that proper technique will help us reach our goals when it comes to our lifts.
The first three sets of five are designed to be progressively more difficult but not so difficult that you burn yourself out before entering the final three sets of five heavy reps. These first rounds limber the lifter up, are an opportunity to analyze and correct form, and most of all, build confidence. They also stir up those all so important endorphins, so that by the time the heavy, heavy lifting begins, people are psyched to get to it. All of the dread and reluctance that hung over the group has burned away and people are pumped.
The fourth set is meant to be your benchmark weight. It is the weight that you hope to continue with through sets five and six. Jenika urges us to go for at least five to ten pounds heavier with the squat and deadlift than we did last week. The press is a bit more challenging and so increases over last week will likely only be a pound or two.
These last three sets are hard – there’s really no other way to describe it. The gym is filled with a lot of grunting and crashing weights but these harsh sounds are offset by an equal amount of cheering. That’s the really great thing about this class; people are so supportive and the individual encouragement from one another is sometimes what gets you through the lift. When everyone is finished, Jenika offers her congratulations, and the class ends with high-fives, promises to see each other next week, and a few exclamations of, “I can’t believe I just lifted that – that was freakin’ crazy!”
And next week will be exactly the same. The class will start quiet as each participant sizes up their strength for the day, tries to clear the distractions from their mind, and works to get over the fear of pushing themselves to the brink. It will end with cheers and congratulations and the camaraderie that develops when a group of people makes it through a harrowing experience and lives to tell about it. Each will stride from the room full of disbelief at their own accomplishments, but full of confidence for proving to themselves that they could do it.
And Jenika will go about her business of setting up for her next client, a smile on her face as she reflects back on what each member of the class was able to achieve, glad that we came to realize the strength, determination, and power that she knows we all have. My clients are absolutely amazing, she’ll think to herself.
