L1H: Update

Obviously the death of the King of Pop has been dominating the news and inter-webs lately: his funeral/memorial service is playing out as I type this at work.

Last night I was watching a special on television and one comment, offered as an editorial, was that MJ’s death has liberated his art from the “weirdness” that surrounded him in life.  In other words, now that he’s “out of the way” the world can enjoy and celebrate the amazing talent of Michael Jackson the musician and not be distracted by Michael Jackson the oddity.

Imagine that.  Getting in the way of your own legend – by being alive!

I have been drafting the outline of an upcoming RL quest.  Essentially it’s about setting a goal to drive my workouts until DragonCon.  Without a goal you tend to get lost or worse: become complacent.

I’ve cut my weight-lifting to three days a week with 2-3 days of some kind of cardio mixed in.  I’m not going to name the system I’m using, but I will mention that I’ve increased my strength significantly.

Strength isn’t something that I cared much about before, losing body fat was my only focus, but strength is an exciting metric to watch grow.  

Getting stronger without injury is a delicate balance, but watching the number of plates grow on a barbell kinda reminds me of MMO character advancement.

Out of context the amount of weight you can bench is shallow, meaningless, and irrelevant.  However, if I told you that an 80 year-old man can bench 225 lbs. then your ears might perk.  Likewise, if I told you that I can bench twice the amount of weight I could a year ago, then you might be persuaded to appreciate this growth even if you’re not interested in fitness.

Another thing I enjoy about strength training is that every time you work-out you learn a little about yourself, you get familiar with your limits. 

We all have fantasies of how strong we “think” we are, how we could fend off a gang of thugs with our superior “speed” and “agility”.  What’s interesting is that the iron doesn’t lie to you: you can push with all your might and sometimes that barbell stops moving.  

The reality, the gravity, of such as simple task like preforming a squat, washes away the fantasy and leaves you feeling more “real” – which is usually less than He-Man – but at least it’s you.

It’s humbling to have a dead piece of stupid iron turn you into a quivering mass of pain, but the joy of watching the weight grow, of pushing past a weight barrier that used to hold you up: it’s amazing.

I can almost see the fly text hovering over my head: Strength +1

Yeah it’s a little hokey, but hey: it’s me.