Evolution of a Lifter – for Father’s Day

I remember 5th or 6th grade gym class. I guess everybody does. Unless you’ve managed to block it out. What I remember is standing at the front of a line of other kids in my class as they witnessed my inability to perform a pull-up for the Presidential fitness test. The gym teacher was relatively cool. I think I remember him saying, “Don’t worry about it Matt.” Sure.
I vowed that was not going to happen again. Somehow or other I talked to my dad about it and he took me out to the barn, showed me a bar that I could use to work on my pull-ups. It was not a pull-up bar, it was some sort of support bar in the barn. Very ROCKY.
A few times a week I went out there. How do you work on an exercise you can’t even do ONE of? You just pull as hard as you can. I decided to pull as hard as I could ten times, rest, and do this again.
The next year I think I did 7 or 8 pull-ups (a few months ago I did 20 to impress my nephew). It felt great.
Around the same time (6th grade I think, not a few months ago), my dad initiated me into the male ritual of weightlifting and I am so glad he did. We used to workout in the basement before dinner and talk. I don’t know what we talked about, but it was a good thing.
My dad used to say that he worked out 11 months a year for the one month we had to put hay in the barn. This annual event involved a few weekends of transporting several thousand 75-80lb. hay bales from a field a couple miles away and stacking them 50 feet high in our second floor + hay loft. We don’t live on the farm anymore but now in his mid-late 60s, he still works out. He can probably still benchpress more than me. So here are a few things that I have picked up from lifting.

1. I like feeling physically capable even if all my life requires of me is sitting, walking and minute finger movements on a keyboard. I think that’s what my dad meant. “Putting hay in the barn” means being capable to do whatever life might require, even if it doesn’t require it very often. Actually, raising 2 boys requires a lot more. My dad knows this as well. My brother and I used to ask him to launch us through the air, in the pool, onto the bed, etc. A friend of mine watching me do a particular exercise said, “Why do you DO that? Are your kids always saying, ‘Throw me higher dad!’?” Actually yes, just this weekend Zephan asked me to throw him “up in the sky” and “ADIN! (again)” and “ADIN!” and “ADIN!” but the irony is that my friend is a marathoner! Are his kids always saying, ‘Run farther dad’? We all do what feels good.
2. Vanity. This is probably a bigger reason to lift that either my dad or I would normally admit. Pretty self-explanatory, but my wife appreciates the way I look too. It’s probably also the best short answer, but when I needed a short answer recently I just said, “I started lifting weights with my dad in the basement when I was 12 or 13 and I just haven’t stopped.” I think my dad would also admit that there’s more to this exercise thing than just “putting hay in the barn.”
3. Lifting teaches some life lessons. A. We have limitations. When you have a weight, you find your limitations quickly, even on my best day. Much more quickly than running unless you’re a sprinter. It’s a good reminder. B. Progress is possible. It might even be inevitable. If you lift heavy weights, eat decently and sleep decently, you will get stronger. As with the rest of life, making certain decisions DOES yield certain results. I may not ever be the strongest, or the best at anything else but it is always possible to improve. Which brings me to C. You have to commit. Sometimes, when I miss a lift, I know it’s not because I couldn’t do it. It’s because I didn’t put everything into it. Likewise, if lifting (or anything else) is not a priority of any kind I will NOT make progress or improve. The problem is applying this truth to other areas where improvement is less measurable. Which brings me to…
4. It’s satisfying. I’m not much into math or measurements or goal setting (that’s my dad’s area) but when it comes to lifting there is just something so satisfying about lifting a weight a couple more times than you did last time you worked out, or lifting a few more pounds than last time. It’s like crossing things off your to-do list. Even when many other things are NOT going right, it’s nice to be able to write down some little improvement in my workout chart.

I have to end by saying that weight-lifting is not what my dad most desired to instill in me. As Paul would say, “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value in all things.” It’s probably more important that we read Romans together before I could really understand it. I also fired a .357 Magnum before I could handle it. Both of these things, (as well as lifting) communicated, “You CAN handle these things.” It’s definitely more important that we regularly went on long walks early in the morning through woods that I had never seen before and learned to tell the directions from the sun. It’s more important that my dad took us to churches besides “our church” to see what they were like and demonstrate respect for other Christians. It’s more important that my dad taught me the (important but limited) value of money. It’s more important that he instilled in my brother and I the value of serving our friends and neighbors. My parents are traveling this weekend and they left Lexington after my dad got done serving at the local soup kitchen. He has probably served more people since he re-retired than many people do their whole lives. Most important, my dad has never stopped telling me that he was proud of me. Recently, it has made a lot of sense to return that favor. I’m proud of him too.