Bench pressing is by far the coolest thing I can do at the gym. Day before yesterday must be the umpteenth time I must be trying to start at the gym (the number of independent times I have started should now be in double figures for sure), and yet I cannot get beyond the allure of lying down on a bench, getting a grip on the huge steel bar, and not knowing if I would be able to lift it clear off, or more importantly, if I would be able to put it clean back. I always, always seem to feel superhuman for just that moment when I pick up the bar clean enough, always wondering, "Did I not load the bar enough? This seems too easy!". No vestiges of that momentary delusion remain post the tenth lift, and no amount of huff or puff for one last one seems to do the trick- it is either you can do it from the word go, or can't, end of discussion.The pains later are to die for, normally. When lying on my bed late at night, trying very hard to be motionless, eyes closed, all I can feel is a very elaborate Wolverine style adamantium bonding has happened to my skeleton. I actually managed to imagine this fairly elaborate process when hovering in between painful sleep and inert wakefulness. Imagine that your entire chest, shoulder to shoulder has been locally anesthetised. Then these long thin iron nails (long enough to reach from one shoulder to another through your chest) have been taken, heated, and gently inserted into your skin on the side of your chest, horizontally so that their ends poke the inside of your arms on both sides. After about half a day or so, the anesthetic wears off. And the pain is not about the insertion of those nails. It is just about carrying these damn foreign things inside my body. Right about now, I can feel three of those nails inside me. Day before yesterday night (Night before Yesternight?) I couldn't help but feel eight of those.
The worst part of that pain (for most people infact, that is the best part) is that the cause is the cure. I thought I would be physically sick if I happened to go to the gym yesterday. So I managed to stay in this weak haze all day. A whole day later, it still hasn't abated. I am in no mood to do anything but another three calm and careful sets.
Damn. I don't envy Wolverine one bit now.
Posts
