I’ve written about what the gym has taught me about writing for my publisher’s website: I wrote about community and hydration, time off and goal setting. What I didn’t write about, though, was the inverse: what I’ve learned about powerlifting from writing.
Before I dive in: what the heck is powerlifting?
It’s a sport that involves three big lifts (alas, not the overhead press) — the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. Each lift, you get to try three times; if you miss one of these lifts, you cannot decrease the weight on the bar in your next attempt. So, it’s both a strength and strategy game: and, for my first powerlifting meet, I wouldn’t have been dialed in on either if it weren’t for my writing.
It’s not a coincidence, I think, that my coach for the International Association of Trans Bodybuilders was also my primary writing critique partner. It’s not a coincidence that he was the one who kept me centered between lifts, who helped me — the night before, that morning, and during the meet itself — figure out how my body was feeling, what I knew myself to be capable of in the minutes before each lift.
Writing teaches me to know myself: and powerlifting is a sport where you need, so badly, to know yourself. To know your body and its capacities; to know that even if you miss one, you can make the next.
The mental fortitude required of authors — we are in a business that centralizes rejection, of course — is a must-have on the lifting platform.
Because for me, with all my depression and anxiety, to be able to get out there and lift?
Well, that’s an accomplishment in and of itself.
It’s an accomplishment for anyone to step onto that platform and lift heavy weights in front of an audience.
Writing is a private event; powerlifting, decidedly not so. In both cases, the profound publicness of vulnerability mixed in with the strength of publishing, of lifting, is beautiful.
Being an author has taught me both relentlessness and self-forgiveness that I carry with me alongside those damn beautiful barbells. These qualities, combined together in healthy ratios, are what I hope to encourage in my clients.
Because when we train, we need relentlessness and the self-love required for being gentle with ourselves even while we embrace challenges (even if those challenges seem as small as getting out of bed in the morning, which is a huge accomplishment for many of us!).
And that’s really what it’s about, huh?
