I won't blather on about all the physical, hormonal, empirical benefits that I'm sure we've all been informed of ad nauseum. I think lifting allows for a firsthand encounter with the suffering that's inherent to living, the suffering that the more sensitive among us can't help but metabolize as depression or despair. Lifting weights is not pleasurable in the traditional sense; you are literally tearing your muscles apart. It's taxing, it's exhausting, and when you go to failure you're gracelessly reminded of your limitations, of your mortality. In fact, the only way to grow stronger is to go to failure— it’s absolutely necessary that you must confront your own weakness regularly. But this encounter is incredibly important, it makes something previously nebulous and overwhelming and undefinable real, measurable, and extremely importantly, in your control. And this suffering with time transforms into growth, strength, beauty. When everything's said and done, I think that's the best you can hope to make of the sorrow that's essential to life. It's not for everyone, but it's brought me a surprising amount of peace.
Nov 25, 2024
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Heavy metal pressing down, your neck in its path to the ground.
Contracting muscles, screaming joints squeeze out the chemicals your brain knows as "fear".
It's the folly of humanity, the preference for harm over boredom.
It's the schizoid relationship with the self; the awe at the infinite potential shown on the magazines, and the despair over the work required, work that can only end ever end underground unless you love (or hate) your body enough to try and make it perfect.
It's cool. It's a craft. It should be catered to your tastes.
It's endless lies, peddled and inherited, the biggest two being that the numbers matter and that the numbers don't matter.
It's the love for the moment; the sweaty mechanics of forever existing in a present ready to abandon you. That's where the power of the exercise comes in. When you lift, you defy space but also time. Taking the bar means taking the present and refusing to let go, stretching the instants as far as your condition can because on some deep, reptilian level you know you don't have an infinite supply of them.
Apr 24, 2024
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I got into weight lifting for the same reason I get into most things, which is pure unbridled vanity. I read or heard somewhere in my many biohacker information channels that weight lifting is the most anti-aging form of exercise, especially for women, and so I was like on my way! I wasn’t about to pay some community college bro $100 an hour at my LA Fitness to train me though so I just googled “weight lifting classes near me” and because I live a charmed and bless life I found the fucking coolest independent gym like a mile from my house and have been going there for almost a year. Vanity aside, it just makes you feel so good all the time. I love watching myself get stronger and I love the feeling after you lift something really heavy you thought you could never have lifted and I love all the neighborhood friends I’ve made there, including former PI subject and possibly coolest girl alive Petra Cortright. (Honestly a large part of my social life takes place there?) Anyway everyone over 30 should lift weights, preserve your waning muscle mass and build up your self-esteem babe.
Oct 20, 2023
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Unfortunately, lifting increasingly heavier and heavier weights is 1. the only way to sustainably maintain looking hot and 2. the only way not to have a mental breakdown.
Jan 23, 2024
Top Recs from @steelyfan1998
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sometimes you just need to read some real shit straight from the realest person you know .
Feb 24, 2025
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This is a confession post, not a recommendation, not even much of an anti-recommendation. Tbh it reads like a humilation ritual. Honestly just keep scrolling; it's not worth reading. I'm just posting it because I think I had a point when I first started writing this, one which I lost pretty wuickly. But I spent a good couple of minutes typing this all out, so I'll post it anyway. Thank God I'm anon. If you do read it, please forgive me.
My friend Tyler brought a joint to the super bowl party last night. He handed it to me & told me about how it had weed diamonds in it while I smoked, he told me that it was some good shit and that I wouldn't have to smoke so much of it since I've got such a low tolerance & all, but I could also smoke as much as I liked, seeing as he had a bunch more & that it was the super bowl & we had a bunch of wings on the way anyway, so might as well smoke some more weed so you know what? yeah, i smoked some more weed since what's the harm anyway it's just weed after all.
I've been a mess all day. I've been slow & stupid & disgustingly horny since I woke up this morning; but really honestly since I smoked the weed. If you're one of those types that "actually becomes more functional when you're smoking weed" & that I should "just let people enjoy things" I don't know what to say to you. I'm going to be weird for 4 weeks now and it's all my fault. This happens every time.
Even when it doesn't turn me into a non-verbal paranoiac nutcase, even when it's enjoyable to me in that moment-- I become something lower than a beast. I stand over the platter of chicken wings & gorge until I am sick and then I gorge even more. My stomach becomes distended & my face and fingers are covered in thai curry buffalo chicken fat goo. I waddle around & fart & I find this very funny. I confuse the sound of my own voice with that of my younger sisters & this is incredibly disqueting to me. Do I really sound like that? I become a big confused overgrown fat baby.
I'm going to be be weird for four weeks now. Slow. I was supposed to meet up with my friends to watch Luka's debut for the Lakers. I'm stitting at my desk typing this up; procrastinating going to the gym (which I can NOT neglect [especially after my evening of spiritual obesity]) & the game starts in 5 minutes. Stupid. Typing out this confession right now is painfully difficult. Every word that I type has the appearance of a whitehead that can't be popped to me. This textbox full of blemishes so infuriatingly, stubbornly, immutably DISGUSTING. I feel sick just reading back what I'm writing here. Once again, if you've made it this far, forgive me. This is a confession, not a recommendation. Disgustingly horny. This one I won't elaborate on. Forgive me.
It's not because I smoked weed. The smoking of the weed was just the first movement in a sequence that had already begun before I'd even accepted the joint from Tyler. My own spiritual weakness is the mantle upon which all of these failings hang. I'm not this way because I smoked weed, I'm this way because I'm the type of guy that smokes weed even though I know what it will do to me. There are 999,999,999 other weeds in my life that I am all too willing to permit myself. I haven't eaten anything but bread & butter all day. The lakers game is starting soon. Off to the gym I go.
Feb 11, 2025
Mar 4, 2025