Gym Rats on Mars

The gym shook mid clean pull, a sudden un-hook from your hookgrip as the gym itself un-hooked from the earth below.  Shankle posters and Dimas art fell from the walls like a whiteboard getting wiped down after a workout has been complete, only for a new plan of attack to be drawn upon next. Medals and trophies on shelves once stacked high now fall low and broken on mats of black that no longer line up perfectly as if horses were actually going to use them anyway.  A gym of strength now uprooted from a tornado of power, for a million powerlifters couldn't stop this horror of confusion.  The gym starts to spin faster than an Eleiko bar, turning and swooshing and making your one focal point now blurry and off setting.  Visions of giant coffee drops fly wildly around your line of sight....or a lack of.  No time to try to drink them with your tongue opened and out like you did as a kid when it rained, only time to hold on to the squat rack behind you that your coach would always tell you to move due to the scare of missing the weight behind and hurting yourself from alack of room for a saved lift and a missed disaster. I think it's safe to say that this situation at hand is much worse than a bar rolling back onto your heels... wouldn't you say?  Your whole world literally begins to move upward and beyond, higher than your vertical jump and higher than your bar on a perfectly timed and locked out jerk.  High and proud, this time not so proud but confused and misled, for this situation was not on today's program. Weightlifting belts turned to safety belts and athletes of all kinds were locking themselves tightly on the pull up rig that now acted as a cockpit.  Here we fucken go! Hold on tight! You yelled louder than the roar from your PR. You thought nothing was louder and deeper than a PR yell, but boy you were wrong... this yell was deeper than deep and louder than loud, as you were now moving to Mars faster than all hell! 

The landing was violent by smooth, just like your feet on the catch, completely in control and stern with your decision.  Your coach would usually yell great words of excitement on such a great catch, but on this landing, "Shit!", seems to be the only words out of his vast vocabulary.  Skinny but strong arms stretch out from underneath the gym now acting as a space ship, arms like weightlifters misleading and hidden from public. The public eye would never know how strong you are, for your arms hang like theirs, not knowing your arms lift big fucken things high in the air. Their arms lift grocery bags and pins, working a desk job 'til their eyes pop out from their head. You live free in a warehouse of bars, open garage doors and weightlifting scars.  Coffee tastes so much better when sweat meets caffeine, caffeine running through a body of free is the true secrete of being the best you can be.  Your weightlifting shoes now act as space shoes meeting red rock. Virus tights and singlets act as suits in space, for now you are on Mars in a gym that now has an address above the stars.  The air is somehow breathable, cool, crisp and foggy.  Forget everything you know about science, people can't breath on Mars this is a fact, but nothing has ever been said about gym rats. Gym rats breath just fine, walk just fine and talk just fine. Gym rat weightlifters can adapt to anything with time. Red rock mater and sand storms are nothing to you, lifting on a slanted platform with legs of broke is normal to you. Haven't felt your legs in years! This makes for great training when legs cry painful tears! No pain can make a weightlifter hit numbers all day, insane training causes for a lack of feeling and a mind of numb, just like on Mars where the atmosphere is dire and grim.  You all explore the red sea of rock, like you did when entering a gym for the first time. Eyes open and hands out, feeling the heat like Maximus going home. Taking in the sights and smells. Heads low as if stocking your prey, moving calmly like staking out a house. You accept this new world like your step dad on your mom's wedding day, unsure but ready for the task.  Just as you accept the dark that weightlifting brings, knowing all too well that good things come after the darkest of times. Gym rats now huddle and talk about plans, as if we were making a flier and advertisements on expanding the gym and getting new members. A meeting on Mars, a meeting from afar, makes for a meeting that will bring light, water and food for gym rats to feed upon. 

You trained, and hard. The cool windy air was filled with sand that struck your skin like the bar in your throat. Shins bleed from dragging bars as ankles hurt from unstable rocks below. Even with laying the horse mats out, lifting on slops of black, make for many missed lifts in front. No excuses, they trained, with coffee as your only liquid, and chalk as your only food.  Eating chalk wasn't so bad, let's face it... the amount of chalk that gets on your body always ends up finding a home inside your stomach. Weightlifters never wash their hands, and face it... you don't either. A few PR lifts later and some Shankle yells followed, echoed through the valleys on red, sandy air and darkness beyond.  The weightlifters and their gym on Mars noticed that the more weight they lifted, the more water began to snake through the rock like protein powder slowly falling down unshaken ice water.  Green grass started to break through the rocks like a weightlifter's mental block finally being broke, that's the worst when your mind plays tricks on you. But without tricks there are no tries, for clowns of despair leave for more attempts and tries. Sometimes making it hard makes for harder training, in return making for bigger gains to come.  "All in good time," a coach once said to me as he reached for his glasses and rocket book of programs.  The weightlifters and you rubbed your gym rat tails in a stew of pride, for luck was finally on your side. 

A single gym of athletes hitting heavy singles, made for a world to live in that was completely their own. You don't need society and they don't need you. Create your own, on Mars or at your home. Find a gym and walk on Mars, grab a bar and reach for the stars. 

Create 2016