Today at the gym something happened that had frightened me for a long time, and I am okay with it.
When I first started lifting, bench press felt scary. I did not like having heavy things over my face. "What if I drop the dumbbells ON MY FACE?" I wailed to Joe in my first month of lifting.
"Mom," he said patiently, "you're not going to drop the dumbbells on your face. If you can't do the rep, you'll drop the dumbbells to the side of the bench."
I've posted before about how I don't make a ton of progress on bench when I don't have easy access to a spotter, because I push myself harder when someone is spotting me. I've accepted that I probably won't drop a barbell on my face, but I don't want to have to wriggle out from underneath a barbell that made an unplanned landing on my belly.
Today, though, I had a near miss.
The good bench was open, and I snagged it and moved the brackets down. The person who had used it last must have been, like, 6'5" or perhaps part octopus, because the brackets were way up high. Under ordinary circumstances I might have moved the brackets one spot lower, but it already felt like I was moving them a preposterous distance.
I did a warmup set and a couple of working sets. At the end of my second working set the bar slid into the bracket with a satisfying thunk and I thought to myself, "That bracket is just a little too high, but it will be all right." [DUN DUN DUUUUUUN, we got your foreshadowing right here, folks.]
I was feeling strong and happy, so I added more weight to the bar. I did another set, being careful to keep it "in the pocket," meaning I was almost but not quite out of gas. And then I misgrooved the last rep, so the right end of the bar wound up in the slightly-too-high bracket and the left end did not.
I did not have enough oomph left in my pecs to get it where it needed to be. A too-heavy thing was suspended over my face in a way I couldn't figure out how to resolve. I said "help!" because I didn't know what else to do.
There was a father-son duo on the next bench and the dad came over. "Do you need help?" he asked. "Yes, please," I said, and he scooted the wayward end of the barbell up into the bracket. I thanked him and took a deep breath.
I said to myself, "ACK!" I said to myself, "YIKES!" I said to myself, "This feels embarrassing but I am sure I am not the first person to need help after a misgrooved bench rep." But I was not feeling philosophical enough to do my planned back-off set, so instead I stepped over to the water fountain to have a calming drink of cold water and text Joe.
I thought about flight but I did not flee. Instead I went back to the weight room, where I stood up tall and put on my game face and finished my accessories. I said to myself, "It is all right for me to be the only woman in this space. I can still belong here." I said to myself, "I'm not going to feel embarrassed about needing help to finish a hard thing," and it mostly worked.
Here's the thing: I need to get back on the horse. I need to go back soon and bench that same weight for that same number of reps, so that I don't psych myself out about doing heavy sets on bench. (Next time, though, I will make sure the bracket is at the optimal height and not at a height that mostly works.) Elwood says he'll go with me on Wednesday. I'm telling you guys so that I actually do get back on the horse instead of just thinking to myself that it would be a good idea.
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