The workout was awesome, I looked back in my notebook feeling more bad-ass then ever, and saw how my strength had gone up that day, it was unreal. Not once in the entire month I had been working out did I ever gain this much strength between any two workouts. How did it even happen! I thought maybe i would start feeling sore and stuff, but I was fine all the way through dinner and getting in bed.
I peeped up to my alarm clock the next morning, and tried to get out of bed. Every inch of my body was sore and weakened, moving was painful. Though i had gotten accustomed to soreness being somewhere or the other for the past whole month, it had never been this bad, or extensive. And I could always go to the gym and match or exceed my previous strength, so I had learned to suck it up and go hard anyway.
Today though was different. I made my way to the breakfast table and had my morning shake with 2 dosas, heck, even my jaws felt a bit sore. My bookbag felt heavier then the past week. Though not as heavy as I remembered it feeling just 1 month before. It reminded me of how much strength I had gained.
I walked to the bus stand, aware that it was harder then the last week, though I forced myself to walk as fast as possible, though not run because it would make me nauseous and feel like throwing up the heavy shake I had, for which just today I had added flaxseed into. I had heard flaxseed was super good, but boy did it add weight.
The bus was unlike my class. Though my old bullies in class now decently respected me by their leader Harsh having seen how hard I worked out in the gym. The guys on the bus that teased me, still teased me. Though it didn't feel as bad, I had gained a good bit of self confidence, and the constant commotion of the bus and fast it was moving diluted things down. Make no mistake though, I was still the skinny guy, the guy that didn't talk to anyone and didn't have any friends to them. None of the people with me on the bus were in my class as far as I knew. It's not like I was averse to talking, but somehow no one on the bus ever wanted to talk to me, and I was fine with staring out the window, daydreaming about how strong I was gonna get.
I got to class to my friend Sanjeev, talked to him for a bit, sat through all the classes, I had learned that listening to teachers was the most time effective way to do decently well. Today though, I felt more tired, and the creeping muscle ache continued. Unlike most days I could only hear what the teacher was saying, not really think too hard about it. Most days I could think ahead. The soreness had dulled a bit by lunch, and a bit more after eating, but it was still prominent when I went home. I knew the fastest way to get rid of it was meat and sleep. And I felt blessed to have an entire bowl of chicken curry. munched through the entire thing then through all my sister's leftovers.
I decided not to rest, it would make me look weak and my parents might think i should stop working out, and I couldn't afford that to happen. I finished the little homework I had that day.
Then I went straight over to the gym, taking my workout notebook with me.
Half my soreness was gone, my chest and biceps felt fully cleared, my quads still hurt, and my claves hurt with walking. I remembered something. Over and over again I was warned about overtraining, and how it breaks down the body and all, but I never listened. I was lucky to have seen a few sports movies, and I knew that the best only came to those that worked the hardest, every single day, till they were bathed in sweat and limping in exhaustion, to do it all again the next day. Anything less would be to loose, in my case, to not get as big and strong as I wanted to, and besides, I had been improving every singe workout! Every single day I had gone back I found myself better. Able to add reps to at least half of all the exercises. Able to increase weight. Able to do the same weight and reps a bit smoother and with better form. I was getting stronger every single workout, and good on me that I had noted everything down, looking at the last days stuff always fired me up. Whatever pain or soreness I felt was not to be taken seriously, no big deal.
I warmed up by jogging in place for minute, I had learned I didn't really need to, but today I took the full soak of the epic music they were playing. Nothing mattered now, I had to be confident, but some voice that I tried to ignore told me I might be disappointed today.
I went straight to the lat pulldown. This time it was being used by this really strong guy, who was pulling what must have been 85kg for as least 15 reps. I could see the expression of strain on his face. This is how I intended to use the machine.
It was the man's last set, his face was turning red and contorted, which I did not think possible as he wasn't light skinned. His jaws bulged as his teeth clamped together. He wasn't thinking about if he felt strong or not I was sure, he was just doing it.
It was my turn. I sat on the machine. Did the first 2 warm up sets. The second warm up set of 20kg felt a but heavier then I remembered. Then I went to the working set with 30kg.
I pulled it for reps, but the 6th rep it was already hard, and by rep 8 my arms simply didn't want to move. I let it go up for rep 9, and pulled as hard as I could, mind over muscle, like the anime character with a dented ego. I had to give it all, but my arms simply refused, I couldn't.
I looked at my training log and hung my head in shame, 10 reps was easy yesterday, and though i would workout hard an hour every day, fatigue hadn't ever caught up to me for a whole month, something may have been wrong, but so what. Then 2 more sets of Lat pull-downs had the same disappointment.
That was just one exercise, I decided I would break records in the push-ups, remembering how much extra food I had at lunch to fuel this. I was right, my body wasn't lying about my chest and arms being perfectly fine.