The Kraken Files: The Eight Things They Never Told You About When You Started Powerlifting

When I started powerlifting, I came from a background of very little knowledge about the sport.

The only exposure I had was to a group of sloppy-fat guys with bad kitchen swastika tattoos (don’t ask) in the back room of a crappy garage gym who used to throw plates through the wall when they were mad, and who paced around like cranky, near-cardiac arrest gorillas.

These were weekend warriors, folks, hardly the real deal.

So I thought everyone was a raging malcontent from a questionable background, taking out his small-man syndrome on the world.

It’s actually a lot different than that, for the most part. I still think the lot of us come from lunatic genetics, but that’s another, and beloved, story.

Anyhoo, once I started powerlifting, for real, in crews, and competing, I learned a lot. The reality of what I learned I decide to compile in the following helpful list:

1) Within about 6 months of starting serious  program-based training, you will wake up daily as an 85 year old man….and not a healthy one.
It will take you 5 minutes to get out of bed and half-upright (cause you will never stand up straight again), you will limp, grumbling, out of your room, and lumber around like a vaguely lost and disgruntled ox looking for your feed bag.
Everything will hurt, and yes, you probably are dying.

2) You will not be able to reach necessary areas, even under threat of death…..this means wiping your ass will become a training session, with sets and reps (and plenty of fails) on its own.
A PR is a day in which you don’t have to throw away your underwear at sunset.
And forget scratching your back, EVER AGAIN.
Invest in a good bamboo backscratcher, or marry a bitch with killer fake nails. ….that or get to know your door jams really well. Then one day when a murder happens in your house the cops can find your DNA roughly 3-5 foot off the floor on every door frame in the house, and be totally perplexed.

3) Velcro shoes will start to look super fashionable.

Forget tying shoes, it won’t be worth it.
You will stare at the laces, angry as fuck, and wish they would burst into flame, even though the shoes are currently on your feet.
If you have a significant other, you will harass the piss out of him/her until he/she ties your damn fucking shoes for you.
Why the hell are they so far away from your hands anyway?!!?!

4) You will start eating enough to feed a small family of hippos.
If you are like most of us, at least 25% of your diet will be peanut butter alone…..and like 85% will be meat…..raw, cooked, your neighbor, probably your neighbor’s cat too…..and you will suck at math, because those numbers don’t add up……but you don’t care, because you are busy dipping a pork roast in peanut butter and crushed Doritos.

5) It will take you 15 minutes and a chair, wall, friend’s hand, and probably belief in a higher power to get off the fucking floor.
Seriously, don’t even get down there, because you ain’t coming back up.
You will have to make a weird tripod of half-extended leg, ratchet arm, and palm to lever yourself off the floor like a 500 pound ballerina.
It won’t be pretty.

6) You will emit farts that peel paint off walls, doors, and every imaginable surface, even other human beings, who aren’t even painted in the first place.
You will kill loved ones, distress your dogs, and even vultures and hyenas will urinate a “steer clear” stream of warning to others on your house.

• Coworkers will hate you.
• Family will disown you.
• Police might arrest you, as long as they have biohazard riot gear.

The only people that will appreciate your ass, literally, are other powerlifters, who will nod in jealous approval as you burn the nose off their faces.

7) When you tell people that ask if you lift that you are a powerlifter, you will get a flurry of Charades-By-Idiots that looks like a seizure crossed with Olympic lifting and fake wrestling.

Some will even start furiously curling, asking if that is what you do.
It totally is, of course.
We curl every day, bro.
When they hear that magic word, ‘bench’ that they finally recognize, they will all ask WHAT DO YOU BENCH, BRO?!
And that is about as good as it gets in that conversation.

8) At some point you will all emit fluids out of at least 3 of the 9 orifices you have, sometimes several AT ONCE.
So, you will bleed out of your nose, eyes, ears, shit, puke, piss, etc.
The truly great lifters will shit out of multiple orifices at once.
Yikes.
And I am not talking a discreet stream or spot, no no, we are talking projectile fountains of gore.
I have seen blood spurt two feet, puke shoot 2-3 feet, and piss spray a near mile.
And ladies, this includes you.
It will happen, so leave all those illusions you have about being able to stay “feminine” while you lift at home with your high heels and lipstick.

Ok, we all know I can do this all day, because once I start ranting, it comes out of all MY orifices ad nauseum, until everyone wants to die.

But I think I hit my word limit about 150 words ago, so I will wrap it up with this……

POWERLIFTING IS FUCKING AMAZEBALLS. 😀

Now can someone do me a solid and come help me out of this fucking chair??!?!