Special kind of monster

OlderWolf

New Member
Hello everyone,

I've heard other people talk about this and it's also something I've always thought of myself. That special kind of monster we all have to do what we do, to go the gym everyday and force ourselves to the brink, to train hard and constantly without fear or regret, to eat several meals a day sometimes forcing ourselves to do so, to cycle and inject hormones into our bodies, to not fear pain or soreness but rather welcome it. I think it was CT Fletcher or someone who said something along the lines of; someone who squats 500 lbs or more has to have something inside them, some beast, because a happy go lucky mother fucker doesn't do shit like that. I find it to be true. Someone who has no demons, no monsters lurking inside them, no pain inside, no anger in someway or another, can not put that much weight on his shoulders and lift it up. It takes a special kind of monster to drive that willpower. Something inside of us that even though your body might tell you that you're crazy, that monster inside you tells you to shut the fuck up and do it. I'm not a violent person by any means but I do recognize there's something there that drives me at the gym. I know it's not boredom, it's not because I want to look good or because of any narcissist train of thought and specially it's not because it makes me happy. Because more often than not doing what we do doesn't make you happy, it makes you sore, it gives you pain, it drains you both fiscally and emotionally, it drives you to the precipice of madness in that moment when you dive deep into your soul to gather strength for that last rep. To me that doesn't make me happy, for me that calms me inside, it feeds the beast and keeps it at bay. It calms that special kind of monster I feel inside. It drains the anger, the stress, the spitefulness of my ambitions, the pain of my failures and it drives me to keep going, to not give up in the gym or in my life. I see some guys around the gym that really shouldn't be there; they're always smiling and talking to their friends, they look the same year after year without making progress, just smiles and bullshit all the time and I think to myself, go home, be with your family, who are you fooling by being here, you're happy, be happy and let the monsters have their place you know? I don't look down upon or bother anyone who wants to workout but have a fucking purpose to do it. If you're going to do something do it right or don't do it at all. I also see people like me and I see it in their eyes, how they look at the weights with a love and hate relationship that only we can understand, that only the monster lurking inside of us understands; it's our mistress, the iron madden. It's the look of "don't fucking bother me with your bullshit because I am fighting me demons' , it's the "stay the fuck out of my way because i'm being a warrior against myself right now". We know who we re, we know who belongs....

Any who, sorry for the rant, needed to vent a bit and just wanted to know your thoughts about this and if anyone else thinks this way. Thanks for reading guys.
 
Very well said, it could use being broken down into paragraphs, lol, but I feel about the same way.

I was in the gym last night and there's this group of guys just like you described standing around talking. Guys that just lift light, never make progress and don't look like they lift. They were standing near the deadlift platform and I went in to practice power cleans. They all went to the other room and I heard one say something about me shaking the room in there. I'm thinking they should go to a library if they want quiet or hang out at a bar or something if they just want to talk. The little bit of "lifting" they do isn't worth doing anyway. Might as well just go to a park and walk because the effects would be the same. I mean everyone has a right to be at the gym and good for them for the little that they do. I'm just saying they aren't the same as me. We aren't there for the same reasons.

It makes me wish there was a hardcore gym where I live where everyone there is there for the same reasons I am. Not full of casual lifters getting in my way and being intimidated by me or worse yet complaining to staff that my deadlifting scares them.

I'm a former heroin addict, over 4 1/2 years clean. The gym is my therapy. I guess I traded one addiction for the other, but my life is better now in every way. I'm obsessed with being as strong as possible. I've squatted 500lbs and now I want 600lbs. Deadlifted 600lbs and now I want 700lbs. Always more, never happy with just being the same. If a gym day falls on my birthday or New Year's I go to the gym like it was any other day. If I'm full and still have calories to hit I'm still eating.

I get a lot of satisfaction out of all my hard work and sacrifice and what it's taken to get here. I don't believe most are cut out for this life. I've had a lot of bad things happen and instead of quitting I hit it harder and the training helped get me through it. When my dad died a few years ago I never missed a day. When my fiancee cheated on me and kicked me out a few months ago during a meet prep I took advantage of the weight I lost and dropped a weight class and took some state records at the meet. I live and breathe this shit for real.

Anyway, that's my own little rant. But yeah, you're not alone in feeling that way.
 
Great reply man thanks and sorry about the organization of the post lol it kinda just spewed out.

I hear ya about the gym setting. Where I live there's one gym (the one I go to) and planet shitness so it's not really an option. It's filled with lot's of old people and young guys that come and smile and bullshit like you said. There's also an LA fitness further out but it's the same shit as mine so why bother.

My demons and monsters come from different places. My brother passed away in front of me when I was young, my family moved around a lot so I never made any real friends, my father worked most of the day so I never got to spend time with him and didn't really even get to know him until recently. My mom had cancer a few years back and even though she survived, she was never the same after that.

I also stutter since I can remember and sometimes just ordering some food or taking a call or asking for directions is a big task for me and it's been very humiliating throughout my life. I've accept it as a part of me but it's definitely something that drives that anger within. Some people look at me when I try and talk like i'm slow or as if I had mental problems; I know it's just ignorance but it gets tiring after you've had to deal with it for so long, sometimes I just avoid people all together, for the most part people are generally assholes anyway. It's been a hindrance on my life but I've managed to strive in spite of it. I have my own business and my own house, married with kids and i'm healthy so all in all i'd say I've done pretty good considering everything I've gone through.... but the anger , the demons, the monster inside still breaths, I can feel it with every rep.

Going to the gym has definitely made me the person I am today. It's helped me get to where I am in my life. It's made me push myself beyond my limitations and it's made ghost of all the fears I had growing up because of the way I talk. The monster inside me has driven my fears away so in a way I should be thankful; in someway that's why I keep feeding it iron and sweat, as a way of gratitude and solace for everything it's done for me. It's my beast and my motivation; my darkest side is what has brought me the brightest days of my life.
 
Hello everyone,

I've heard other people talk about this and it's also something I've always thought of myself. That special kind of monster we all have to do what we do, to go the gym everyday and force ourselves to the brink, to train hard and constantly without fear or regret, to eat several meals a day sometimes forcing ourselves to do so, to cycle and inject hormones into our bodies, to not fear pain or soreness but rather welcome it. I think it was CT Fletcher or someone who said something along the lines of; someone who squats 500 lbs or more has to have something inside them, some beast, because a happy go lucky mother fucker doesn't do shit like that. I find it to be true. Someone who has no demons, no monsters lurking inside them, no pain inside, no anger in someway or another, can not put that much weight on his shoulders and lift it up. It takes a special kind of monster to drive that willpower. Something inside of us that even though your body might tell you that you're crazy, that monster inside you tells you to shut the fuck up and do it. I'm not a violent person by any means but I do recognize there's something there that drives me at the gym. I know it's not boredom, it's not because I want to look good or because of any narcissist train of thought and specially it's not because it makes me happy. Because more often than not doing what we do doesn't make you happy, it makes you sore, it gives you pain, it drains you both fiscally and emotionally, it drives you to the precipice of madness in that moment when you dive deep into your soul to gather strength for that last rep. To me that doesn't make me happy, for me that calms me inside, it feeds the beast and keeps it at bay. It calms that special kind of monster I feel inside. It drains the anger, the stress, the spitefulness of my ambitions, the pain of my failures and it drives me to keep going, to not give up in the gym or in my life. I see some guys around the gym that really shouldn't be there; they're always smiling and talking to their friends, they look the same year after year without making progress, just smiles and bullshit all the time and I think to myself, go home, be with your family, who are you fooling by being here, you're happy, be happy and let the monsters have their place you know? I don't look down upon or bother anyone who wants to workout but have a fucking purpose to do it. If you're going to do something do it right or don't do it at all. I also see people like me and I see it in their eyes, how they look at the weights with a love and hate relationship that only we can understand, that only the monster lurking inside of us understands; it's our mistress, the iron madden. It's the look of "don't fucking bother me with your bullshit because I am fighting me demons' , it's the "stay the fuck out of my way because i'm being a warrior against myself right now". We know who we re, we know who belongs....

Any who, sorry for the rant, needed to vent a bit and just wanted to know your thoughts about this and if anyone else thinks this way. Thanks for reading guys.
I see where you're coming from, then there's freaks like Evan Centopani or John Meadows, even Dave Palumbo.... Who are FREAKISHLY nice.
 
I see where you're coming from, then there's freaks like Evan Centopani or John Meadows, even Dave Palumbo.... Who are FREAKISHLY nice.

Oh I agree and I'm a nice guy too for the most part. Someone who doesn't know me wouldn't even think I had those monsters inside and like most people who do , I tend to hide them very well. Like that saying that comedians are the saddest people inside; sometimes the face we show to the world is just that, a face, but beneath I assure you everyone of those freaks have their own special kind of monster that drives them. I can't imagine how you can work that hard, go trough all that pain and be all mushy happy rainbows inside. IMO anyway, no one truly knows what we have inside but oneself.
 
Oh I agree and I'm a nice guy too for the most part. Someone who doesn't know me wouldn't even think I had those monsters inside and like most people who do , I tend to hide them very well. Like that saying that comedians are the saddest people inside; sometimes the face we show to the world is just that, a face, but beneath I assure you everyone of those freaks have their own special kind of monster that drives them. I can't imagine how you can work that hard, go trough all that pain and be all mushy happy rainbows inside. IMO anyway, no one truly knows what we have inside but oneself.
Possibly, I'm not sure. I think it's more likely people like "us" would've been the hunters, the warriors, the breeders and the survivors back in the day... Now we get that out in the gym.... I'm 75% viking, and 25% scottish by blood... So there's a warrior ingrained into my DNA for SURE!
 
Inner demons or not I'm very calm in the gym and even at meets, definitely not one of those rage focused lifters. I go to a very calm and peaceful place in my mind when I'm lifting heavy. I had some people comment on it at my last meet actually.
 
Possibly, I'm not sure. I think it's more likely people like "us" would've been the hunters, the warriors, the breeders and the survivors back in the day... Now we get that out in the gym.... I'm 75% viking, and 25% scottish by blood... So there's a warrior ingrained into my DNA for SURE!
Every blood line has its warriors
And america makes the best ones the world has ever seen
Were all mutts here
 
Yeaaah buddy!! I agree. I dont lift to look good i dont lift to impress i lift bc its the only thing that can physically and emotionally drain me. Ive been alot calmer in life since i started getiing into powerlifting and bodybuilding. It exercises my demons and keeps them in check. I dont grunt and i dont drop weights shit i dont even listen to music. I pace calmly back and forth infront of the bar then lift that bitch and gently put her down . even though it doesnt look like im lifting with anger its a fuckin war inside. I didnt hear that demon line from ct tho i remember hearing Kai Greene say it in some interview or maybe his short Documentary.
 
Yeaaah buddy!! I agree. I dont lift to look good i dont lift to impress i lift bc its the only thing that can physically and emotionally drain me. Ive been alot calmer in life since i started getiing into powerlifting and bodybuilding. It exercises my demons and keeps them in check. I dont grunt and i dont drop weights shit i dont even listen to music. I pace calmly back and forth infront of the bar then lift that bitch and gently put her down . even though it doesnt look like im lifting with anger its a fuckin war inside. I didnt hear that demon line from ct tho i remember hearing Kai Greene say it in some interview or maybe his short Documentary.

Yup, now that I think about it I think it was kai Greene too... only person I wouldn't mind working out next to that's loud like that is Ronnie Coleman lol yyeaahhhhh buddyyyyyyy light weight babyyyyyyy .... but only because he's a fucking beast and a legend in my book. I could do without that guy in the background with the short shorts though...



I'm looking for the Kai Greene video where he says that.
 
Yup, now that I think about it I think it was kai Greene too... only person I wouldn't mind working out next to that's loud like that is Ronnie Coleman lol yyeaahhhhh buddyyyyyyy light weight babyyyyyyy .... but only because he's a fucking beast and a legend in my book. I could do without that guy in the background with the short shorts though...



I'm looking for the Kai Greene video where he says that.


Ronnie Coleman is a different story hahaahahah he could scream into a mic or megaphone i wouldnt mind lol
Watching his workout vids give me the fuckin chills on top of an adrenaline rush.. Ronnie Coleman, Kai Greene, and Ct Fletcher was my gateway to this world. All BEASTS!!!!
 
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