Saturday, August 22, 2009

Saturday, August 22--Interlude, Part III

The first time I ever lifted weights, at a summer conditioning camp for incoming freshman athletes, I bench-pressed 50 pounds eight times. That is lifting the bar "loaded" with two and a half pound plates on both sides. To see this pitiful image is to think it even worse than just hearing the total of 50 pounds. I was an incredibly skinny teen, about six feet tall with about 140 or 150 pounds on my fifteen-year-old frame.
There is, I think, no greater athletic optimism than that that comes with one's first attempts at lifting weights. The chart we used to gauge our progress at this camp showed incredible weekly improvements in bench press, incline bench press, and the other exercises. This early progress (my bench press had increased to 115 pounds by the end of the summer, a swell of a ridiculous 130%) will never be accomplished again in one's life.
It it with this knowledge that I know on an intellectual level that I will not just wake up one morning and rise up Vince Carter style (see above post) on some unsuspecting rim and/or defender. But I must say that there is a bit of the innocent, optimistic kid in me who hopes and believes that this training and focus I have undertaken in recent weeks will pay off, much sooner rather than later, with rattled rims and shaking basket supports.

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