10 years of lifting: a love letter

A funny thing happened on the way to my thirties. I fell in love, against the odds, with weightlifting.

Last week I reached 10 years of strength training (and with seven years as a vegan). Unlike the lifters who were high school athletes or college gym rats, I didn't start lifting until age 23. Long intimidated by gym culture, I just wanted to feel stronger, so I finally decided to go it alone. I fumbled with equipment at our community center, learned my reps through trial and error, and dredged the toxic Bodybuilding.com site to piece together my workout plans.

I had marked my start date in my 2016 calendar, hoping that I'd train for a year, even if it was a chore. I certainly did not anticipate a whole decade, let alone a new passion.

I've completed 1,623 strength workouts in 10 years, an average of 3.1 workouts per week. I can count the number of weeks I've skipped on my two hands. By logging in the Strong app, I know I've lifted around 25 million pounds total – or like 5 pounds lifted every single minute for 10 years. Which would really burn.

I'm proud of my consistency. I got to the gym 1,623 times despite blizzards, interstate travels, work overload, depression symptoms, and a pandemic. (During COVID-19 lockdown, "the gym" meant our bedroom, my least favorite gym ever.) I can think of only two longer commitments in my life: my relationship, which is 14 years and counting, and playing the saxophone, which ended at 11 years.

I've also enabled another 6,000+ workouts by community members. During the last four years, I became a personal trainer and founded Out Fitness, our little studio. These passion projects provide LGBTQ+ people and their allies with the supportive structure that I had wanted but lacked. Even though I squeeze this work around my full-time job, it's supported by many loved ones and has made ripples and waves that drew stories by our local NPR and News 5.

It's wild to look back at achievements as a person unimaginable to my past self, the one who decided marching band was his only physical option. He would never guess that as soon as I put down dumbbells for the day, I'm counting down until I can pick them up again. He would laugh in horror at the podcasts I listen to about strength training while strength training.

It's weightlifting, specifically, that I want to celebrate at this 10-year mark, because weightlifting is my favorite part. At my 7-year anniversary, I wrote about how my fitness identity has enabled other activities, including yoga, cycling, climbing, and rowing. I've philosophized on how fitness can benefit our agency, well-being, and perseverance against oppression. I've outlined my journey to being vegan for animals and my health.

All of that for the sake of heaving heavy metal around. It's the silliest thing that's also serious. It's the dumbest activity that's also the deepest.

Weightlifting, you've given me a new mindset, a happy place, and a stronger future.

Lifting myself into a growth mindset

I suffer the classic curse of a former straight-A student. I hate being bad at stuff. I'd rather avoid failure and stick to my comfort areas. Picking up a barbell from the ground? In front of other people? Horrifying. Even getting the bulky plates onto it is an awkward process. Then, if it's too heavy, I won't get it one inch off the floor, and I'll have to walk away with shame and a strained back.

Barbell deadlifting was so intimidating to me that it took eight years of lifting all the other objects in the gym before I approached the platform. I knew, mathematically, that I would be able to deadlift 45 pounds. That's only a barbell without any plates on it. But since I lack the talent to deadlift hundreds like those vein-popping competitors, why even try?

Weightlifting is a tedious process that unstitched my fixed mindset. Like most people, I assumed my abilities were fixed, even though, across all types of performance, effort matters more than talent. Writing "effort > talent" into a journal couldn't keep my brain from reverting to its default limits, though. That's why I log hours of repetitive movement and weeks of data prove to myself the case for a growth mindset.

For the deadlift, I started with the 45-pound empty bar, lifting it in the corner of the gym, pretending it was merely a warm-up in case anyone was watching. (They weren't.) It let me practice the form I'd studied from a 30,000-word essay, which boiled down to: tight back, drive floor away, chest up. Very doable. Okay, what about 45 pounds plus 20? Still feels silly lifting a bar with only two pancake-sized tens on its ends, but, yes, I can deadlift 65 pounds. In fact, I can deadlift it dozens of times in a row, see? So let's try 95 pounds. Heavier, but the reps still flow. Next week, how about 135 pounds with those big plates, eh?

Throughout my tenth year of lifting, barbell deadlift has been my new favorite, because I'm learning and growing quickly, against my old fears. Yes, I've strained my back, but it healed and became stronger. That's how strength training works, how it's always worked.

It's thrilling to see new milestones after 10 years of anything! Because progress is slow and not linear, I often forget that it's happening. I'm grinding away on a plateau, and then I zoom out to see I'm on top of a mountain.

Bench pressing with dumbbells is another favorite. Even though my body stalled out in 2020, and then again in 2023, I kept pushing the weights up and down over my chest. I had to stop looking at my graph's downturns. I trusted that the weight increases would resume, and eventually they did.

In 2026, I bench pressed more than my body weight for the first time. Two 90-pound dumbbells are scary when you unstick them from their rack. The doubt rises in my mind when I lean back with them onto the bench. Yet I believed that these dumbbells, like all the dumbbells before them, would rise without dropping onto my head. (One dumbbell did graze my cheek last year, but I assume that was a global gravity glitch. Did you feel it, too?)

The data show that I'm stronger with one arm in 2026 than I was with both arms in 2017. My body and its abilities are not fixed, case closed. Training my brain to think that way is ongoing work. I'm practicing the same mindset of an athlete who chases incremental improvements in their desired performance. Even though I don't plan to be an Olympic weightlifter, I'm aiming to be a 70-year-old athlete who can still push himself up with one arm.

I'm not in my growth mindset even 50% of the time, but when I'm in the gym, it's higher. Lifting is undeniable evidence. During a stressful week, even when I hate myself, I still love to get 150 reps of anything. It reminds me that hard things are repetitive but brief, and they make life better in the long run.

Gym time is my joy time

A gym is a playroom. All the toys have their place, it can get a little messy, and the space is unserious. Your time there is your own. The main rule is you don't tell the other kids how to play.

"Get in and get out" is a good strategy for most of my clients to accommodate strength training. But for me, gym time is the fun part, not just a process. Lately, I'll treat myself by stretching my 60-minute routine to almost two hours, if the gym isn't busy and I have a snack packed.

As I'm learning to say "no" to requests of my time that aren't fulfilling, my calendar is opening up for more gym sessions and more rest – both of which make a virtuous cycle. While I average 3.1 workouts per week, four makes me happiest (although at five, my soreness starts to accumulate).

These exercises give me a joyful connection to myself. My brain lets go of everything except the one task in front of me. The physical performance is satisfying, both in its own right and as part of multiyear progress. In each motion, I can feel effects of my stress levels, how restful my sleep was, what foods I've been eating, any new aches or new strength. It's intentionally checking all my self-care. Then I rack the heavy thing and decide which heavy thing I want next.

That mindful movement requires a gym space where you feel safe enough to challenge yourself! I founded Out Fitness because I saw that commercial gyms aren't affirming in that way for most people I know. Then I surprised myself by discovering that Out Fitness also wasn't the perfect gym for me. I wanted lots of toys and open space. I needed a gym equipped like Planet Fitness but without their crushing crowds and profit tactics.

So I joined a proper weightlifting gym in 2024. It's 10,000 square feet full of gear. Most importantly, its members are kind and show diversity of every type. I no longer need to skip "peak" times or swarmed machines, so my workouts are aligning better with my varying energy of the day. I've formed emotional attachments to some of the equipment, like the aforementioned barbells, a reclined chest fly machine, or a brand-new hack squat that I helped the gym owner unload from a truck.

I knew I'd fallen in love with gyms when I wanted them to be part of my vacations, too. Hotel gyms get derided, but I find them to be exciting chances to try new exercise adaptations or test different equipment brands. I know I'm not the only one, because HotelGyms.com exists. On warm trips, I'll scour maps for an outdoor pull-up bar that's someplace inconspicuous. I'm not setting any PRs on vacation, but a short session activates me to better enjoy our subsequent sightseeing, drinks, and ice cream (always ice cream).

I think the world needs more gyms, and not only to meet growing demand. The world needs more places where people are gladly caring for their minds and bodies. The world needs more iron paradises, municipal rec centers, spin studios, rock climbing walls, yoga spaces, hotel gyms, walking tracks, rows of RowErgs, outdoor calisthenics stations, and pools. Every neighborhood should have a "corner studio" like Out Fitness, too.

Stronger for a better future

I said that I'd wanted to feel stronger in my years before weightlifting, but why? Stronger for what? Unsurprisingly, dissatisfaction with my body pushed me over the gym threshold. Body image, forever used to harm women, has been intensifying for men for a century and with concentration on gay men (though increasingly spreading). I am not immune. I thought my body would feel strong once it looked strong.

I wouldn't be celebrating these 10 years if that had remained my motivation. In fact, I'm certain that kind of motivation can't sustain a decade-long commitment. Shortly after moving up through sequences of dumbbells and weight stacks, I was getting gifts I didn't know I needed: Self-efficacy that I'd not yet found in my career. Screen-free time that I'd not yet recognized as crucial. Mental benefits for my depression that was not yet diagnosed.

That last one has cemented exercise as a lifelong practice for me. Weightlifting is key in my depression management plan. When I lift, I ruminate less and sleep more. Even when depression knocks me to the couch, I know my motivation will return eventually to propel me to the gym. Lift heavy stone make sad head voice quiet.

I used to worry that I would give up on my lifting habit, but, sometime during this tenth year, I realized I would continue even if there were no more gains. I enjoy it that much.

A recent article caught my attention by claiming that you shouldn't stress about self-improvement for the new year. As a self-improvement junkie, I wanted to read it and disagree. Isn't it too indulgent to prioritize pleasure? The news feels too dark, full of bad leaders and bad outlooks.

The author points out that self-improvement starts with an assumption that there's something wrong with you. That makes you choose tasks you dislike as corrective resolutions.

Freely enjoying ourselves – and not following some plan we've designed to maximize enjoyment – is necessary. It can't wait until I've "fixed" myself. It can't wait until the world is right. (Not coincidentally, this is the opposite of the Catholic upbringing I got.)

And enjoying ourselves is what the future needs. Losing yourself in a conversation makes another person feel valued. Losing yourself in a book lets you learn new perspectives. Losing yourself in nature or exercise or cooking – or resting when you want rest – recharges you. We already know the alternative: being crushed by people who want us defeated. We need as many happy people as possible to withstand that. More bluntly: suicidal people can't turn elections.

So I'm trying to say "yes" to happy and "no" to being overwhelmed.

Last month, I was honored to join a "Social Entrepreneurship" discussion at an annual leadership program, one that had changed my life's direction in 2019. The four of us on the panel each had passion projects (bookstore, landscaping business, youth recreation) that generated just enough revenue to benefit as many Clevelanders as possible.

I shared that Out Fitness as a business is subsidized by my donated labor and donations from dozens of others. It runs on love. Like my day job in community development, Out Fitness supports a neighborhood by multiplying the actions of neighbors. No one gets rich, but lots of people find new fulfillment – me included.

It's the best experiment I've been able to make for the path I see to social progress:

1. Happy people doing what they love,
2. in spaces they share with others,
3. to build diverse neighborhoods and cities,
4. that organize people toward more just policies.

For years, my fixed mindset told me I was too unworthy to start at Step 1. I threw myself into service of communities, and the rest of my time I devoted to attacking my flaws. No wonder I had no reserves of joy to sustain me each time our country took a nasty turn.

It took trial and error, but I found weightlifting. I love it, and it makes me happy. That's the whole essay, really. I could have saved a lot of time by writing only that; time that could be spent in the gym!

One more thing. This path will keep leading to unpredictable places. About a year ago, a friend, someone who does good for the world, asked me for workout plans. I've provided workouts for friends before, but this time, for the first time, the friend fell in love with lifting like me. And loved it even more 100 workouts later. After nearly 15 years of friendship, we have a newfound shared interest. Our past selves would be surprised but overjoyed.