A Plastic Weight Set For A Troubled Youth
By: Dan Church

(First appeared in 2007 issue of Muscular Development Magazine)

The small span of time from when I was 14 to 15 years old would prove to be the toughest period of my life. I was going through life like a worm that had been partially amputated, sliding my way around the world with no direction. In the span of this year my town�s gym teacher murdered my neighbors (and committed suicide himself), 2 friends of mine decided to take the plunge into suicide, my grandmother, uncle, and aunt all died, and then to top it off my parents got divorced. My adolescence had taken abrupt fall into hell. I was constantly losing ground in my life.

Growing up in Alaska I was accustomed to suffering, being at mercy with the wills of nature and feeling the pains of living in an isolated island community. But nothing prepared me for the suffering I would face that year. After my parents divorced I found myself in an even smaller town in Montana staying with my mom. I was alone and a stranger in a community which was hostile to me. I needed something to occupy my time, so I decided to start lifting weights. I saved up my money, and started how so many other young lifters did; with a plastic weight set. I immersed myself into lifting the plastic weights every chance I got until it became second nature to me. I would sometimes workout for 4 or more hours and have no idea where the time had gone. Lifting became my anti-depressant and way of dealing with pain and strife. The ghosts of my past looked onward at me as I pushed each weight up, increasing my repetitions with each workout. I continued to lift weights and found my release in them as I stuck with it everyday for the next 5 years. I ended up building a strong Herculean body from all my mental demons and suffering. The more my workouts progressed, the more my life improved. I stopped drinking, I found myself in less violent situations, and I studied hard in school. I didn�t need any distractions from my weight lifting obsession. Luckily for me it payed off and I graduated 2nd in my class and with a physique that no other 18 year old in my state possessed.

In the current climate of America kids are unusually soft and feminine expecting everything to be given to them. They do not understand work ethic, dedication, or suffering in the least. But the ones that do suffer are the poor, neglected, and demoralized. And to these kids I offer this salvation: a hard life will build you a hard body, and it is very hard to beat a young man�s spirit who has already been through hell. Instead of giving kids prescriptions I often ponder if giving them a gym membership will help them out more in the long run. I believe that many of the youth of this nation are only one workout away from completely changing their life. Sometimes all it takes is some gold ol� fashioned suffering to build a body that no one can take away from you.

I love working out because it teaches so many valuable lessons about life. We learn about patience, setting & accomplish goals, and even personal sacrifice to an extent. I like the feeling that I am constantly building something that is uniquely mine; a body all to my own.