Few people understand why power lifters continue to torture theirselves day in and day out in the gym. Even others in the gym stare with disbelief as you add plate after plate to the bar, training for the battle that is coming soon. For most of us powerlifting is a way to release the beast within us that tries to escape everyday. This is my experience as I prepare for battle.

When I prepare to step onto the platform, I enter a realm where men don’t exist only beasts and monsters that crave iron, pain, and flesh. As I pull the straps up on my squat suit, and tighten my belt all the people around me become invisible, and I’m surrounded only by demons that want me to fail, clawing and biting at me as I enter the platform, they have no idea that in this realm I am the BEAST, and I will destroy everything in my path to complete my mission. I grab the bar to begin my assault my hands become steal. As I settle under the bar and prepare to lift out the feeling of spikes protruding from the bar and digging into my flesh is a welcome and wanted pain that strikes the beginning of an assault on the iron that will only end in the demise of the weight that tries to stop me. Everything goes BLACK. The fire starts to build as I descend with weight that strikes fear in the hearts of normal humans. I begin to come up, and with blood streaming down my face from my nose there’s no way this weight is gonna beat me. Only the voice of the head judge is heard. RACK. Three whites. As I re-enter the realm of humans, and look into the eyes of the people around me, I know they still don’t understand what drives a person to do such things. At this moment BLACK is understood, only the few of us who enter the realm of pain, and demons can relate to this feeling.

THIS IS BLACK!!!

Chip “TANK” Martin