After a decade-long break from lifting weights, the result of a near-crippling injury to my motivation, I began working out again a few months back. During my hiatus, gyms apparently instituted a mandatory sleeveless T-shirt policy for guys. They also seem to encourage male members to wear gear from their old college fraternities, no matter how far into their 30s they age.
So while my wardrobe needs to be updated and de-sleeved, I’m feeling good about my progress–slowly making incremental moves up the dumbbell line, losing inches in some places, gaining them in others.
And since I was feeling so good, I decided to ruin it by joining Nick Keaty for a workout. Keaty, for those who don’t follow local amateur competitive weight-lifting competitions, recently won the heavyweight division of the Chicago’s Strongest Man competition.
Weight lifting with a strongman is as emasculating as stepping up to a urinal next to Ron Jeremy. Not wanting to endure this experiment at my own gym, I traveled to the Hyde Park Bally’s, where Keaty trains three days a week before spending his weekends hauling boulders and steel tubes in preparation for events sponsored by North American Strongman Inc. (whose ridiculous logo can be found at nastrongmaninc.com).
Strongman competitions require athleticism in addition to the ability to move motor vehicles. While normal guys boast about how much weight they can bench press, strongmen measure their development by make and model. “At the 2004 Nationals I lifted a Ford Focus,” Keaty said. “Then I moved up to a Ford Ranger.”
The 5-foot-9, 275-pound Mt. Carmel alum was easy to spot in the gym. He resembles a solidly constructed single-family home . . . only larger. As it was a Monday–back day–our regimen included exercises like the Romanian dead lift. And while I’m more comfortable with the Persian dead lift, I followed the big guy’s lead.
He did a few reps with the bar set at 225 pounds. I did a few reps with the bar set at 225 pounds. “I do a few of these light ones as a warm-up,” he said.
Ouch.
As he added more manhole-cover-size plates to the bar, I would try to follow suit until my back would notify my brain that it would no longer be participating in this foolishness. The exercises became even less appealing after the barbell scraped across Keaty’s shins, sending streams of blood down his legs. “That always happens,” he admitted.
I asked why he willfully spends hours each week torturing his body. “I enjoy pushing my physical limits, seeing how strong I can get my body,” the manager of a Potbelly restaurant replied.
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Fair enough. He certainly doesn’t do it for the chicks–Keaty recently got married, though he doesn’t wear his platinum wedding ring to the gym because he’d crush it.
We proceeded to bent-over rows, bent-over lateral raises, reverse hypers and hang cleans, me making a mental note to call Chicago’s strongest chiropractor in the morning, Keaty focusing on the North American Strongman Nationals this October in Louisville.
If my spine has healed by then, I’ll be cheering him on.
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