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The Powerlifting Wife
I have noticed over my career in powerlifting that we lifters constantly use terms like hardcore, sacrifice, work ethic and commitment when describing our dedication to the sport of powerlifting. However, we rarely give credit to the real heroes of our sport, the people who have as much time and energy invested as we do in our pursuit of strength, and that's the poor wives who put up with us day in and day out. Never complaining but always supporting and sacrificing everything for us. So, I thought I'd write a list of some of the garbage that these brave women have to put up with and to finally give them some credit for our success.
1. Your day finally is winding down and you sit on the couch to relax and your husband scoots over. In what you first think is a show of affection, he then asks, "Can you massage my shoulder?"
2. You need to wear surgical gloves and mask to grab the laundry out of the laundry basket because the husband's clothes are filled with blood from popped zits and bar wounds. The underwear has brown streaks and everything is soaking wet from sweat (you hope).
3. Your husband pulls his shirt off and asks you to scratch his back but his skin looks like a pepperoni pizza and you can barely hold back your dry heaves.
4. Your husband wakes you up at 4:00 AM and asks you to help him put on his socks.
5. You're ready to go out to a restaurant and your husband asks you which Westside shirt looks the best with his black sweatpants.
6. Your husband can squat over 900 lbs. but can't lift a bag of garbage and take it outside.
7. Your husband gives you his paycheck and you realize that you've just spent half of it on milk.
8. You want to take a walk on a sunny fall day, but your husband says, "Are you kidding, and burn extra calories?"
9. Your son has a school function that you attend and one hour into it your husband leans over and says, "It's time for me to eat, let's go."
10. The door is stuck because of humidity and you ask your husband for help. He says, "And take a chance of pulling a pec? No way!"
11. You're expecting an important phone call while taking a shower and the phone rings. You scream for your husband to get it. Later you ask who called and he replies, "Sorry I missed it. I got stuck on the couch and couldn't get out in time."
12. Every family vacation is spent in some God forsaken town, in a chalky, loud and sweltering gym, sitting there on a hard metal chair for 6 hours, watching a bunch of fat, bald, gated men lift weights...
13. The last family picture you have is your wedding picture taken 15 years ago, yet on every wall in your house is a picture of your husband standing with his heroes in the sport.
14. Your family picture is actually the picture of your husband with Louie Simmons, who is spoken about so much that he is referred to as "Uncle Louie."
15. Your husband trains at a gym that is 500 miles away from Westside Barbell but you have to watch Chuck Vogelpohl squat on tape and watch your husband sit there mesmerized at a scene he has watched 2,000 times before.
16. Your couch leans to one side because your 300 lb. husband does a free fall from a standing position to sit and then remains in that seat for hours on end.
17. Your husband sits on the couch, packed in ice for an hour after workouts and then wants a hug as his freezing wet skin rubs on you, forcing you to take yet another shower before going to bed.
18. You clean the kitchen every night before retiring to bed and every morning the same egg yolk somehow manages to find the same side of the washing machine.
19. You can't tell your friends or co-workers what your husband does for fear that someone will ask about steroid use.
20. Your dinner time conversations over the day's events revolve around the postings on GROWORDIE.COM.
21. Your bank account is drained because your husband has spent thousands to purchase Westside tapes hoping to get one piece of information.
22. Your husband has quit fifteen jobs over the years because they interfered with his training.
23. After coming home from a meet, the bag of equipment remains in the middle of the living room floor for a week, with everything spilling out and chalk spewing out into the air.
24. Your closet looks like a Chuck Taylor warehouse. When you ask your husband why he needs to keep the old pairs he says, "I squatted my first 800 lbs. in those. I'm never getting rid of them."
25. Every time your husband is around another lifter he ask, "Am I bigger than him?"
26. You haven't gone out on a Friday night in fifteen years because Friday is a training night.
27. You've missed every wedding, family function, funeral, etc. for fifteen years because your husband is training for a meet and can't miss a workout.
28. You wake up at 2:00 AM upon hearing a noise, only to find out its your husband doing abs because he skipped them in the gym and felt so guilty he couldn't sleep.
29. Your husband hasn't remembered a birthday or anniversary in years but knows how many weeks, months, day and minutes he is from his next meet.
30. When you finally get a family vacation you can't enjoy it because your husband is freaking out because there is no gym in the area. See #31.
31. You plan a vacation based on the gyms in the proposed area.
32. Your husband's entire wardrobe costs less than his squat suit.
33. Your husband thinks that wearing his "good Chucks" is dressing up.
34. It takes your husband 20 minutes to get from the bed to the shower because he is in pain from an injury but yells at you when you suggest that perhaps he shouldn't train that day.
35. Your rent is due, you're behind on the bills and your husbands only concern is that he has to hit 550x2 the next workout.
36. Your husband can remember every lift Chuck Vogelpohl has done in his career, yet somehow he can't remember to pick up the loaf of bread you asked him to get after work.
37. Your husband has quit yet another job and took one making 400 dollars a week. When you get your credit card bill, you see a charge for 1200 dollars to Elite Fitness for a reverse hyper machine. He explains, "Don't you understand? This will add fifty pounds to my pull!"
38. Your husband has pushed his weight to over 330 lbs., yet when he looks in the mirror he says, "Why can't I get bigger?"
39. Your husband's neck is now over 23 inches, yet when you ask what he is going to train today he says, "Traps and neck - they look a little small..."
40. You introduce your husband to your boss after bragging what a good guy he is. Later you're husband remarks, "Yeah, he makes a lot of money, but what can he squat?"
41. Your husband watches the congressional hearings on steroids and screams throughout the entire session as though the congressman can really hear him.
42. You watch in horror at the devastation of the recent hurricanes and your husband says, Yeah, but can you imagine the government is having more hearings on steroids in sports?"
43. You just dusted and cleaned the entire house when you husband comes home from the gym, takes his shoes and socks off and then starts rubbing his toes together, leaving a huge pile of lint and dead skin on your just dusted coffee table.
44. Your husband thinks you won't be able to find him when you come home from work, so he leaves a trail of dirty clothes, as if they are breadcrumbs from the living room to the bedroom.
45. You watch Danny Bonaduche;s reality show and think Danny is the calm one compared to your husband.
46. You go into the bathroom and it looks like a slaughterhouse with blood splatterings everywhere. You've learned to ignore it and invoke the, "Don't ask, don't tell," approach.
47. You wake up at night only to step on a piece of glass from a vial of your husband's supplements. Once again - don't ask, don't tell.
48. Your husband as every issue of PLUSA and Monster Muscle neatly put away in a box, sorted by date, but somehow he has lost his medical insurance card.
49. Your husband spends a half hour before you go out sorting through his T-shirts to find the one with the least amount of holes.
50. When you ask your husband when he is going to retire and live a normal life, he replies, "I will quit my job before I quit living."
THE POWERLIFTING WIFE
By Billy Mimnaugh
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