GRIP STRENGTH
By: Lauren Anderson
It can be so hard to hold on sometimes.
When I first started working out at Solcana, my hands were so weak. I couldn’t hold myself up on the bar for a second. Not ONE SECOND. It was difficult moving the heavy weights around. I couldn’t even squeeze the clips that secure the weights in place on the bar. It took two hands, and a lot of patience.
I didn’t have much of a grip on my life either. I was more out of shape and sedentary than I had ever been before. I was feeling lost and stuck and lonely. I was depressed. And then my brother died. (See Week 31 for the full story.) Adding the most intense sadness and grief I’ve ever experienced to the mix. I was in so much pain. Needless to say, I was barely holding on.
So how do you hold on when you feel like you can’t? Well that’s a huge question. And I know there isn’t just one right answer. But I can tell you what helped me— PRACTICE.
When Coach Jenn first started working me out, she talked to me about grip strength. That over time, moving the weights around would get easier. And before I knew it, I wouldn’t even think about it anymore. I didn’t believe her, of course, but she was right.
One of the ways to work on my grip strength was to practice carrying the weights in one hand. It was so hard at first. But to help me through, in my toughest voice I would bark “GRIP STRENGTH” out loud. This would make me laugh, and remind me to hold on. Not just hold on… but hold on tight.
And like most things in my life, finding the humor, and saying it out loud– made it better.
Enough so that I found myself saying “GRIP STRENGTH” all the time.
I say “Grip Strength” when carrying my groceries to the car. I say it when opening a bottle or a jar. I even say it when squeezing a friend in a big bear hug. I’ve said it enough that the people around me have started to say it.
It’s become such a catchphrase for me, that I find myself saying it even when things get really tough.
When I’m trying to teach myself to cook, and I just want to throw everything away and get fast food, I say “Grip Strength” and hold on, keep chopping, and try again.
When I’m writing a sketch for work, and I can’t figure out the ending, I mutter “Grip Strength” and hold on, keep writing, and finish it.
And when I’m missing my brother so bad it feels like I can’t breathe, sometimes I just whisper, “C’mon Anderson, Grip Strength.” and I hold on, take a breath, and let myself remember him.
If I feel like I’m “losing it” whether it’s for big or small, literal or figurative reasons– saying “Grip Strength” out loud has helped. What started out as a joke, now reminds me that I can hold on. That I will hold on. And the more I do it, the stronger I will get.
And it turns out, all this practicing holding on, and reminding myself to hold on, has made me better at holding on. Just like Coach Jenn told me.
As fall flashes by and colors change from green to golds—I find myself gripping tighter. Just trying to hold on and experience things as they come. Trying not to blink, for fear I’ll miss something. My mom always told me this would happen. That the older I get the quicker seasons would fly. When I was young and impatient and summer seemed to last forever, I thought she was crazy.
But now that I’m older, I can feel it. And just like Coach Jenn, my mom was right. I blink and seasons change. I blink and babies are walking. I blink and I’ve gone gray at the temples… (but like, in a totally cool and witchy-hot way.)
So where did all the time go? I dunno. I must’ve blinked.
After blowing the summer watching Netflix in a cocoon of air-conditioning, in a proverbial months-long “blink”– just trying to hold on– fall quickly reminds me there’s an outside world. And I welcome the change.
As the earth prepares itself to sleep for the winter, I can feel myself wake back up. I think it’s because I’m one of those odd cool weather people, so the new brisk weather puts a pep in my step, and I come alive like the leaves whirling in the air.
It’s a good thing too, because this is also how my world works. Even though I’m not in school anymore, I can always tell that it’s back-to-school time. My job gears up as we prep and write the upcoming holiday show. Easily the hardest and most intense performing I do all year (9 shows, 7 days a week, GRIP STRENGTH). And it’s no easy task writing a Christmas show a solid 4 weeks before Halloween. But that’s how that goes!
We’re also nearing the one-year-mark of my brother’s death. They say that grief hits you in waves. And I am inclined to agree. I’ll be walking down the street feeling fine, and suddenly I’ll see something that sorta reminds me of him, and it’ll feel like a punch in the ribs (Breathe. GRIP STRENGTH.)
In addition to work turning faster and more furious, and missing my brother, a new craving has also bubbled up in my body. I can feel it want to move again. All summer long I was like a horse tapping my hooves at the starting gate, wanting to run, but knowing it wasn’t quite time. I wasn’t ready or something. Maybe I was just too hot.
But suddenly it’s autumn, and time for a new cycle at Solcana. It’s called The Fall Challenge. And I’m ready. The challenge has us working on getting a new One Rep Max of a Clean (weightlifting move), Overhead Squat (another weightlifting move with the bar over your head and squatting down), and the Bench Press (lay down on the bench and press the bar up. A Classic.)
I have been wanting to up the ante and move my body in a more consistent and intense way. I think many people assume because I write this blog, and I am immersed in a fitness culture that I’ve been working out all the time. But seriously, I’ve achieved so much by averaging only about 2 classes a week. (Plus eating intentionally, and looping in all my new food knowledge from the Essential You class. NOT A DIET. I repeat NOT A DIET. In fact, I’m never dieting AGAIN.)
But in order to make gains in the 3 moves for the challenge, it will require me to get to the gym about 3-4 times a week. Plus adding in a mobility class to keep me, well, mobile.
That’s a big bump up. (Can I do it? GRIP STRENGTH). When I get the instructions for the challenge, I can feel my grip tighten. How will I fit it all in? How will I make it work? It’s a logistical labyrinth, but I remind myself that I want this. This is important to me, so I make room.
The Fall Challenge already has me doing all sorts of stuff I’ve never done before:
- Working out on Mondays– That was typically my official “rest day” because it’s so busy with my other work.
- Working out at Open Gym– no class, but a time you can work out independently. You can either make up a WOD, or work on your own stuff. Luckily there was a coach there to help answer all 1,000,000 of my questions.
- Working out in the evening– Because I work most nights, I have been working out strictly in the afternoon (11:30 am class Holla!). And because I’m up later than most, morning classes are a no fly zone too. But the challenge forced me to have to finagle some things…
- Mobility Class– I finally took my first mobility class with Laura! I went on a Sunday, and for an hour and a half she helped me stretch and restore my newly sore body. It was great!
Wow. That’s a lot. And we still have about 5 weeks to go. (GRIP STRENGTH.) I’m going to hold on tight as hard as I can for as long as I can. And trust that the practicing will become doing. The doing will become being.
Last week, I was stretching before class. Feeling sore, and unsure about how to make it through the next hour, because I’m not yet used to working out two days in a row–when I see my friend Shea walk into the gym. I don’t know her very well, but we both do improv, and we bonded because she also lost her brother to an overdose earlier this year.
Watching my friend and fellow improvisor in the early stages of her Solcana CrossFit experience, knowing that she is moving through a tremendous grief similar to my own, has brought me so much insight to my own journey. I feel a closeness to her I was not anticipating, but I am so grateful to have.
* * *
Shea and I partner up to work on our Overhead Squat, and as we’re setting up the bar, she gets mildly flustered and fumbles with the clip. “These things are so hard to get open!” she says. Squeezing the clip with two hands.
“I know right?!” I agree, laughing. “They were impossible at first. But before you know it, you won’t even think about it anymore. GRIP STRENGTH!”
Less than a year ago, I couldn’t hold myself on the bar for a second. I could barely hold on at all. Now, I can hold on the bar for over 10 seconds, hold onto myself a little more tightly, and even hold my hands out for a friend if they need me…
Shea laughs and says “GRIP STRENGTH” back at me, and slips the clip onto the bar.
I smile. I know I am here for her. But something tells me, she can hold herself up just fine.