Despite feeling pretty tired lately, I was feeling good in the gym today. I noticed my squat was moving well as I was warming up to a heavy single. 140kg felt good. Oftentimes, this is where I would have stopped, but it felt so smooth I got a little curious. I went for 150kg, lost my balance slightly, and recovered easily. That’s pretty near my old PR and to recover from a mistake so easily told me I was strong today! So I loaded up 160kg, which would be a small PR, focussed my attention on the sensations on the soles of my feet, and down and up and rack and that’s a PR, baby!
Getting a PR, lifting a weight I’ve never been able to lift before, is a delightful rush. It fills me with a warm glow. I’ll be celebrating all evening. My first celebration was to have a tomato sandwich for dinner. I’ve got peaches and pastry cream waiting for me later. I’ll sneak some protein in somewhere to lock in my gains of course ;).
But as I noted my PR down in my PR log, I noticed something interesting. I hit a deadlift PR in March, but my last PR before that was an overhead press PR in January 2025. I had about a 14 month stretch from Jan 2025 to Mar 2026 with no PRs on my main lifts. That stretch wasn’t entirely without numeric milestones: I learned a bunch of new lifts that I’d never done before, and when you do that, technically you’re PRing left and right as you learn the technique, but it’s not quite the same as a PR on a lift you’ve been doing for multiple years. Aside from having some of my energy devoted to trying new things in the gym, I suspect a large part of my PR drought was due to life stress and poor recovery.
I’m very proud of myself for continuing to show up at the gym for over a year while not showing many visible signs of “progress”. If the high of hitting a PR was the only thing that brought me joy, I either would have quit, or at a minimum have been miserable. And given that I was in a stressful place, losing out on the mental health benefits I get from exercising could have been a nasty vicious cycle. Instead I was able to be patient. Or, even more than being patient, I was able to make going to the gym about more than just number go up.
In Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
A few years ago, I asked some children, “What is the purpose of breakfast?” One boy replied “To get energy for the day.” Another said, “The purpose of eating breakfast is to eat breakfast.” I think the second child is more correct.” (p. 23)
I think about this quote (and bring it up in conversation) frequently. What I had found in the PR-less year of 2025 was my way to a mindset where the purpose of lifting was to lift. The fact that number did eventually go up is a reward, but also a trap to be wary of. There will be a point in my life where I’m as strong as I’ll ever be, but in the meantime, I get to practice the magic of trying by not trying. If I had been chasing PRs the whole year I would have been frustrated and may have given up. Because I wasn’t chasing the PR, it eventually came to me.
This PR has cued me into reflecting on how successful I’ve been at practicing “the purpose of x is to x” at the gym. I often struggle to celebrate my successes, so this blogpost (along with the treats) is part of my self-congratulations and celebrations!
This mindset is not always so easy to practice in other parts of my life, and I am hoping to bring what I’ve learned from the gym to how I approach making games and art and all the other aspects of my life.