5:30, I wake him. He groans in the dark, a very normal and natural reaction for most to waking at that time.
“I didn’t sleep well,” he tells me. “I’m tired. I kept waking up in the night,” he tells on. “My head hurts and whenever it does it always turns into a bad day.”
“What do you want to do? Do you still want to lift?” I ask.
“I do.”
“Then let’s lift.”
He gives another groan, but the complaints, words, and bitching are through. We vent, get it out; then we get on with it.
There’s nothing wrong with bitching (though I don’t use the word with my son). It’s natural and probably necessary. Its problem is when we treat it as an end solution rather than a simple medium of vent to get on to a better state of mind and begin the real solution.
We get on with it. My son crushes it!
He adds ten pounds to his bench from where he ended last week. He crushes it! I’m not pushing him. He pushes himself; and that is when we most grow; owning our own actions, effort, and desire to improve (whatever work and aims these may be).
He pushes himself too on our next lift, and I help him through—touching the bar but letting him know it’s him that’s doing all the lifting.
“How do you know when to touch the bar and help?” he asks.
“When you see them struggling and they aren’t getting somewhere,” I say. “You don’t want to do it or them, but you want to give just enough for them to keep it moving—even if that’s just lending a finger to let them know they’re safe to keep pushing.”
It’s easier learned through practice—repetitions, like everything else in lifting—and so I tell him before my last set. “I’m going to go until I fail. When I need help, give me just enough to keep it going…Don’t let me die,” I add at the end.
His eyes get big, and I tell him I’m only joking (we’re doing high reps and low weight. I am too old and irrelevant to have something to prove; and as a beginner, we are working most on form and a foundation on which he can build).
I go until I fail, bar stalling, and he comes beneath it with his hands, just enough for me to regain a momentum and keep it going and then extra help to rack it when its raised.
“That was a great job!” I tell him, “And you’ll learn more how and when you need to help as you go. When you’re getting stronger, you’re going to want to go to failure; and you’re going to want to push those you’re working with to do the same; but that was great! We learn by doing.”
He smiles, and from the bitching of beginning, we end both feeling stronger, better, and positive for the day.
We learn by doing: lifting, parenting, loving, everything. Together, we are growing, getting better morning by morning, day by day. Part of my better is my own effort at making sure he knows.