GO BIG OR GO HOME

There are two types of people in this world.  Or so I have heard my entire life.  And everybody seems to carve up the universe a little differently in terms of their two paradigms, their two ends of the spectrum that define and delineate all human nature.  Be it good guys and bad guys, doers and quitters, just about everybody has figured out their own variation of the two types of people in this world.

But the reality is, there really are two types of people in this world: those who will fart on the leg press, and those who will not.

Maybe those are simply exemplars, specific instantiations of the character types of which I speak.  Maybe not everybody has to be a consistent leg press farter or leg press clencher.  Maybe some people straddle the line, dip one toe into one pond one week and the other the next.  Maybe some people have uncommitted flatulence tendencies.

But what I’m really driving at: some people in this world are willing to go for it, whatever it takes.  And others, well, they just bottle it up (so to speak) for fear of judgment and repercussion.

You know what I’m talking about.  It’s full-blown off-season time.  Carb intake is high.  Food intake is high.  Your once-flat 6-pack abdomen has slowly morphed into a more convex structure—the classic uni-pack that now houses fuel for further gainz.  You have gone from the “pooping once a week while starving to death” phase of contest prep, to the “holy cow, my butthole is sore from pooping three times per day” phase that often accompanies growth.

And you feel it.  It’s leg day.  Your stomach is a tad distended.  The demons within are roiling and rumbling.  You hit the bathroom on your way to the squat rack, make sure you drain as many fluids as possible, lest you leave them on the floor.  You warm-up, then pile on a few plates and get through your grueling sets of squats.  Accident free, at that.  Now time for the leg press.

As the plates pile on, so does the intra-abdominal pressure, squeezing and squishing your organs, along with cup after cup of oats, egg whites, and other fibrous delights.  You feel the pressure building.  But you ain’t got time for that nonsense.  It’s time to grow.

You unrack the sled, your training partner cheering you on, and slowly bring down the first rep while holding your breath tight.  And you feel it—the pressure is peaking, with nowhere to go…

Do you let it out?  Do you fill the gym with your noxious fumes, the green clouds of death lingering in the leg section?  Or do you hold back, afraid to offend, afraid to be ridiculed or laughed at by your iron brethren?  Do you censor your attempt at greatness, in order to meet etiquette expectations?  Or do you throw caution to the wind—in this case, quite literally—and let ‘er rip?

See, there really are two types of people in this world.  At the end of the day, we all fart, and we all want to succeed, at least in theory.  Some of us are just willing to do what it takes to succeed at any cost—even if that means peeling the paint off the walls.

-David A. Johnston