I hit 200lb on the bench on Friday night. An earlier version of myself was off his head in the club at that time. I was very happy, as I’d been aiming at that milestone for a while.

When I wandered blindly into a Crossfit class at Impetus Fitness here in Playa Del Carmen Mexico back in 2021, I was 41 years old, and I had never done any weightlifting. I could barely lift the empty bar. My instructor, Yago, had me using the PVC pipe for months, and patiently taught me everything, from how to squat, by holding a plate to keep me straight, and eventually through to every kind of bar and dumbbell related activity. 

I humbled myself merrily, and suffered through years of being very dreadful, diligently showing up and doing my very best every day, and paying attention to my teacher. Gradually I improved. Eventually I’d become a little less dreadful, then relatively OK, and so on. One day I was helping another classmate out with something, and had the awesome realization that I was… relatively competent. And, best of all - confident.

My fitness aim was to be healthy and strong enough to carry my family across rough terrain if ever necessary - like in the event of a zombie uprising or suchlike. And after years of daily Crossfit classes, while I was a completely different being to the one that wandered through the doors back in ‘21, I still had a long way to go in the pure strength regard. The thing with Crossfit is you’re doing a lot of different things all the time, so it’s hard to really focus on improving one area. 

My bench press, I realized, was the relatively weakest aspect. I could squat well over my body weight, but I couldn’t bench it, so I decided to start focusing on that. I started doing three hour long solo sessions focusing purely on bench. When I started I could one-rep-max about 89% of my bodyweight, which was 155lb. Upping the weight a little every week, it didn’t take me too long to hit bodyweight. I was very excited, and on track to hit my goal of 200lb by Christmas.

Then I got sick.

When I recovered, in the New Year,  I’d lost all my progress, and was back where I started. Undeterred, I got back to it. I switched my Crossfit class for a full solo schedule, doing an hour plus every day, adding in some extra exercises, doing bench Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with squats on Tuesdays and overhead presses on Thursdays. Initially progress was slow, but soon enough I got momentum working in my favour again.

Momentum is one of life’s constant, and most powerful forces, and it’s only ever going in one of two directions… Back, or forward.

On Friday, I missed gym in the morning, and had a family beach day, but I made sure to go to the gym in the evening. I’d been one-rep-maxing at 190 for about a month, working on getting my 6 rep max up. I’d just got it to 170, which for me was amazing, given where I’d started, so I felt confident enough to try 195. To my surprise I breezed though it. “Wow,” I thought, “maybe I should try 200”.

And then, like an angel, appeared my teacher, Yago, the man who taught me everything.“Come on Akira!”he shouted, just like he used to when I was having trouble doing a basic squat, or lying in a pool of sweat on the floor laughing maniacally after after nearly vomiting.

Almost like a dream, the weight that at one time seemed such a ridiculous, faraway idea, came down, and just as surely, it went back up up again. I laughed. “Easy!” exclaimed Yago. 

It was a magic moment in a life stitched together by countless magic little moments.

They say that as a man, your strength and muscle capacity peak in your 20s, and then really start to decline when you hit 40. I didn’t start lifting till I was 41, so I’ll never have any idea what I might have been capable of. But I know what I AM capable of now. And I’m finding out what I’m capable of tomorrow.