Back Under A Barbell
One of the most noticeable changes in my day-to-day life since moving back to North Carolina is the new gym I'm going to.
When we were in Northern Virginia for four years, I just went to the gym attached to our apartment complex.1 For those unfamiliar with apartment living or gyms, that meant I didn't have access to a barbell.
Apartment gyms and hotel gyms almost never have barbells. I'm guessing it's a liability thing. So, for a few years, I got used to doing a lot of my heaviest compound lifts on a smith machine—not ideal, but also perfectly serviceable.
Or so I thought.
Getting back under a barbell at my new gym has been eye-opening in the best way. The feeling of doing squats, deadlifts and presses with a bar that can move in any direction is just a much better lifting experience for me. Having to stabilize the bar engages muscles in your body that you'd never think about on a smith machine. The post-workout dopamine rush is an entirely different experience.
Squatting especially was more satisfying—doing it inside a rack absolutely lit up my quads in a way that I hadn't experienced in years.
I love it. I'm always excited for my lift days, even though it now requires a short drive instead of a short walk.
The structure of my training routine is exactly the same as when I last wrote about shaking things up. It's a minimal, compound focused split that I alternate with running days. I'm just now using a barbell for all six of the main compounds.
Here's to barbells, and picking up and setting down heavy things.
Both because this gym was good enough, and because the cost of living in Northern Virginia is insane.↩