“Powerlifting has made me a better person and made me who I am. It taught me how to be strong. It’s a parallel with life. You have to take the negative and build off the negative. You take what happened and you look at your flaws and you build up off of your flaws.” - Richard “The Ant” Hawthorne
In this chapter we follow Richard “The Ant” Hawthorne. His
nickname is “The Ant” because of his small size, though he is pound for pound
the strongest man in the world. At the CAPO he set 3 world records for his
132lb weight class. His raw world records at 130lbs were: Squat – 562, Deadlift
– 601, Total (with a 308lb bench) – 1471lb.
Richard starts off talking about how all of his life when people
have seen him they saw his size as an impediment. But, he used that as
motivation and fuel. He loved to rise to the occasion and exceed beyond others’
expectations, which we hear about when he talks about his football days as a middle
linebacker and his opponents not seeing him but they did feel him.
Richard talks about how for him
form is everything in powerlifting. To improve upon form one has to be in tune
with one’s body and be introspective and retrospective in critiquing what is
going on physically. A lifter could not be lifting to his current full
potential due to a muscle imbalance or certain muscles not firing or working in
unison. Quads might overpower the hamstrings, one glute might not be firing as
much as the other, the glutes or hamstrings may be weak, there may not be
sufficient leg drive, and on and on. But, unless a lifter is willing to take a
look at himself or take the critique of others, see his faults and weaknesses,
and then improve upon them, he will not progress as much as he could or worse,
get injured.
The same goes for our spiritual
life. We are all called to be saints, spiritual warriors, people of heroic
virtue. Yet, if we don’t take the time to examine our life, see our short
comings, do everything in our power to turn away from sin, we will not make
progress. The Church has a great tradition of a daily examination of conscience
and doing an examination of conscience before going to the Sacrament of
Reconciliation. This allows us to look back on the day or on the time since our
last confession and see where we have failed to live out heroic virtue. Many
times we want to point out what is wrong with others when we should be looking
inward to first make the change in ourselves (Matthew 7:1-5)
Take the time during Lent to
examine where you have fallen and where and how you can improve because as
Socrates is quoted, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
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2. Lament
grievously and be sorry, because thou art still so carnal and worldly, so
unmortified from thy passions, so full of the motion of concupiscence, so
unguarded in thine outward senses, so often entangled in many vain fancies,
so much inclined to outward things, so negligent of internal; so ready to
laughter and dissoluteness, so unready to weeping and contrition; so prone to
ease and indulgence of the flesh, so dull to zeal and fervour; so curious to
hear novelties and behold beauties, so loth to embrace things humble and
despised; so desirous to have many things, so grudging in giving, so close in
keeping; so inconsiderate in speaking, so reluctant to keep silence; so
disorderly in manners, so inconsiderate in actions; so eager after food, so
deaf towards the Word of God; so eager after rest, so slow to labour; so
watchful after tales, so sleepy towards holy watchings; so eager for the end
of them, so wandering in attention to them; so negligent in observing the
hours of prayer, so lukewarm in celebrating, so unfruitful in communicating;
so quickly distracted, so seldom quite collected with thyself; so quickly
moved to anger, so ready for displeasure at others; so prone to judging, so
severe at reproving; so joyful in prosperity, so weak in adversity; so often
making many good resolutions and bringing them to so little effect.
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3. When thou
hast confessed and bewailed these and thy other shortcomings, with sorrow and
sore displeasure at thine own infirmity, make then a firm resolution of
continual amendment of life and of progress in all that is good. -Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
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