After hitting it I knew I was drained. Not only did I miss the first attempt, but I went back and I think the only thing that actually got the weight up was the sheer anger that was boiling inside from not being able to at least hit my last PR. So understandably, after an even longer break, I missed 300lbs. I was so angry, as punishment (or just realizing my weakness and wanting to start strengthening it...failing at the bottom) I chose to attempt 10 sets of single pause reps with 275lbs. I got to 7 sets (failed on 8th set). After that I hit 4 sets of 5 reps of dumb bell shoulder presses with 80lbs. I finished this off with a tricep medley I learned from Tiny Meeker at Monster Gym.
Overall I was angry at 3 things: 1. Missing my first attempt at 295lbs 2. Missing 300lbs 3. Over the last month I chose to strengthen my incline bench press in hopes it would help my regular bench press, although what I should have been working on was strengthening the lift at the bottom because that's where I always fail. Even when I hit 295 I had to grind forever at the bottom off my chest but once I got mid way up it went pretty quick. Don't get me wrong. The training on incline (and some more focus on my over head press) was productive and I set multiple PRs, but it was not the optimal choice from progress. I should have been focusing on paused reps, floor presses, benching with bands, to name a few.
In the end, it really was that anger, that rage that got me through what ended up being a great training session. In the same way anger, righteous anger to be exact, can intensify our spiritual journey. It's important to specify righteous anger over regular anger. Anger, especially wrath, can be destructive and lead to serious, painful, and even deadly actions. I think part of our spiritual growth calls for us to evolve in what we allow to anger us and then to let our will control how we act on that anger. This makes since to me since St. John of the Cross talks about the problem of being joyful for the wrong reasons. If there is a right and wrong way for being joyful, there must be a right and wrong way of being mad. It comes down to being joyful for things that bring joy to God and being angry for things that anger God, and then the appropriate follow through.
On our personal spiritual journey, I'd say that the most appropriate righteous anger is when we fall short, when we miss the mark, when we sin. Just the action of getting angry over our shortcomings is a positive response because it is evidence of our wanting to hit the mark, of our desire to live a righteous life. To not get angry when we sin and even further on, to choose to sin, shows our bluntedness, our lukewarmness, our disdain and acceptance of the world around us as it is, self fulfilling, selfish, blind. We succumb to the secular lifestyle of gathering up treasures here on earth. We end up responding to threats of our temporal treasures of money, pride, status, with anger to attack and build these back up.
So what is our appropriate response when filled with righteous anger towards our short comings? Repentance, penance, and turning away from our old ways. We must strive to grow in virtue. In the same was that in the gym we strengthen a lift by using accessory exercises, in the spiritual realm we turn to building up virtue to strengthen our will. Stay close to the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist, read scripture, and as St. Pio says, "Pray, hope, and don't worry".
And all the more eagerly must we strive on this account, that while there is time, the collected vices of evil custom may be cut off. And this you shall not be able to do otherwise, than by being angry with yourselves on account of your profitless and base doings. For this is righteous and necessary anger, by which every one is indignant with himself, and accuses himself for those things in which he has erred and done amiss; and by this indignation a certain fire is kindled in us, which, applied as it were to a barren field, consumes and burns up the roots of vile pleasure, and renders the soil of the heart more fertile for the good seed of the word of God. And I think that you have sufficiently worthy causes of anger, from which that most righteous fire may be kindled, if you consider into what errors the evil of ignorance has drawn you, and how it has caused you to fall and rush headlong into sin, from what good things it was withdrawn you, and into what evils it has driven you, and, what is of more importance than all the rest, how it has made you liable to eternal punishments in the world to come. Is not the fire of most righteous indignation kindled within you for all these things, now that the light of truth has shone upon you; and does not the flame of that anger which is pleasing to God rise within you, that every sprout may be burnt up and destroyed from the root, if haply any shoot of evil concupiscence has budded within you? - Recognitions, Book VI, Chapter 3: Righteous Anger, St. Clement of Rome
I think this video by Bishop Robert Barron does a great job of talking about anger: September 11, Anger and Forgiveness:
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