Weight training
A friend had a set of weights he wasn't using and he let me use them. I was young, enthusiastic, at university and really wanted to get all I could out of life. In top shape maybe even my brains would work better.
The point wasn't to go down to the beach with my muscles. I never did that kind of stuff.
I did especially well with the squats. In about 6 months I was doing 5 sets of 15 squats with 320 pounds. This might be a bit of an exaggeration. The guy who told me how to do the workouts had said not to bend your knees past 90 degrees. I've just checked and it seems this is only a partial squat.
There was a pair of stands with the weights. To load that much on the barbell, you put it on the stands and then added the weights. The stands were set at about shoulder height and you stepped under the barbell to get it in place on your shoulders.
Once when I finished a set, I set the weights back in the stands, stepped away and looked back. They were just starting to tip over.
It couldn't have taken more than a full second for them to hit the floor, but it seemed like a long time. This was in an apartment and the landlady's rosewood dining room table was 4 floors below. There might also be people on the way down who could get hit.
The weights hit the floor. It sagged and then sprang back up. The books flew off a book case and one end of a radiator bounced out from the wall, but the floor held. (Thank you!)
The next day the landlady phoned and asked what happened. I told her "I dropped something." My girlfriend snickered and said "Yeah, the refrigerator." She did it quietly so it wouldn't carry over the phone. Quite a beautiful, diplomatic person.
The landlady asked me to pay a very low amount to replace the light fixture in the ceiling below, and repair the plaster. I was happy to agree.
I worked with the weights for a couple more weeks, being really careful about putting the weights back in the stands. Got up to 340 pounds with that exercise and then gave up weight training.
That was probably a good idea, right? Maybe my brains were starting to work better already. That really wasn't a good place to be weight training.
