40 ain't nothing but a power jerk

Wednesday was my 40th birthday. Earlier in the week I was pretty bummed about it, but by the day of I had made my peace with the number.

It's weird that an arbitrary number should have any emotional power anyway, and particularly a number that doesn't even necessarily represent a halfway point in life expectancy or even professional lifespan. I fully expect Silicon Valley age discrimination to end my tech career before age 65, but it's unrealistic to expect that with my personality I'll stop working when that day comes. As the way point for hormonal decline -- I believe there is a requirement that anything written on the topic must have a line about the typical percentage of decline experienced by age 40 -- it can be pretty forbidding, but that has less to do with 40 itself and more to do with the inconvenience of including accurate graphs and charts in lay audience materials.

Regardless, on the day itself I felt pretty OK about it all. I took the day off of work, but not off of my gym schedule. Of course. My favorite days are holidays and work from home days that I go to the gym. It's so refreshing to do some hard work, shower in my own home, and then possibly make something healthy and delicious.

In this cycle, Wednesdays are power jerk days. So this was my 3rd day of attempting to do them. I've really struggled with figuring them out: First, it was the realization that the dip at the start is not a matter of coiling up for a pounce like a cat, but more of a quick bounce. That was the breakthrough of the week before, despite doing snatch grip behind the head push presses in the last cycle. This week, like last week, I was still in pain, struggling with 25kg, up through the midpoint of my appointment. I went up in weight, grudgingly, hoping that more weight = more momentum = figuring it out already.

And then...it happened. 35kg flew up like it was weightless and my feet ended up where they belonged. I think a big part of it was forgetting about the cues (what are "aggressive elbows" in a context where you aren't hitting people with your elbows, anyway?) and just going with where I had to be to allow the weight to fly straight up to the end of extended arms. We did some doubles at 38, and they went even better.

My trainer offered me the opportunity to do one at 40kg in honor of my birthday...and that was the best one yet.