In Henry Rollin’s article Iron, (If you missed it, read it here…) he spoke of his introduction to weight training via his high school advisor, Mr. Pepperman: “He told me that I was going to… buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special.”

What made him feel special, exactly? Was it the fact that Mr. P cared about Henry? It wouldn’t seem so; the article is laced with tales of Mr. P’s borderline cruelty, punching Henry in the chest to test his strength and muscularity. By all traditional descriptions, Mr. P would be described as mean, as an impediment to Henry’s self-esteem.

Henry Rollins “felt special” after being told to purchase the weights because he had been given the command to rise.

The command to rise is the most precious gift you can give another human being. Setting the bar high, having expectations for others above their current abilities, forces them to jump higher, to stretch farther, to try harder. And when this call is answered, it leads consistently and without fail to self betterment.

Giving someone permission to perpetually “accept who they currently are”, to worship at the altar of mediocrity, is not kind or caring, but cruel. It encourages the individual, be they your friend or wife or husband or child, to stumble and plod through life like an injured and lost puppy dog, rather than majestically springing forward at the breakneck speed of a cheetah.

Mr. Pepperman laid before Henry Rollins a very specific challenge: to build his body into a better specimen. It was objective, concrete, measurable. He had a specific way of tracking progress– taking a punch. And until Henry met that standard, he was a failure, plain and simple.

This is one of the greatest values of strength training: the perpetual call to rise. You are presented with a very simple task, to move a weight from point A to point B. And as soon as you can accomplish that goal, it becomes modified– you now have to increase the weight, up the ante, raise the bar, both metaphorically and literally. A macroscopic goal breaks down into microscopic goals, but remains open-ended. Strength training is the perpetual call to rise, demanding one push harder and harder to achieve endless levels of excellence.

I always instruct my clients that they should train with the intention of always adding more weight to the bar. Realistically, strength will not always increase in a linear fashion– you won’t be bench pressing 1,000lbs any time soon. But you should always train with the intention of getting up to that 1,000lbs bench press. If you don’t at least have that mindset when it comes to your training, you will continue bench-pressing the same weight for the rest of your days in the gym, and remain exactly the same.

Getting stronger is hard. Getting better at anything is hard. That’s why it’s called “getting better”– you are going through a process of tearing down the current situation (current muscles, knowledge level, economic status, level of spiritual enlightenment) and rebuilding it at a higher level. If it was easy, everybody would have perfect bodies, perfect minds, perfect income levels, and perfect souls. And we don’t.

Some people, when confronted with the call to rise, get scared. Some, by contrast, get angry and go into defensive mode– “Whatever dude, I don‘t care, his opinion doesn‘t mean anything”. Still others step back and think about the importance of that call, of whether it’s a worthwhile challenge or not. And some fearlessly rise to meet the call.

One of the greatest influences in my life was Mr. Sulek, my middle school band teacher. He was a hot-head for whom nothing was ever good enough. He was once almost removed by the school board after losing his temper during a band practice– with middle school kids, mind you– and throwing a folding chair through a plate glass window. Mr. Sulek was intensely passionate about excellence, and about striving to be one’s best. He was the Bobby Knight of the middle-school band world: so emotionally invested in dragging everybody up to the highest level that he couldn’t control himself, couldn’t channel that passion and turn it off when needed. He did not hand out compliments easily, and probably made the majority of the band kids feel bad, like failures.

When I got to Wheaton Warrenville Middle School in 1990, I walked into auditions for 6th grade jazz band late and ill-prepared. Mr. Sulek tore me apart. He allowed me an audition, but hastily stuck me in the lowest jazz band of the three. I went home that night and cried, ready to quit the band. I didn’t know why I was being treated so poorly. But I decided that I didn’t care, that I loved to play, and that I had to show him how good I was. Three years later, as my 8th grade graduation was coming up, Mr. Sulek pulled me aside and informed me that he was presenting me with the Musician of the Year award. This award had never been given to a percussionist, and I was the first, because of how hard I had worked, how far I had come, and how much I had excelled. As he handed me my trophy, for the second time Mr. Sulek drove me to tears. But this time, they were tears of accomplishment and joy. I knew I had taken the beatings, been handed the command, and accepted it. I had risen.

Mr. Sulek never punched me in the solar plexus ala Mr. Pepperman, but in his own way, he did– every time he corrected me, every time he let me know I was doing something wrong, every time he told me I had a long way to go, every time he refused to hand me a false or meaningless compliment. Refusing to hand me that empty compliment was the kindest thing anybody ever did for me. Ever since, I have refused to be mediocre. I choose, instead, to rise.

In my years in the personal training industry, I have seen an endless stream of trainers that are concerned first and foremost with being the “friend” of the client: of being empathetic and understanding, of caring and nurturing, of not pushing too hard or too fast. I have also watched all of the clients of those trainers remain exactly the same, week after week, month after month, year after year, while pouring untold quantities of dollars into the project. Amidst all the friendly and passive trainers, I have seen a scant one or two that truly pushed their people, that never accepted second best, that didn’t take excuses, that truly refused to buckle when presented with their clients’ struggles. It’s hard, when you care about somebody, to look them in the eye and say, “Too bad, you need to suck it up”. In the heat of the moment, it’s not always fun being the bad guy. But down the road, when you see that it has all paid off, you know it’s worth it.

While assembling my website recently I had to re-read all of my client testimonials, and I noticed many had a recurring theme: “I felt like I had to stick to my diet and get my workout in, because if I didn’t, I would be letting you down”. I hope I can be the Mr. Pepperman or Mr. Sulek in the lives of some of my clients. I hope I am never perceived as “nice” or “friendly” or “caring” or “empathetic”. I hope I am considered mean and cruel and harsh, like a man delivering blow after blow to the solar plexus. Because then, I will know I have given the command to rise. And some, inevitably, will meet that call.

-David A. Johnston