Dominate.

Living in Brooklyn comes with a special set of challenges that are likely its biggest strengths. For one, Brooklyn is not Manhattan nor does it want to be. In my and many others opinion, Brooklyn (South Brooklyn in particular) is now better than Manhattan. “The City” can keep its multiple types of pee smells, violent Times Square Muppets, and drunken subway passengers mastering “cunning linguistics” in front of your Nana. Brooklyn is the classy borough, goddamnit. Our subway stops are mostly consensual sex free, our street performers don’t frighten children, and our pee only smells of Kale Chips and happiness. While we’re full of greatness, with the good comes the bad and the “everyone is a hipster” stereotype permeates our culture. For example, most Brooklynites, either hipster or happily employed tend to love craft beer, inventive cuisine, Etsy, and bands you have never heard of while secretly preferring bands that you have heard of. You know, hipster stuff. Hell, my one of my favorite parts of living here is that I have a butcher, baker, and candlestick maker all within a 10 minute walk from my apartment; I live in a freaking nursery rhyme. However, for South Brooklyn, the hipster tag does not fit. We work too damn hard for too small a piece of heaven to be lumped in with a bunch of grifters from Nebraska with vocal fry, a lackadaisical sense of self, and chlamydia. In South Brooklyn, it’s about the new school is mixing with the old school, not the new trying to decimate the old. That is what makes this area so wonderful, at least until someone asks “Where do you lift?” You are bound to hear the groans of defeat. Sure, there are a few mediocre to palatable gyms with too few re-racked weights, what feel like miles of treadmills, and at least a billion gym rats checking out the gym bunnies using the thigh adductor machine…or other rats in the steam room. There are even some world class Crossfit Boxes that, while more creative, energetic, and fitness focused than most gyms, can sometimes feel more cliquish and intimidating. The intimidation typically happens when you check out a free class and see people who are less fit than you are doing handstand push-ups when you can barely do a cartwheel***. Crossfit is not bad, but it is not for everyone, particularly when your goals are not in line with the main site. So then what is a seemingly strong guy to do when your options do not fit with your goals? You join a black iron gym with an overarching goal to become the strongest powerlifter you can be.

That is the beginning of my story and my journey to domination. On August 5th, 2014, I went to the South Brooklyn Weightlifting Club for the first time with zero expectations, an open mind, and ready to work. Since I have been weight training for 15+ years, I thought that I knew how to lift heavy things. I was wrong.  Very wrong. It has been a long time since my legs ached and trembled while doing squats and deadlifts with less than my body weight,. Through that, I realized three things: 1. This is going to be fun, most of the time.  2. I am a good lifter, not a great lifter.  3. While going to SBWC, I can and will become a great lifter. 

This blog is a chronicle of my experience powerlifting from triumph to failure and everything in between while providing an inside look on what it takes to go from being good to becoming the best one man can possibly be.

I may even talk about beers I have brewed and bands I am listening too because, I am a part of Brooklyn. It’s how we roll.