Re-submission: First Draft Forum

[crappy_username]

I actually couldn't find my previous post, but it didn't seem to have any responses from when I last checked anyhow. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Sometimes, people just want to relax. They sit down, turn the television on, grab a beer and watch the game. Maybe they grab a book filled with all the typical clichés, stuffed with sex and violence, but a book that you know you can just enjoy for the ride. I enjoy the feeling of metal in my hand. I want to say the metal of a wrench, as befitting my engineering background, but it is the rough knurling of a barbell that gives me the sense of having tested my mettle.

I realize that this may sound strange, considering both the lack of popularity of powerlifting and the perception of the gym as a place of work rather than enjoyment. I realize this because, at one point, I similarly felt the same way. When I first started, lifting weights wasn’t a hobby more than it was a chore. I mean, how else could it be viewed?

First time going to the gym, you’re enthusiastic. You don’t really know what you’re doing, but you already can’t wait to see the results of your half-baked workout regimen. Stepping on the treadmill with a light and easy pace doesn’t seem all that difficult. However, you amp the speed up a little and suddenly it feels like you’re being bear-hugged by an invisible Hercules. Wow, this is difficult, you think, surely you’ve ran at least a couple miles by now, right? Nope. You haven’t even run a virtual lap around the track and you already look like you fell asleep in the sauna.

Okay, enough of this, it’s time to hit the weights and hit the fat where it hurts. You did some light reading of what you should do prior to actually joining the gym, with some articles whose website names you have already forgotten, that said the back squat is the king of all exercises. Just walking up to the rack seems intimidating. The person next to you doesn’t look all that muscular, and doesn’t even look like he lifts if it weren’t for the three plates on each end of his barbell. After the cardiovascular fiasco you just had, you tone down your expectations a little. He does three plates, albeit for eight reps, I can definitely squeeze some in with two. Warming up with one plate on each side and suddenly another issue pops up. If you were held at gun point by a deranged fitness lunatic and asked to perform a squat with a full range of motion to save your life, you could only hope that St. Peter don’t require people to be flexible to be in heaven.

On the other hand, a single plate wasn’t all that difficult. Perhaps adding another plate would not only help push you to a greater squat depth, but would also meet at least one goal should you succeed. You load those two extra plates on making the bar look that much more aesthetically pleasing with the hope that some of the better visuals would magically transfer onto your own struggling self-image. Taking the bar off the rack, you definitely notice the extra ninety pounds. Still, you can’t back out now; you are absolutely determined to see this through. You start the slow descent and notice that the extra weight doesn’t actually help with your poor mobility. Not only that, but your body is not accustomed to taking this weight, and has to compensate with muscles that are years underused. Starting the climb back into normality, you are an under-fueled airbus. There is a semblance of ascent that reaches a peak that isn’t very high. At that stopping point, you feel suddenly two pops in your lower back like the sounds of two cracked knuckles reverberating inside your body from your butt to your head. As you collapse under the weight, and an unforgiving pain that won’t be going away for a few months, you realize how foolish you were.

At the risk of stating the obvious, this isn’t about you, personally or metaphorically, this is my own experience. Having already given away the ending to this story, I decided that this was only a minor, if not being able to bend over or walk straight for 6 months is minor, setback. This brief excursion into the world of fitness taught me numerous lessons that I have heard multiple times in my life through various speakers and videos filled with educational buzzwords, but hadn’t seemed so visceral to me until then.

Weight lifting has since guided me the virtue of being patient, while still being determined. Things don’t come quickly when it comes to fitness, they take time, a lot of effort, and, frankly, it will probably hurt. The sport instills in you a form of critical thinking where you must decipher whether the pain is a good or bad one, the optimal use of both your energy and time, and a degree of humility when you realize that no matter your level of strength, there will always be people stronger than you. Even when you achieve a respectable level of strength, you will always feel grateful for those predecessors whose shoulders you hope you are worthy of standing on.

When trying to fix the issues of your body, you have to not only think critically about how your body functions, but also be humble about your own weaknesses. The movements in an exercise follow a logical chain in the function of the multiplicity of muscle groups involved during the movement of the barbell. Where your body breaks down during a movement requires analyzing each link in the chain at a given portion of the exercise. This requires research; research that shows you that strength is only one aspect of lifting. Being successful means that you need to open your mind to, as in life, other facets of a given field. It is my belief that I can apply this mode of thinking beyond my life, hobby, and educational background, into the field of law.

[Flokkness]

Two cents of tough love incoming, sorry mate. As a fellow lifter I want you to kill this.

Because you never establish a compelling example of the growth you mention, the final argument feels like an overreach. You show the reader a lift gone bad, but never a lift gone good, and never how you use critical thinking in other walks of life (beyond claiming that you do--but then you sorta-kinda fail to think critically in your polished PS, which might leave an adcom wondering).

Is there some intermediary application of that growth that you can talk about? You plug your engineering background early on, as well as alluding to improvements at the gym, but never make any connections there, so at the end all we are left with is your "belief." All in all, the last paragraph's discussion of complexities is interesting but needs polished, and because you don't make the larger inferences, it falls back on the the ten millionth PS statement closing about one's belief. Not sure even what the talk about opening your mind for success is about.

"rough knurling"

"guided me the virtue of being patient"

"brief incursion" (as opposed to early incursion or something like that; it implies that you never went back)

[Hand]

Maybe just submit a pic of your pecs instead of a PS?

[crappy_username]

Because you never establish a compelling example of the growth you mention, the final argument feels like an overreach. You show the reader a lift gone bad, but never a lift gone good, and never how you use critical thinking in other walks of life (beyond claiming that you do--but then you sorta-kinda fail to think critically in your polished PS, which might leave an adcom wondering).

To be honest, I had a hard time finding a topic to write on. I don't really have any life-altering moments/stories that I can draw on so this was the best I could come up with without lying, or exaggerating to the point of a lie.

As for the last paragraph, I was just trying to segue the PS into a reason why I'd fit into law. Should I even mention an "and this is why I'd be good for law" type paragraph/sentence at all, or just leave something like that out?

edit: Is adding a fitness example as an instance of growth a good idea?

Maybe just submit a pic of your pecs instead of a PS?

brb, tryin dis out. will give updates

[Flokkness]

Because you never establish a compelling example of the growth you mention, the final argument feels like an overreach. You show the reader a lift gone bad, but never a lift gone good, and never how you use critical thinking in other walks of life (beyond claiming that you do--but then you sorta-kinda fail to think critically in your polished PS, which might leave an adcom wondering).

To be honest, I had a hard time finding a topic to write on I don't really have any life-altering moments/stories that I can draw on so this was the best I could come up with without lying, or exaggerating to the point of a lie.

As for the last paragraph, I was just trying to segue the PS into a reason why I'd fit into law. Should I even mention an "and this is why I'd be good for law" type paragraph/sentence at all, or just leave something like that out?

It's a tough subject to get down pat and the above poster is right that you run the risk of alienating the feeble academics who will be reading this thing. The thing about your last sentence is, if it's a good PS, you don't need to say say that because you've already reflected on it and the reader is well aware AND has an example of how you've already been successful.

Again, my inexpert .02 so take it with a grain of salt.

[Hand]

Maybe just submit a pic of your pecs instead of a PS?

brb, tryin dis out. will give updates

GOOD LUCK FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

On a more serious note, if you're gonna go with this topic, don't try to steer it towards "why law"

[HRomanus]

To be honest, I had a hard time finding a topic to write on. I don't really have any life-altering moments/stories that I can draw on so this was the best I could come up with without lying, or exaggerating to the point of a lie.

This is a good reason to go back and pick a different topic. The PS isn't about a life-altering moment. It's about...well, you. Can you think of any experiences that are a great example of your character, attitudes, and actions? Lifting may be that, but I don't think this story is it. It's too technical, too slow as a story. But you're also selling "I lifted more weight" as a life-changing moment with your rhetoric; that's bad.

I'd go back and search for experiences that show who you are as a person and cast your PS in that light, rather than something life-changing and determinative.

[cheesy145]

So this is my opinion and I may be wrong but to me the narrative using the word "you" repeatedly was a little too casual for a PS. As a fellow gym lover I can see this shaping into a good narrative if you focus more on the overcoming part and less on the narrative about first going to the gym.

[crappy_username]

But you're also selling "I lifted more weight" as a life-changing moment with your rhetoric; that's bad.

Do you think it'd work better if I spin it to be more about perseverance/other good qualities rather than life-changing? Similar to what grantb134 said below you. Albeit, it would still be about lifting more weight, but that's pretty much the progression of the sport I was interested in.

And one of the reasons I chose this topic over a random one was because it's something I was relatively passionate about. It just seems hard to write about because it's a long time of change, and rather boring compared to many other more emotional PS's, instead of short instances of eureka moments. Should I try and focus on the overall change while shortening the example about the first time in the gym?

[HRomanus]

But you're also selling "I lifted more weight" as a life-changing moment with your rhetoric; that's bad.

Do you think it'd work better if I spin it to be more about perseverance/other good qualities rather than life-changing? Similar to what grantb134 said below you. Albeit, it would still be about lifting more weight, but that's pretty much the progression of the sport I was interested in.

And one of the reasons I chose this topic over a random one was because it's something I was relatively passionate about. It just seems hard to write about because it's a long time of change, and rather boring compared to many other more emotional PS's, instead of short instances of eureka moments. Should I try and focus on the overall change while shortening the example about the first time in the gym?

I'm not a fan of the topic, honestly. Your writing is good, but your tone and rhetoric are awful. I can't think of a way to save the topic, but I'm sure there's an angle that you can take.