Personal Statment - All Criticisms Welcome Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just some things I noticed on my own. I'm not sure how to tie the below essay into why I want to become a lawyer. I don't have much in the way of awesome accomplishments as shown by some of the stronger personal statements, so I just went with a hobby. However, it isn't like I want to be a lawyer related to any fitness field at all, so I wasn't sure how to tie it in there. Also, I was thinking that the "first experience" might've been too long, but I'm not sure. Also, I'm not too sure about the humor. Should I take them out/not have as many? Anyway, thanks for the help.

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 other fields, as in life, of fitness where mobility and resting reign supreme. It is my belief that I can apply this mode of thinking beyond my life, hobby, and educational background, into the field of law.

[lujanj7]

So I think you could definitely go with this topic, but you're going to have to clean it up a lot. Lose the references to beer, sex and violence in the first paragraph. Also, try to cut down on the "humor," because a) it wasn't THAT funny, and b) you have more important things to write about. Not trying to be mean, just being honest. You get 2 pages max, and you need to capitalize on it. The first 4 paragraphs should really be pared down to 2. Get to the point and move on. You like to work out. You were patient and persistent. Emphasize how these qualities can easily be translated into the qualities necessary to excel in law school. Show how the slow and steady progress of working out translates into a career in law. Show that you've got the will to succeed. If I were you, I would try to find other examples of times in your life where you've shown these personality traits in order to get ahead... establish a pattern of persistence and ambition. Also, you have to try to explain WHY you want to study law. That should be at least 2 paragraphs. What motivated you to seek a career in law? Even if it's just for the money, bs it! Say some crap about how the law is not formulaic, but open to interpretation-- just like people can't all expect to follow the same workout regiment. One amount of calories and workout routine won't work for everyone just like the law can't be interpreted the same way by everyone, and this fascinates you.... or SOMETHING. You have to make that connection, or you're not really telling anyone why you want and deserve to go to law school.

[dontdoitkid]

I think the subject is fine, you just need to make it work for you better. It takes certain characteristics to sustain development in weightlifting over a long period of time - self-discipline, endurance, pain-resistance, vision, etc. Let your description of your lifting exemplify those with a purpose. The characteristics I listed aren't just present while you're in the gym - they're parts of you, and you should talk a little more about that.

You could also trim down the descriptions of the lifting process a little, IMO, to save space.

[Gefuehlsecht]

Don't try to be funny in 'official' correspondence unless you're truly hilarious. Remember this, even if you'll end up on the Supreme Court one day.

Otherwise, I have not much to say. I don't think this will work, sorry. I just read a PS from somebody who wrote about running and how that will make him/her a good lawyer. That was already a huge stretch. But lifting weights? How much can Ruth Ginsburg bench press these days? Or Scalia for that matter? How do you plan to connect this statement to the question at hand?