Day 89

muscles and stories

Stupidly, or perhaps subconsciously, I neglected to measure my biceps. I meant to do it before I started, proof for a before-and-after, but never got around to it. Then about a third of the way I thought I should definitely measure these guns now but didn’t. Again at the halfway point the thought crossed my mind and then continued on its way. Obviously it’s a mute point now. My biceps either grew or didn’t. I will never know.

As of today, I’m on day 89 of a 90 day bicep curl challenge. The goal was simple - 100 curls every day for 90 days. 9,000 curls in total. Giant, juicy, bulging arms would be waiting on the other side of 3 months. Any piece of equipment was acceptable: barbell, dumbbells, machine, EZ bar, even bands. All styles were allowed: concentration, standing, incline, seated, hammer, you name it. It just needed to be 100 curls, done every day, for 90 days.

In the spirit of transparency, it will have taken me 93 days to get to my goal (supposing nothing goes awry today or tomorrow). There were 3 days along the way where I completely forgot. The thought to curl never crossed my mind. Or, like the idea of actually measuring my arms, it passed through my brain but then continued on it’s journey to go remind someone else they should do curls. In any case, to have done 90 of the last 93 days feels like an accomplishment. As far as I’m concerned I hit my goal. Mission accomplished.

Why exactly did I do 100 curls every day for 90 days? Good question! As far as seeing real changes to my anatomy, I know better than to expect big ol’ bodybuilder arms at the end of this challenge. To get muscles to grow (also known as hypertrophy) trainers and athletes will traditionally hit a specific muscle 2-3 times per week, allowing recovery between training sessions. Rep ranges are between 6-12 for each set, with somewhere between 15-20 working sets per week, and the weight should be moderately heavy (75%+ of a 1-rep-max). In other words, doing 100 kinda-light curls every single day isn’t the most effective way to grow bigger biceps.

So what exactly was my reason? I’m not entirely sure. I seem inexplicably drawn to doing hard things. This happened some time after college. Challenges, a temporary test of will and determination, excite me. Half marathons? Done. 3,000 push-ups in a month? Done. 30 days raw-only vegan diet? Done. Write a book? Done. Produce a TV show? Done. Read Atlas Shrugged? It’s on my list, I swear. Doing hard stuff has become a theme.

But that wasn’t always the case. At some point in childhood, I noticed a distinct difference between me and the rest of my family (one of many differences to be sure). The contrast was not insignificant. My parents spent 20 years steadily renovating our south city St. Louis home DIY-style. My dad grinded away at his PhD for 8 years before finally walking across the stage to get his diploma. My sisters were academic and athletic powerhouses. Their hard work and grit were constantly lauded.

I, on the other hand, was a sometimes chubby kid who spent most of his days playing in trees and collecting sticks. At a certain point I knew, in the way that kids “know” things without knowing how they know them, that my social capital was going to be different than my sisters or my parents. They were the hard workers, achievers who hammered their way toward whatever goal lay ahead. I was soft, physically and emotionally, having missed athletics save for a few years of mediocre volleyball. Academics was a game to be survived and I got through by the skin of my teeth. No MVP or valedictorian for me.

Instead of achievement, I prioritized silliness. Play was the altar upon which I worshipped and was priority #1 until I eventually had to pay bills and make rent. Even then, it remained in the top 3. My imagination came to the forefront of my personality. Humor and the ability to command a room soon followed. Art, snark, and creativity became my brand. Playing dress up full time was the career goal (still is). Hard stuff was to be avoided as much as possible.

The problem with being someone who prioritizes playtime and silliness is that you lack a legitimacy in the eyes of the public at large. In a culture that reveres industry, the funnyman is nothing more than a frivolous jester. Only “adults” are allowed through the gates of a capitalist society. One of Logan Roy’s most devastating insults on Succession, a TV show where every character is constantly being told to "fuck off,” is when he looks at his grown children and calmly tells them they are not serious people. It somehow manages to be the nastiest thing he says in the whole series.

Perhaps this stark reality about the world is what drew me to doing challenges in my 20s. If this soft and silly boy can do something really hard for a short while, when the stakes are low, then maybe I stand a chance at doing harder things for longer. Maybe the gates to grownuphood will open themselves for me and I’ll walk through with my head held high. If I challenge myself in the short term then I can develop resilience for the really hard stuff like building a career, making movies, and crafting a life with intention.

But all of this is predicated on a story, a binary one at that. The idea that I’m inherently soft, not a hard worker, and otherwise frivolous to the exclusion of all other traits, is a story I’ve been telling myself since childhood. It’s a narrative that explained why I was always trying to catch up. It became a balm for when I dropped the ball or didn’t finish things. Stories, while beautiful and necessary in understanding being human, can box us in. They don’t always take into account the multifaceted nature of humans with their infinite shades and dimensions.

And maybe that’s the real hallmark of adulthood. Maybe adulthood is nothing more than a wrestling match between us and the stories we’ve always told. We (read: I) work so hard to prove we’re not something. It’s why so many of us are just spinning our wheels. I’ve spent a good part of the last 2ish decades proving I’m not a jovial couch goblin who only wants to watch TV, eat endless snacks, and laugh with friends. But the fact is, while the goblin is not me, he certainly lives in me. Somedays he’s louder than others. Wrestling him out of the story doesn’t seem to be super effective. So we’ve learned, and continue to learn, to coexist.

Doing hard stuff reminds me that I am more than the goblin. It’s a way to expand my own multitude of dimensions. It allows me to test my outer limits and therefore know more about all my many shades. It’s self discovery, how ever dramatic and hyperbolic that may sound.

So the original question: why a 90 day bicep curl challenge?

Answer: to combat a story and explore who I am.

Oh and I also wanted a smoking hot body.