- November 18, 2024
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“Don’t quit, I’ve got you,” promised the voice in staccato, the jock conscience picking my back pocket. I wanted to quit so badly, to crumble before the devil in my head. Both he and the angel were displaced from their usual spots on my shoulder by a 45-pound Olympic bar.
I answered both with an incoherent growl, drove my feet into the ground and launched upwards, bringing the final squat motion to its end.
All of the racks were taken. That’s how this horror story started. Palm Coast’s Planet Fitness has just four “smith machines,” pieces of workout equipment where the bar is fixed within a set of rails. This allows the user to perform any lift from military presses to deadlifts, sans spotter. At least in theory.
I arrived at the gym Friday night around 8 p.m. with plans for a light workout. Chest. Biceps. Triceps. Lats. “Bro muscles.” But with all of the stations occupied, I was forced to readjust. Scanning the gym, I spotted him — The Observer sports section’s April 17 cover boy — Flagler Palm Coast weightlifting phenom Carl Lilavois. Before I knew what was happening, I was moving, walking over to him and his friend Louis, asking them if I could “work in” on their leg lifts. They were fine with it.
Lilavois graduated in June and is headed to Daytona State in the fall. He lifted in the 139-pound class at FPC, but his goal weight is 180 or 185. To that end, he’s battling a fast metabolism.
“I eat constantly, and it’s still not doing anything,” he said.
I haven’t done squats consistently or seriously in five years. I know the form, so I was pretty confident I wouldn’t maim myself with a few sets. We rotated at a pretty decent clip, working up to 225 pounds. Lilavois and friend upped the weight to 275 for a set, but I abstained, thinking we were done. But those were just Hors d'oeuvre — warmups. “Three by 10s” were the house special. Three sets, 10 reps at a given weight (we chose 205). Just enough to make you hate life.
“The 10 reps is what tests your strength, and not just your strength, but the heart you’ve got to complete it,” Lilavois told me. “That’s what I like about it.”
In between sets, we gabbed about shared experiences with Reebok Zig Nano shoes (I was wearing a pair), about how they rip too easily near the toes. Lilavois revealed he plans to study sports broadcasting, or a related field. But those conversations were short and terse, interrupted by my inevitable turn at the rack. I made it through my first set easily enough. Lilavois spotted me, his hands between my ribs and armpits, ready to apply upward force should I fail. I failed.
On sets number two and three, Lilavois’ forearms got just as much of a workout from spotting as my legs did from squatting. Noticing my left leg tremor-ing like a fault line on Friday, Lilavois laughed and doled out some praise.
“When you’re in the middle of it, it’s ‘Oh my gosh, I have no idea how I’m going to do this,’ and then you’re done, and you look at the weight and say I just did that,” he told me.
We moved to quads and hamstrings next, a cool sip of Piña Colada by comparison. When Lilavois expressed his desire to do a core workout in the “stretching” room, I plotted my escape.
“I need to go, er… cool down,” I stammered.
This cop-out was met with a pair of understanding nods. Relieved, I hobbled over to a treadmill and attempted to jog out the laboratory’s worth of lactic acid in my legs. I dialed up a speed of 4.0 MPH, somewhere between a fast walk and glacial jog. To my surprise, the hitch in my stride didn’t improve, and the pace felt grueling. I imagined the elderly ladies on the ellipticals whirring behind me were surly neighbor kids pedaling atop Schwinns, and I was mired in some dark rehash of “Forrest Gump” where the braces just wouldn’t come off.
