By RYKER REAM
Sheridan High School Student
The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
Everybody has topics that fascinate us in our lives: things we enjoy watching, learning, or even doing. For some, these topics include playing a sport, tinkering with things, or playing video games.
For me, that topic is lifting. I remember as a kid I always wanted to be stronger and bigger like a superhero, but I grew up skinny. I was constantly asking my dad if I could get a gym membership or if I could work out somewhere, but he wanted me to wait. I remember sitting in my room late at night trying to do push-ups or sit-ups. When I could only do them from my knees and I had to throw my whole body just to do a sit-up, I would search up videos like, “quickest way to get abs.” I was tired of being skinny and just wanted to look good.
I picked up lifting in August of 2021. My dad and I both started to work out and started to change our ways. We weren’t necessarily unhealthy, but we weren’t healthy either. I started lifting at Dog Tag Fitness in Sheridan and still lift here. At first, I wanted to quit because I didn’t think I was getting stronger and didn’t look like it either. I hated the feeling of being sore the next day after I worked out, but now I find myself begging for more thinking I didn’t do a good enough job the day before.
Lifting has helped me realize that if you want something to change in your life, then you have to put forth the effort to change. Not everything is handed to you, and I think that is why I chose lifting because you can’t cheat in lifting the weights or to get to success. If you want a good body and get stronger, you have to show determination and dedication so you can grow.
Now, lifting is something I do every day no matter how I feel. I’m glad I stuck with it because I see results and have gone up in weight a lot more than I thought I ever would.
Lifting is one of the things that makes me very happy and gets me in a good mood. It is the thing I look forward to the most every day when I wake up in the morning and what I think about when I’m at school.
It changed who I am as a person and has helped me get through a lot knowing I can go to the gym and put more pressure on myself when I’m mad and help me get stronger. I try to use my emotions as a booster for lifting because it is something you can do in any type of mood at any time during the day. It has helped me mentally and physically. It stopped me from going down a wrong path some people choose during hard times. I knew it would be smarter to go to the gym and do things to help myself grow that may hurt instead of doing things other people do.