So, I’m about to begin my last set of squats… sumo squats.  I’m standing there with the bar across my shoulders, feet spread as far as the rack will let me go.  My legs having been already rendered near to jelly by a really good workout, and I’m wondering if I’ll make all the reps — or puss out a few shy of completion, when all of a sudden my iPod ticks over to Avenged Sevenfold: Bat Country.  The lead guitar rumbles out a chord that sounds like a Harley reaching critical mass as it plummets off a cliff, and the singer growls at me…

“He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man!”

“Jesus… fuck!” I say as I start to dip into the squats, my body responding to the heavy, fast bass and drum line that follows.  My brain had nothing to do with it, it sat there useless, whining about how tired the body seemed to be.  I snapped out a few reps above and beyond what my goal was.

The music can make the difference, and put you in the right frame of mind — even for a few minutes.  Grant you, I don’t listen to what GonzO does when he works out… the kind of music that eats guitars and shits pure evil.  But I have some nicely fast paced, serious rhythm stuff in my arsenal.  Bat Country does it for me every time, and it has the side benefit of being (more or less) a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson — the weirdest sonofabitch to come out of modern American journalism.  The song is a nod to the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which opens with the same quote as the song, and does a pretty good job or representing the chaotic, drug induced roller coaster trip that propels the book.

And on that note, I’m going to drag myself along the carpet and get some dinner.  My legs seem to be experiencing technical difficulties.