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"  I didn&amp;#039;t do this to you.&amp;quot; So that&amp;#039;s how it would end. I stared at the e-mail. Show-off. Impatient. The words burned. Always the writer, the one with something to say, I didn&amp;#039;t have a reply to this crash ending, even though I&amp;#039;d known it was coming. I hit delete. A year and a half prior, I&amp;#039;d met with a young trainer at my local gym\u2014we&amp;#039;ll call him Coach. I was 36 and, thanks to my profession as a food writer, newly expanded to a size 4, the padding unfamiliar on my 5&amp;#039;1&amp;quot; frame. Perched on a chair in my heels and skirt, surrounded by the gym&amp;#039;s weights, chin-up bars, and hard, sweaty bodies, I meekly told Coach that I wanted to be a little stronger, &amp;quot;to be able to pick up my own suitcase when I travel.&amp;quot; This was true: I&amp;#039;d been mortified on a recent trip to France when I couldn&amp;#039;t lift my carry-on into the overhead bin. But I was in search of more than that, too\u2014more than I even realized at the time. Here&amp;#039;s what I didn&amp;#039;t tell Coach: that I was insecure, riddled with feelings of inferiority, deeply competitive. For years I&amp;#039;d been locked in a battle to prove myself, not to parents, or colleagues, or my husband\u2014who have all been supportive\u2014but to myself. As a child, I&amp;#039;d been told my IQ was two points shy of &amp;quot;genius,&amp;quot; that I was special\u2014destined, surely, for greatness. But after high school, I chickened out of my academic scholarship to a prestigious private college, returned home to a state university (and not the good one), and proceeded to land a series of unexciting jobs. My freelance food writing was picking up steam, and I&amp;#039;d traveled to more than 20 countries, but these accomplishments seemed paltry in comparison to writers my age who&amp;#039;d published books. I&amp;#039;d never done anything that I thought was extraordinary. What if time was running out? I wanted a big change, a dive into the deep end, and for me\u2014the kid picked last for every recess sport, the woman whose highest fitness achievement amounted to having sweated through a few Tae Bo classes\u2014this gym was as deep as it got. Brimming with testosterone and adrenaline, thrumming with the sound of blasting speakers and crashing weights, this was a place where coasting was not an option, where I had a chance of being pushed far past what I could do on my own. And I&amp;#039;d always loved the notion of Rocky, the scrappy underdog whose coach drove him to be better, stronger\u2014a winner. Still, on that first day, when Coach breezily promised to trim my body fat and build my muscles (&amp;quot;Piece of cake,&amp;quot; he said), I couldn&amp;#039;t have foreseen the exhilarating and, at times, dangerous path he&amp;#039;d lead me down. Or that, a year and a half later, I&amp;#039;d be recovering from spinal damage wrought in pursuit of elite performance\u2014and grieving the loss of a legitimate, award-winning powerlifting career, of all things. Like many people, I put less thought into whom to hire as a personal trainer than I did into my choice of hairdresser or accountant. Coach was a competent and licensed professional; I assumed that when it came to what my body should and should not be expected to do, he knew better than I did. And so I put myself in his hands, literally, inviting him to order me around in a manner that rarely occurs outside military boot camp. From the get-go, I never questioned Coach. When he told me to pull a sled weighted with 50 pounds, to swing a 20-pound kettlebell, to run up the street lugging sandbags, my body screamed in revolt, but Coach&amp;#039;s roar was louder. I was astonished to discover what I could do with this guy twice my size bellowing, &amp;quot;Pick it up! Don&amp;#039;t stop!&amp;quot; My muscles quivered, my vision went black around the edges; I thought I&amp;#039;d throw up. But as long as he was giving the orders, I wouldn&amp;#039;t stop. Several weeks into cross-training, Coach put a 45-pound barbell on my back for squats. As I lifted it, something inside me ignited. I wanted to push myself to the limit, to see how much weight I could heave into the air. When Coach first called me a powerlifter, it was a lark, but soon the three lifts of the sport\u2014the squat, bench press, and deadlift\u2014were my obsession. Initially I could barely move any weight, but I got good, fast. Six weeks in, I did a back squat equal to my body weight, 112 pounds (down from my initial 117). It felt like forcing the bar through quicksand: My heels dug in, a primal grunt escaped my throat, and my legs shook. And, miraculously, the bar rose. The sensation was like the recurring dream I&amp;#039;d long had, in which I find a room in my house that I didn&amp;#039;t know existed, piled with amazing things I never knew I possessed. That was my body now\u2014capable of feats I&amp;#039;d never imagined. Meeting each new goal, lifting heavier and heavier, was the most quantifiable success I&amp;#039;d known since the days of straight-A report cards. My body offered further proof, as fat melted away to reveal carved muscle. And I was winning Coach&amp;#039;s approval. &amp;quot;You have heart,&amp;quot; he told me once, and I thought that organ would burst. With amazing speed, Coach had become crucial to my goals and, by extension, to my happiness, or lack thereof. He was moody, volatile\u2014the perfect trainer on some days, monosyllabic and caustic on others. He was also controlling, telling me what to do outside the gym as well as in it. I thought the fact that he didn&amp;#039;t want me to do, say, spinning on my own time\u2014for reasons he never fully explained\u2014was evidence that he cared. My husband of 13 years seemed to know better. We grew distant as I logged more hours at the gym then talked about it ceaselessly at home. &amp;quot;Coach says heavy lifting means you hurt every single day,&amp;quot; I parroted. &amp;quot;Coach says biking will ruin my squat.&amp;quot; My husband had a healthy male appreciation for my new physique\u2014Dana 2.0, he called me\u2014but he resented my time away from home and worried I&amp;#039;d get hurt. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s training you like you&amp;#039;re a 25-year-old male athlete,&amp;quot; he lectured. In turn, I lashed out at him for sitting on the couch instead of bettering himself. When Coach left town one weekend, I grew reckless with my new strength, trying all the things he hadn&amp;#039;t yet permitted me to do in the gym. I lifted the 112-pound atlas stone, climbed the rope, did a handstand. But when he learned about my esca\u00ADpades, instead of being pleased, Coach gave me the silent treatment. His attitude wrecked me. How was I going to keep getting better, I panicked, if not with him? It was my first real inkling that our situation was verging on the absurd. This wasn&amp;#039;t me: I may have been self-doubting, but I&amp;#039;d never taken this kind of abuse before. My husband wouldn&amp;#039;t dream of bossing me around. In college, I dumped the guys who treated me poorly. I was learning that lifting is less about muscle than mind-set: It&amp;#039;s about believing you can lift. At work, this discovery was paying off. I handled stress better; I felt well-armed for the pressure of deadlines and criticisms. (As my boss put it afterward, &amp;quot;You seemed brittle before. Like bad news could just break you.&amp;quot;) But in the gym, I was more obedient than ever. By five months into training, I already had a shot at an American Power\u00ADlifting Association national record for my weight class, the 175-pound squat. As long as I had Coach, I knew I was capable of something special. And I did it. In June 2011, weighing 99 pounds, I put 180 pounds on my back and squatted it, surprised at how easily it came. Afterward, I strutted around, a champion. The following month, I saw an orthopedist about nagging knee pain caused by patellar shift\u2014not surprising, the doctor said, considering I was &amp;quot;squatting the earth.&amp;quot; But Coach laughed at the doctor&amp;#039;s recommendations that I bike to strengthen an underdeveloped muscle above the knee or get corticosteroid injections, and berated me for taking the doctor&amp;#039;s advice over his. At this, my own temper finally emerged. I slammed weights around, talked back, then retreated to a corner of the gym in tears. In harsh e-mails, he said he&amp;#039;d fire me; I threatened to quit. I didn&amp;#039;t miss the irony of him &amp;quot;firing&amp;quot; a paying client. But again, I caved. I met my ultimate goal in November 2011. Weighing in at 104 pounds, I loaded 200 pounds onto my back, sunk my hips below my knees, and stood tall. It was spectacular. Except that, by then, I couldn&amp;#039;t remember the last time I didn&amp;#039;t hurt. For months, I&amp;#039;d needed to ice my knee and hip flexor regularly, sported pink Kinesio tape daily, and endured torturous sports-massage sessions on my inflamed knee. On a vacation in Paris and Morocco, pain had been a constant companion. Still, I didn&amp;#039;t tell Coach how bad it was for fear he&amp;#039;d make me stop. One morning this past January, in the worst pain yet, I hit a new personal record, squatting 165 pounds for eight reps. By the time Coach saw me grimacing and ordered me to stop, I couldn&amp;#039;t hold back my tears. That afternoon, I nearly screamed with every move. An MRI showed an acute herniated disc, which would require spinal surgery. &amp;quot;You cannot load your lumbar spine again,&amp;quot; my doctor said, delivering the deathblow to my powerlifting career. That night, I sobbed, crushed by both hideous pain and the knowledge that I&amp;#039;d lost my passion. &amp;quot;Tell me it&amp;#039;s a nightmare,&amp;quot; I pleaded with my husband, my escalating voice frightening our dogs. He comforted me with stories of athlete comebacks. But there would be no comeback. My doctor outlined how much damage I&amp;#039;d done to my spine. &amp;quot;It kills me to see this happen to you,&amp;quot; he said. A former football and basketball player who&amp;#039;s worked with hundreds of athletes, he understood my desolation at the loss of my sport. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a reason why pro athletes lose their millions after they retire,&amp;quot; he told me. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re chasing that high they got from their sport and spend it on cocaine. From what I&amp;#039;ve seen, being forced to quit a sport is actually like quitting cocaine.&amp;quot; Months later, when I was writing this article, I reached out to offer Coach the opportunity to tell his side. He declined. In my eyes, it seems clear that the training load he advised was unconventional, if not irresponsible. For months, he trained me to hit some kind of max, such as a &amp;quot;heavy double&amp;quot; (the most weight I could lift for two reps) several days a week, with little time off to recover. Trainers I&amp;#039;ve talked with since have told me that constant maxes would be risky for a veteran weight lifter, never mind for a lightweight woman barely a year into lifting. But while it&amp;#039;s tempting to paint Coach as the villain, I have to acknowledge my own culpability. We were a perfect storm: his white-hot temper and inability to cede control, plus my scorching ambition and endless need for his approval. I&amp;#039;m trying to forgive myself for my poor judgment. I&amp;#039;m not the first person, after all, to speed past danger signs in pursuit of a desire. After the initial shock of losing Coach and powerlifting\u2014my worst fear\u2014I felt a degree of relief. As soon as I was sufficiently healed, I set out to find new ways to make my heart pound: Muay Thai, archery, even Rocky-style boxing. I found a new trainer, too, an experienced bodybuilder who&amp;#039;d recovered from a severe accident and multiple surgeries. He has found ways to drive me\u2014safely\u2014to new victories. The machines I use now aren&amp;#039;t as badass as a 200-pound barbell across my back, but I still exult when I push beyond my limits. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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