Forum: Whether iron or clay, father and son carry that weight

By Cory Armstrong-Hoss / Herald Forum

“Iron forged into steel.”

In red print, those words were the tagline on T-shirts worn by weightlifters around campus. The shirt’s heading was “THE BLACKSMITH SHOP,” Richard Unterseher’s name for the Shelton High School weight room.

As a tall and skinny kid, walking into that weight room, I knew I wasn’t steel. I wasn’t even sure that I was iron.

Built of rust-colored cinder block on the backside of our domed gym, and with little ventilation, it seemed like the Blacksmith Shop was a place for people other than me: the stagnant air thick with stale sweat and warm leather; the weight plates, scuffed and banged up from years of clanging; the duck-taped repair jobs on the dip bar and old weight circuit seats. In this place, ripped and lean sophomores, juniors and seniors forged their boy’s bodies into men by bench pressing 225 pounds and knocking out pull-ups in sets of 10.

I could not do a pull-up.

Mr. Unterseher, omnipresent in his Blacksmith Shop and universally beloved on campus, seemed ancient. He was a softspoken monk of a man, an Army veteran, ripped and religious, a warrior for God. For him, man could do all things through strength: on the football field and in the eternal spiritual battle in our hearts. “He loved God. He loved his wife Jody and son Brad. And he loved the Nebraska Cornhuskers, in that order,” remembers my friend Luke Determan.

Unterseher taught us the compound muscle movements of the bench, deadlift, clean and barbell squat, and the simple exercises: bicep curls and tricep skull-crushers, leg extensions and curls, dumbbell flies, single arm rows and a dozen other lifts. He taught us how to focus on major and minor muscle groups, create workouts and vary those workouts throughout the week, to hit all the major muscles.

I hated the barbell squat the most, hated the way the 45-pound barbell dug into the top of my back and shoulders, despite the duck-tape reinforced pad in the middle. I saw the way some of the guys were squatting 300 pounds, getting down low, I just had 25-pound plates on each side and had trouble getting my butt past parallel with the ground.

After I graduated — and for most of the next 25 years — I stuck to games I could win or at least compete: soccer, basketball, ultimate Frisbee. I didn’t bench or try a pull-up. I sure as hell didn’t squat with a barbell on my back.

But in the last couple of years, science, anger and my son brought me back to weightlifting.

Science in the form of podcasts and books. Dr. Peter Attia in “Outlive” The Science & Art of Longevity,” makes it clear how fast we lose muscle and balance in middle age, and challenges us with a simple but piercing question: “What do you want to be able to do when you’re older?” Backpack with your kids? Move those 30-pound cement garden pavers for your wife? Play your favorite sport as long as you can?

Anger in my feelings of weakness, fear, helplessness. At seeing my country become something that is hard to recognize. At seeing my kids’ pain as they go through life, suffering that I can’t control. At the hubris of leaders who do not listen. At my own hubris. In its own way, lifting has become an antidote to anger, to chaos.

Then there is Cole, our 16-year-old. He’s lifted three to four days a week for the past couple years to compliment his baseball training, grinding through sets at the Y or Curtis Clay Training in Woodinville. Over 6-6 and 225 pounds, I suspect that some 14- and 15-year old boys steal glances at him in the weight room with concealed awe, as I did so many years ago at my classmates, who seemed more like men than boys.

If my introduction to the world of weight lifting was through beat-up machines, old-school grit and God, Cole’s has been modern: advanced metrics and equipment, and research-backed training techniques. “We do not need to hammer our bodies as if they are metal, instead we should mold them as if they are clay,” reads the Clay website. They offer the Clay Assessment, which “will review Posture (lying and standing), Circumference Measurements, Resting Heart Rate, Nervous System Screen … Range of Motion, Respiratory Screen, and Cervical Screen (Neck), along with a number of other pertinent measurements.” I can imagine Mr. Unterseher wondering what all those tests have to do with fortifying the body and spirit.

After I lift these days — two or three days of the week, including barbell squats and [assisted] pull-ups — I feel not just physically stronger, but somehow less at the whim of events around me, more rooted on the ground, come what may. My back is stronger now and I can shoulder more.

I learned from his obituary that Richard Unterseher was born in 1935, which made him around 60 when we knew him. After decades of teaching and preaching the virtues of strength, he passed away in 2017. He left behind thousands of us still striving to forge iron into steel.

Even if it’s taken some of us a while to get started.

Cory Armstrong-Hoss lives in Everett with his wife and three kids. His kids have played nine different sports. He’s a lifelong athlete, and he’s served as a coach, ref, and youth sports administrator. Find him at substack.com/@atahossforwords