Have you ever had an event change you so drastically that you became a new person? If so, then you have had a moment that altered your brain chemistry. I don’t mean this in a literal way; this is just a term that “the kids are saying these days.” I can recall a handful of moments at the UMass Recreation Center that altered my brain chemistry. Let’s explore five of them!
- Dropping a 25Ibs plate on my foot
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It was the spring of 2021, which was my first semester on campus. The Rec Center had recently opened, and I was using the smith machine. When I went to unrack the 25Ibs plate, I was looking around instead of looking at the weight. The next thing I knew, the weight was crashing down on my foot. The pain was so excruciating that I wondered if I had broken a bone, yet I didn’t want to cause a scene. So I left the weight room and asked if any medical staff could check out my foot. The answer was no. I ended up calling a friend and she drove me to University Health Services, where I got an x-ray of my foot. Alas, nothing was broken…just a lot of pain, bruising, and swelling. Needless to say, I always look at the weights while unracking them, because that instance severely altered my brain chemistry.
- Failing a bench press without a spotter
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Ah, yes…another rookie mistake. This was also freshman year, so are we really that surprised? I remember being confident that I could bench a few strong reps with a challenging weight. My body had other plans, however. I panicked when I brought the weight down and came to the realization that I could not get it back up. Since both ends had plates that were clipped on, my only choice was to take the barbell and roll it all the way down my body until I could sit up. This was a humiliating and physically uncomfortable mistake that I will never make again.
- Painfully bench pressing while my back was sunburned
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I guess the bench press is a common place of injury for me, because this next experience was a killer. Last spring, 2022, I got a really bad sunburn on my back from sitting outside on campus. Was this going to stop me from performing my usual workout routine? Hell no! Even though my back was bright red, I went about laying on the bench, pushing my back into the cushion, and performing my usual reps. I could feel the folds of the bench cushion digging into the sunburn, but it wasn’t until my friend took a picture of my back that I realized how much damage I had done to my skin. In addition to the bright red sunburn, I had dark, bloodshot lines running horizontally across my shoulder blades. It looked like someone took a burning iron to my back, and it felt like it too. Walking around with a backpack, sleeping, and simply existing were all reminders of this series of poor decisions.
- Sharing a bench with an unsolicited stranger
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So far, each of these moments that have altered my brain chemistry has involved a great deal of pain. But this one is a bit more lighthearted. It was a typical day at The Rec during this past fall, 2022. I was sitting on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand, about to lie down to perform a chest press. As I was about to lie down, I noticed in the mirror that there was a boy sitting on the back of my bench doing bicep curls. It was not even a miscommunication as to whether the bench was taken; he simply made himself at home in the exact spot where my head was about to land. Brain chemistry altered forever.
- Seeing more squat racks and fewer treadmills
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This last moment is one that anyone can relate to if they currently attend UMass and have seen the Rec Center’s renovations. Historically, there have been more treadmills than necessary, yet there were only three squat racks for a campus of over 28,000 students. When I first walked into the Rec Center this semester and saw all the new squat racks, while people were waiting for treadmills, my brain chemistry altered. They really pulled the uno reverse card on all the cardio lovers, but those who lift were elated about this change.
There is no doubt that the Rec Center has seen me at my best and at my worst. From excruciating pain, to laughing at clueless people, to being shocked by the new layout…my brain chemistry will never be the same.
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