Pushing Past the Pain

With my hands on my knees and sweat dripping off my face onto the worn Astroturf I glance at my heart-rate monitor connected to my watch. It’s 176. For some reason I always run the numbers in my head. My heart is beating almost three times a second. I’m breathing as hard and as deeply as I can, I can’t talk and the only thing I am truly aware of is my blood screaming through my veins. I know this because I can hear it in my ears. I stay this way for not nearly long enough to catch my breath, and Matt Kokenes returns with the Prowler, a personal sized sled typically loaded with 90 pounds or more of black steel. Matt’s return is my signal to start pushing again. I don’t want to, and I procrastinate long enough to hear Chris Frye let me know that I can rest when we’re done, but NOW is time to push, so get going. Because I’ve been programmed by 1,000 coaches before, I say nothing, reach out with my pulsing arms, latch onto the Prowler and start pushing again.

The first time Matt Kokenes and I go to the Frye Gym, we spend 15 minutes driving around looking for the entrance. We know it’s in a converted warehouse on Tremont between South and Tryon, but there are a lot of brick warehouses on Tremont in that area, so which one? We are looking for a sign that we come to find out doesn’t exist. The gym turns out to be one of those places that you don’t know is there unless you know it’s there. We finally see something of a sign on a door next to a loading dock, figure out that, yes, this is Frye’s gym.
It’s like no other gym I’ve seen before. Where we entered is a poorly painted garage door that upon opening announces to all that you’ve arrived. The walls inside are bare gray concrete block, and there is a full-size Mixed Martial Arts cage in the near corner with a group of men wrestling and taking turns sparring. Plenty of weights with handles on them fill the area, but there’s not a machine to be had and just one treadmill that’s not plugged in. Colorful artistic graffiti  covers the outside of the changing area, and there is a 20-foot wide strip of green Astroturf that runs the length of one side of the gym. We have no idea where to begin, but we do realize who Frye is because he is “encouraging” one of his clients in a loud and demanding voice.

Frye is your typical 6-foot-plus, 245-pound, shaved-head, single-digit body fat, tattooed fitness motivator. Whether you consciously decide to or not, you end up listening to him and his instructions because it’s hard to ignore when coming from that figure.

Frye is a local, grew up here in Charlotte, played football at South Meck and was good enough to go on to play football at the Citadel. From grunt to upperclassman he completed his four years in Charleston and came back home to start a cabinet business and a family, and try to stay in physical shape around those things in life that typically get in the way. He added two of his own boys to the mix and took on coaching high school football. His own fitness suffered mightily, complicated by his love of food, and Frye ballooned to 330 pounds. But as part of his football coaching duties, Frye trained his players and took a more thoughtful approach to their training. Neuromuscular is the word, but what it works out to is an athletic way to train. None of those machines with pulleys, cables, a lap belt and concise instructions on what specific muscles are trained, but instead active training on all the muscles of the body.

The Prowler today is a go between for me. Between warm-ups and what comes next, a five-step exercise of Olympic lifts. I have just enough time to go from my high heart rate of 176 to a more manageable rate in the 140s. But even in the 140s I imagine I can feel myself moving mentally backward toward the medulla or the reptilian part of my brain, the part of the brain that we started with and the more “civilized” part of the brain grew around it as we evolved. I naturally stop talking, get slightly angry at the process, don’t really look at anyone and reach a point where I can work through physical levels that I didn’t think I could before I started coming to this gym. Halfway through the lifts that I’ve now memorized, RDL to bent-over row to clean and then press, squat and good morning I’m ready to go home, but can’t yet because our workout isn’t over. I just wish it was.

Chris took his exercise strategy from the football field and athletes to everyday folks in the gyms in and around uptown. He worked as a trainer at most all of them, big and small, national chains and not, and left or was kicked out of all of them. His views didn’t mesh with the typical trainer who worked at these gyms, and so out of this conflict the Frye Gym was born.

Chris’ gym was constructed with a specific purpose, and that is to sweat. There are no mirrors to watch yourself, no place to sit to check e-mail, or listen to a voice mail. I haven’t seen anyone try, and I haven’t even thought about bringing my phone into a workout session. I imagine it would be greeted with loud disapproval. But with his bare bones approach to the gym and to the hypoxia-inducing workouts, a bond is created among all the folks who work out at the gym, a friendship that is formed out of mutual survival of these calorie-destroying workouts. And these bonds cross any and all boundaries: a UPS driver trades good-natured jabs with venture capitalists and stay-at-home moms challenge Matt and me to races the length of the gym with 25-pound heavy balls lifted over our heads.

And with my two young daughters at home I can’t help but stop mid-workout and smile as three very determined pre-teen girls strap on their pink boxing gloves and commence to learning the sweet science from Daniel, one of Frye’s instructors. Two to three days a week they get dropped off by their dads and enter what I imagine to be a pretty intimidating environment. Ignoring the loud music pumping from the speakers, and Dingo the shirtless MMA fighter walking around between rounds, they focus on footwork, form and defense with a concentration unmatched in the gym. Can’t help but think what my girls will be doing at their age.

With each overhead press of 100 pounds, I can feel my heart rate rocket upward, hitting that number again, 176.

Followed by rest, walking the gym for as long as it takes Matt to go through his sets, maybe a minute or two, giving my heart time to slow back to the 140s, then it’s my turn again – back to RDL, and clean and press, and 176. I start to think maybe that’s as high as my heart rate monitor goes, maybe I should hold my breath just to see if it’ll hit 180. Nah, might not be a good idea, passing out with 100 pounds of steel overhead will not have a good outcome.

Our sets of Olympic lifts are over and according to the digital clock on the wall we have five minutes left in the workout. Thank God. Maybe Chris will have mercy on our quads and let us go early, but with that thought comes a response from Frye. “Almost done, come on over to the tire. Eight times up and eight times back, five sets and you’re done!” It seems like this happens almost every time; I’m nearing the point where I don’t think I can go on, I definitely don’t want to go on, and I’m being asked to move this massive 500-pound tire end over end 40 times.

My first reaction is anger. I’m not talking to anyone, I’m not looking at anyone, and I scowl. I can’t believe I’m being asked to do this. My whole body is already vibrating, and I’m soaked to the core in my own sweat and now I have to do this. I really can’t believe it. But I grab some more water, move toward the tire and start lifting. The first lift is the hardest, but once again I turn my civilized mind off, reptilian on and push forward. One set of eight flips down, four more to go. I have a minute for Matt to do his thing and then I step back in, eight flips down, three more sets to go. I glance down at my heart rate, in the 140s, which at the beginning of our workout felt like breathlessness but is where I now catch my breath and recover. Amazing how the body works.

Matt’s done and I get eight more groaning flips in and have two more sets to go; I can see the end. I’m not aware of who is in the gym, or what music is pumping through the speakers, I’m just sitting, listening to my breathing, feeling my heart pump and watching the sweat pour off my face. Nothing else matters at this moment. Matt’s turn is done, and so is my down time. Chris says something motivating, I take the cue and step up and flip, eight times and I just have one set left. What started as a monumental task has been reduced to just one set of eight flips of this nasty ass tire and that’s it. Matt finishes, it’s my turn and I squat, lift and push, squat, lift and push. I’m done.

I lie down on the turf, spent. More spent than I ever have been in my life, more spent than any time playing any sport, ever, including my time in Division I tennis. That was nothing compared to this, and now I just want to lie here and catch my breath. Let my blood make a lap through my body at a slightly slower pace. Then while I’m lying on the ground, Chris comes over, gives me a congratulatory high five, says nothing and moves on to the next client, his job done here.

Eventually, I pick myself up off the ground, mix up a concoction to help my muscles recover, slip back to the changing area, jump into the nicest gym shower in town, and slowly recover from the mental and physical trauma of the workout. By the time I exit the shower, I’m back to the civilized world and ready to continue my day. But I now have a deeper understanding of my mental and physical limits and a confidence that comes from pushing myself far beyond anything I thought I could do before.

As I walk out of the gym a smile comes to my lips: The Prowler is moving, gliding along the Astroturf – and I’m not the one pushing it.

See more at Chris’s Gym www.chris-frye.com

~ Todd Trimakas