Fire up!

During meets, I see many of the guys smacking each other as hard as they possibly can anywhere they can get their hands on. (Besides very sensitive places) I was at a meet this August and I saw this happening almost every single time a male went up on the platform. One guy smacked his buddy so hard on the top part of his back that the hand print welt was purple and almost bruised looking. I shuddered in my seat, but the guy just grunted loudly and excitedly ran to the bench. Seeing that welt made me feel pain, too, and I couldn't imagine being hit that hard for the sake of getting 'fired up'. Power-lifting isn't the only sport that you see this in. Football, baseball, wrestling, etc, all have guys hitting their team mates in an attempt to get them pumped up. Now, I say male only because the woman at the meet did more of a pat on the back or light smack on the shoulder or butt or nothing at all. In my experience of being on girl-only teams and watching girl-only sports such as softball, I've never seen another girl hit their friend as hard as possible. Sure, sometimes I'd get a swat on the back or butt during games in high school, but never to the extent that males take it.  Seeing that pattern made me wonder if there was more to it than just the psychological aspect.

    While I was sitting in my seat contemplating this thought, a woman about 23 years old came over to sit in the last available seat next to me. While waiting for the spotters to finish racking the bench for the next lifter, she started chatting with me. After going through generalities about our basic information, I wondered aloud to her about why these men would smack their friends so hard. She told me that the hard smack was a shock to their system, primarily nervous system. I was skeptical. So what? and what was her credibility? She began to explain about her working at the University of Michigan and is going to school for bio-psychology. I learned that most of the guys keep ammonia sticks in their bags and just before their big attempt, they sniff the stick. The ammonia causes the body to release a large amount of adrenaline, which is the alert system of the body. Basically, it's like cheap crack. This, coupled with the hard slap, makes you pretty much numb to any pain for the next twenty to thirty seconds. Therefore, the lifter can go 'all-out' without the crippling consequence of pain. I was astonished. I had seen the lifters cup their hands to the nose before, but who the hell would've guessed a stick of ammonia was the reason. Not only that, but how strange. When anyone hits their fellow lifter or team mate, that attempt to numb them isn't what's going through their head. Well, maybe for some. Though, I think most people do it just for the sake of helping their buddy get fired up.