05/30/2025
The Splendor of the Struggle: Muscle and the Shadow of FSHD
There is a kind of strength that does not shout. It is not inked into record books, nor summoned for camera flashes. It whispers its presence in quieter places: in the early morning lift of a spoon by a hand that yesterday trembled; in the decision to train on a body unsure if it will reward the effort; in the battle between the will and the wasting.
I have seen this strength. And I am here to tell you: it is beautiful.
For those with FSHD, the iron is not a game but a paradox. The same fibers that hunger to grow are the very ones marked for slow erasure. It is as though the temple is crumbling while the mason is still at work — placing brick upon brick, undeterred. Some would call it madness. I call it grace.
And oh, how mysterious the returns! There are weeks when monumental effort brings no progress — only soreness and silence. And yet, curiously, there are days when a modest session, a gentle contraction, yields more strength than logic would predict. The disease is not linear. Neither is the triumph. Sometimes the muscle remembers. Sometimes it forgets. But always, the lifter remembers.
To grow a muscle when it is programmed to die — what a strange and noble rebellion. And more than rebellion: a celebration. A fleshy hymn to possibility.
Of course, there are no trophies for this. There is no audience. Only the quiet intimacy between a soul and its scaffold — one promising, against all odds, to remain standing a little longer. Some will grow. Some will not. But all who try, truly try, walk in a sacred lineage: not unlike the old-timers of York who trained with nothing but thick bars, hard benches, and unpurchased dreams.
In the old days, the greatest prize was not the medal but the day itself — a day of honest exertion, surrounded by others who knew that strength was not just performance, but presence. So too now, for those with FSHD: the greatest victory may be found not in how much is lifted, but that lifting continues.
In a world so eager to measure, let us pause and behold the unmeasurable: the courage to train a fading muscle, the wisdom to savor a small gain, the sheer poetry of a body that answers back — however faintly — to the call to grow.
I believe this is the rarest kind of beauty.
And it should be named.
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Now, lift some weights and eat some protein.
By which I mean, more protein. Maybe exclusively protein, now, after reading this, when your dreams have been inspired.
