The Freshman, The Deadlift, and Dead Man’s Hill

One of the most misunderstood exercises (other than the squat) has got to be the deadlift.  Maybe it’s the name.  Anything with the word “dead” in it can’t be a good thing—especially when it comes to exercises, right?  I remember back when I just started high school, in one of my first PE class, we had to run this cross country course.  But this wasn’t just a regular run-of-the-mill cross country run.  No siree.  A few days prior to the run, we had heard several horror stories and in particular about the dreaded “Dead Man’s Hill”, which was to come at the end of the run.  We were told about how the hill got it’s name—apparently a star athlete with immense talent and speed tried to run up the hill, ignoring warnings from his coaches and teammates to take the hill slowly and cautiously because of it’s shear steepness.  As the story goes, the boy never made it to the top.  His body was found three quarters of the way up the hill, he apparently passed out and died from exhaustion.  Now, at the age of thirteen, I really didn’t know what to think or believe.  As I got ready to run what may be the last run I’ll ever do, the thought of Dead Man’s Hill weighed heavily on my mind…

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