Ellie - Weight of Greatness [+1000 Words]

This was made with help from a big fan of Ellie who would like to remain anonymous! Feedback very much appreciated - I know I've been lacking on stories lately and it's always good to see people respond to them.

The plates slid into position on the bar with a satisfying metallic clink, the bar's gentle rocking suddenly stilled as the massive weight settled into the floor. Ellie didn't pause to second guess or question the task, she simply did what her body was made for, reaching above herself, fingers clutching padded hand holds, pulling herself into the air with the ease that someone else might rise out of bed. Her legs twined themselves around the overloaded bar, hamstrings exploding into prominence as she bent her knees, pulling the weight into the newly formed crook, the bar rolling over the steely hills of her heart shaped calves.

Immediately, she felt the heavy burden she now carried diffuse itself across her finely honed physique. Most obvious was the change along her arms, striation carving itself into her capped shoulders, traps rising and bracing her slender neck, her biceps surging with power, but Ellie also felt it across her shrink-wrapped core, through her moulded obliques and into the deep crevices around her sides and into lower back. Every inch of her body tightened and steeled itself, ready and eager for whatever punishment her mind had set itself on.

It started with a dozen slow, controlled reps. Ellie focused on her breathing, timing her pulls and releases with inhales and exhales, her body remaining unerringly vertical and straight as she smoothly rose through the full range of motion, making sure to move just as slowly on the descent. Pristine, flawless form had been drilled into her psyche before she had ever arrived at the Academy, and her training since had only tempered that drive towards perfection.

There was plenty of time for her to struggle and shake later, these first reps were emphatic and inarguable, demonstrating her utter mastery of the art of the pullup, even now while bearing nearly twice her bodyweight across her bent legs. Without a moment's pause for celebration, Ellie shifted into the next step of her circuit, understanding well the lengths she needed to go to truly test the limits of her unbelievable endurance. This first dozen reps would have been more then enough for all but the most elite athletes at her prestigious Academy... for Ellie, they were simply a warm-up.

The second set were half-reps, traveling from the peak of the rep to the halfway point and then stopping her descent while her arms were bent at a 90 degree angle and then reversing back up to the top. This ensured that her peaked biceps were under constant strain, at no point in this movement did the tension ever release. Ellie's brow furrowed and her teeth grit with effort, and every rep was accompanied by a sharp gasp, as her already depleted arms were forced through another marathon struggle. Despite the shortened travel distance, Ellie resolved to make each of these reps take just as long as the previous set's had, the glacial, inexorable progress a display of her unerring muscle control and iron determination. By now the veins had started to rise across her chest and arms, snaking around and feeding the desperately hungry muscles as they fought to obey their mistress' harsh commands. These 10 reps fell like so many had before them, another monumental feat reduced to an afterthought by the force of nature in the orange leotard.

Ellie hung at the apex of her last rep, taking a few quick breaths as she prepared for what was coming next, a ripple cascading down the length of her incomprehensible abs as she steeled herself for what was to come. With a determined shake of her head, and a silent affirmation that she was 'not done yet', Ellie let go of the bar with one hand. Her vision tunneled and blood pounded in her ears as the challenge instantly doubled. Despite everything she had put herself through, every conceivable limit she had broken, Ellie was still, as it turned out, human, and she couldn't hope to actually perform reps with one arm. Instead these were negatives - she wasn't trying to "win", simply to hold out and "lose" as slowly and as painfully as she could possibly manage. It was a sadistic form of training, and one she had come to crave after being introduced to it. For someone who, from the outside, seemed to be unstoppable, Ellie cherished this method of discovering her own breaking points, and ramming herself mercilessly against them over and over again. She could no longer hold back the moans of agony as she fought a losing battle against gravity, her body slowly and jerkily descending as she scratched and clawed for every inch. By the bottom of the rep, she needed to quickly grab on again with her other arm, or risk dropping from the bar completely. From there it was a few seconds of rest and recovery before she hoisted herself back up into position to start the next negative rep.

Ellie did 16 of these. Eight with each arm, alternating sides so that she could try to recover a bit of stamina while the other arm was pushed beyond the brink. It was a heinous display, her cries intensifying and the reps inevitably shortening as Ellie delved and emptied the deep reservoirs of her sheer capacity to suffer. This is what it took, this is what she would do gladly, in order to keep pushing forward, to keep breaking through her limits. By the end of them she hung, head tilted forward, sweat-sodden ginger hair splayed across her youthful features, mouth hanging open and gasping for relief, her mind not fully with her as it had retreated into a corner to protect itself from the agonised reports of her screaming muscles. But she hadn't dropped yet.

A final 12 pullups finished the circuit, a mirror and a contrast to her initial set. Where before she had been quiet and calm, controlled and efficient, these were rote, rough and ragged. Her upper body had been completely devastated from what had come before... but Ellie knew this was when the new foundations could be laid, the new structures started to be built. She was prouder of these ugly reps then the first pristine set, because these she had to gut herself through. At long last Ellie allowed her legs to straighten and carefully lowered the gargantuan barbell to the floor. She was finished, and for a brief moment, satisfied, but she knew from experience how fleeting these moments would be. Already in her mind she was planning the next workout, her quest for self-improvement was never ending.