Fitness is an Absolutely Insane Landscape of Fear, False Idols, and Passionate Ignorance

I first noticed the body language of men and women walking by our training back when we were a park program. From about 150 feet away, I noticed people fixating on the people in class. Their body language seemed to reveal their thoughts in three stages:

Stage 1: “How do I feel about this?”

Stage 2: “Could I do that? What does that mean about me?” 

Stage 3: [Insert intense self-reflection + Judgement + Anger or Support]

Fitness is a worse topic than religion and politics.

It has all the passionate entrenched dogma as religion and politics, but the added inflammatory fact that it’s internal. After all, your personal health and fitness (or lack thereof) is more you than who you worship or vote for. In that way, it’s the Super Bowl of self-reflection. That’s why when people are confronted with fitness ideas or practices it’s like a mirror. 

I recently spoke to a friend who started working out. I was stoked to hear this and congratulated him. In a non-salesy way, I mentioned that he was always welcome at DEUCE to which he quickly responded that he doesn’t do powerlifting. 

“You’re in luck, because while we have a powerlifting program, we aren’t a powerlifting gym. There’s plenty of stuff you can do here with a coach,” I said. 

“Oh, maybe I misunderstood after seeing Lift Run Hang,” he wondered.

“That’s weightlifting,” I clarified. “That’s something different altogether. I mean no pressure, but now I’m curious. What did you mean by ‘strength training?’”

“I just do chest and triceps and legs and biceps and stuff,” he offered. 

“Oh, so, like bodybuilding!” I was thrilled and mentioned, “We have that, too!”

It was at this moment that I was being lame and the problem here was that he was afraid of something he didn’t understand. The result? He, like many folks, would rather make up exercise as he goes along without any movement integrity than try being coached in a legitimate program because of the negative connotation around the barbell.

If you ask me, there are two groups of people at fault here:

1. My peers and I in the fitness industry have sadly created this bed and now we have to sleep in it. We’ve made objectively positive things (gyms and physical fitness) scary, douchey, and confusing. 
2. The consumer is also on the hook here. Almost no industry has consumers with such an extreme combination of remarkable levels of ignorance and false confidence in training methods. 

This explains the existence of many of the methodless training studios that are popular, but ignore nearly any training principles. It’s a system that not only doesn’t work, it can’t get better in its current form. It’s a sad day in the fitness industry and it’s our responsibility to change it.