Thinking Outside The Box

With the change in season comes another rush to improve our health , fitness and/or shape. From my perspective it is the same old stuff, just another season: heavy weight being thrown around with potentially crippling form; bored, robotic, sheep-like members moving from one machine to the next following their “trainer’s” guaranteed program; women lining up to reduce those unsightly bulges on the inner and outer thigh machines, that won’t get them results; not quite right versions of the newest functional or core training techniques; the masses fat burning away, at the same methodical, uninspired pace putting in their minutes trying to negate bad lifestyle habits or keep their hearts from exploding. Aren’t we a ridiculous bunch?

Observing the members “working out” at the big, corporate run “health” club actually puts me into a state of temporary madness observing all the misapplications of biomechanics. I go through an emotional rollercoaster taking me from being amused, to shocked, to hysterical to concerned for their safety to angry at their ignorance. I have witnessed such a bizarre, dangerous, aberration of an exercise that it creates an barely controlled, urgent, compelling need to confront the perpetrator and ask, “What the *&$# are you doing, and why?” I try to block it out, but like Austin Powers’ fixation with the mole on Fred Savage’s forehead in Gold Member, it’s beyond my control. I have been an athletic and fitness professional for too many years not be disturbed by the absolute disregard for exercise science and these, misinformation fueled, pursuits of fitness. It is not that complicated! Seeing the same people performing the same mediocre to horrible form and content, following the most recent advice for a quick fix from the latest “fitness” publication or “in house expert” in pursuit of an improved sexiness rating makes it obvious that there is a severe lack of understanding out there of basic principles.

With $15 billion in revenues per year the health and fitness industries are building up very fat bank accounts on the insecurities and ignorance of people trying to get fast and easy results. Supporting this you have a plethora of books, videos and magazines possibly doing more to push us further away than closer to wellness with their promising of having the answer to you seek. The array is incredibly vast with just about every activity possible and celebrity alive claiming to have the answer through running, biking, sex, martial arts, kettle balls, stability balls, medicine balls, navy seal training, juicing, boot camps, Carmen Electra, Biggest Looser Workout, slow motion training, the age defying workout, 10 minute workout, belly dancing for core fitness, etc, etc, etc, etc. All of these books and magazine articles just compound the confusion with contradictory beliefs, quick fixes that are aren’t, and implying their approach is the “new”, “breakthrough”, or ‘guaranteed” approach to eternal beauty, Herculean strength and shape, increased energy, sexually dynamic prowess and immortality. For the most part there is little truth and a lot of fill in most of these rehashed, reorganized, repeated, answers to eternal health, vitality and beauty. They are laughing at us all the way to the bank as we keep getting worse.

The answer is simple to define but for some, obviously, difficult to apply. As previously stated there are no quick fixes and you have to apply a healthy lifestyle to become healthy. You need a personalized program tailored to your needs with your physical history, assets and limitations considered to get optimal results from your efforts. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated, just integrated and intelligent. If you decide to seek professional assistance beware of imposters that hard sell you and used measured sales techniques to close an emotion based sale. These used car salesmen of fitness training will pressure you to sign up and pay for anywhere from 6-50 sessions up front well aware that the odds favor you being a part of the 75 - 90% of their member base that pays but doesn’t use there membership or finish their paid for services. There is one well known fitness chain that has close to 5 million dollars in unused personal training sessions paid for, unused and long idle, just waiting to pass the expiration date. Choose wisely, find an experienced fitness performance coach who will set you up with a personal program designed just for you and your specific goals

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