It rolls off of my tongue quite often and far too easily when I am talking to someone and I say ‘the fitness industry is changing all the time’. What I would rather say if I or the gym member had the time for me to explain is that food manufacturers, gym companies, diet book writers, personal trainers and gym members is what’s changing. The fitness industry, in its purest form of exercising for fun, mental health, to lose weight or gain weight, health or aesthetics and sports remains the same.
The ‘industry’ doesn’t actually exist. It has been created by humans who could make a few quid. The industry has to change because it has a new fad diet to put into a book to sell this year. The industry has to change because a fancy looking ab machine will keep it’s paying members happy as they search for their 6 pack. But ‘fitness’. Fitness is where we need to begin.
In fact I’ll begin in 600 BC. The Greek athlete Milo of Croton might be a story that you have heard of. To train he would run with a small calf on his back every day. The calf grew and due to Milo carrying it every day, he did too. I’ve spoken about the progressive overload before. We need to keep adapting as we get faster and stronger. Recently I spoke to a window cleaner who scoffed at the idea of exercise. He stated that he exercises enough because he is up and down ladders all day. But he won’t be getting any fitter. He has been repeating the same process for 20 years. And as he ages this will become more and more difficult which means continuing his job until retirement is highly unlikely.
Milo carried the calf until it became a bull. He was a champion athlete who we talk about, write about, make statues of him and paintings of him. The thing about fitness or indeed this story is that we don’t need to focus on carrying a bull, but the principles are the same… whatever your goals. So you reach a peak? Great, how should you adapt it so that you’re able to go again? Maybe not just think about the weight of the bull, but how often you carry it or how far you run. There are many variables, but one thing is for certain, the principles have never changed.
The industry, however, want it to change. We’re told, because it’s in a gym and included in fad workouts, that ab machines help us to achieve a 6 pack. A 6 pack requires a very low body fat percentage. If the gym thought that they were that useful it would have more of them in their gym all lined up and people with abs of steal sitting on them. How many ab machines does your gym have? And how many treadmills, barbells, dumbbells and benches does it have? There you go! But selling the idea of getting abs is more profitable than running on a treadmill or deadlifting a barbell. It has to give us new sexy concepts to keep us going back and paying our membership. Like a new diet or miracle pill. It wants us to chase the dream.
Yet when you bring it back to the basics, fitness is pretty straightforward. If you stop listening to the bull and start carrying it, you can reach your dreams without forever chasing them.
Never Give Up PT 