![]() ![]() Get ripped, get jacked, get slim, get sexy, get hot, get abs. Wanna get ripped.” Listen to the macho voice and music and ask yourself: did he really have to be shirtless for this? Beachbody articles for men remind us that “our tops come off, imperfect bodies and all.” The tagline of this T-Nation article is “chances are, you’re either a fat bastard or a skinny slacker.”Īn advertisement for Iron Gym’s pull-up bar depicts an oiled up, dehydrated, shirtless model and begins “Wanna get strong. ”Īnd men are hardly exempt from this treatment. I once attended a marketing conference where the speaker held up “ Get Bikini Body Confident ” as a slogan that “ feel like a pile of shit.” Similarly, this classy “beachbody” article in Cosmo claims that “ You don’t need to bust ass for months to look like a goddess in a bikini. And again, the messages around exercise make us feel terrible. The media and messaging around exercise take advantage of this in the most blatant way possible. There’s a reason “lose weight” was the most popular New Year’s resolution of 2015. Given a choice between six-pack and potbelly, most people would choose six-pack. ![]() The flipside of “exercise sucks” is that most people DO want to be fit. And every time a rep wasn’t deep enough, one would shout at the other: “NOT GOOD ENOUGH! DO IT AGAIN!” The circuit workout they were doing was intense, enough that it caused me to look up and notice. Every rep was precisely counted and tracked. This past New Year’s, I witnessed two women come in to work out every day. ![]() I’ve been working out for years, but I would still probably quit if every workout knocked me on my ass while being screamed at by a “trainer.” Is it any wonder people hate working out?Īnd yet these examples are everywhere in pop culture. I don’t like being called pathetic while I’m at the gym. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be called a “worthless piece of crap” when I work out. One highlight: “you’re not acting strong, you’re acting pathetic!” Famed fitness personality Jillian Michaels is absolutely brutal on the Biggest Loser.BoJack Horseman, the critically acclaimed animated comedy on Netflix, depicts its protagonist struggling on a run, proclaiming “running is terrible, everything is the worst.” Even the encouraging words at the end of this clip imply that exercise needs to suck at first.Here’s a clip of Ted being beaten down by an aggressive trainer in the one episode they do work out. How I Met Your Mother ran for 9 seasons, and regularly made references to the main characters’ laziness.Ever wonder “why do I hate exercise?” This is why. In other words, we constantly learn and relearn that exercise is an exhausting activity worthy of hate. But, as any gym-rat will tell you, exercise can and should be enjoyable.īut for whatever reason, the media we are exposed to on a daily basis glorifies exercise that drives us to the breaking point, showing exercises we “ love to hate ” and an endless barrage of hard-ass trainers. I won’t claim that being super fit is super easy. That a “beachbody” is the result of hundreds of hours of impossible workouts mixed with a carefully regulated diet. And yet, we are constantly told that exercise means endlessly punishing your body in the gym. The fitness industry has a problem: exercise sucks.
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