simple

All posts tagged simple

The One Percent of Fitness

Posted by scalesonfire on April 23, 2012
Posted in: fitness Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

In fitness, its about being in the 1%

In fitness, being a part of the 99% means, you’re unhappy with your body in some way, you either exercise or your don’t but you only associate exercise with changing your appearance, and you’d rather buy something to fix the problem momentarily than explore the practices that fix the problem permanently.  That’s all liberal fitness, and sounds awful to those who do it right.

ScalesonFire.com is not all negative, and I’m not the most harsh trainer out there, but this is conservative fitness.  I don’t apologize for pushing buttons.  Why?  Because Bill O’Reilly and Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh don’t do it.  Most issues that inspire passion in the public like politics, religion, choice of cellular phone provider, and even fitness have its conservative and liberal sides.  Generally, the elite, successful, one percent conservatives both control and are the envy of the ninety-nine percent liberals.  This is common, understood, and the backbone of every liberal/conservative argument around us.

In America, we teach our children to come down on the elites before trying to be elite ourselves.

In fitness though, since there is no participation in the argument from the conservative side, liberalism is simply the way.  I am simply here to preach conservative fitness to combat liberal fitness as Fox News preaches conservative politics to combat networks they feel preach liberal politics.  In America, we need a balance.  By coddling the overweight and out-of-shape, by allowing quick-fix and celebrity-obsessed ideals to run rampant through our media, by going out of our way to simply accommodate the consumers who consume more, we have all contributed to the notion that obesity and fitness mediocrity are an accepted element of today’s society.

We need voices that will help everyone understand that first, complete fitness inadequacies are unacceptable in any normally constructed human being.  This is because effective fitness methods are incredibly simple.  Liberal individuals make fitness complicated by first, making the process about superficiality, then by refusing to participate unless the activity is fun to them and easy enough to complete, then they quit and try the new thing.  Over a lifetime, liberal fitness can become extremely expensive and create all of the lasting negative emotions about fitness that we see in hopelessly overweight individuals.  If we have given so many the choice to be overweight or obese, but tell them to buy a particular product or to buy into a diet or method, then we should hear from those who think we should be independent of diets and methods and make the choice every day to be healthy.

In fitness, for those who are liberal with their bodies, everything productive feels unjust.

Conservative fitness represents the deepest fear of those ninety-nine percenters who could never imagine real exercise and in result, have no concepts of the benefits of real exercise.

“Real exercise” is first, practice-based, meaning that it is done with a frequency, consistency, and encourages improvement.

Second, real exercise does not end.  Acting as though there is a finish line to the fitness process is acknowledging the fact that a person began the process to achieve a set, superficial result instead of looking to simply live as a fit person indefinitely.

Last, real exercise is independent.  It is independent of diets, gyms, workout plans, friends, doubters, anything.  It is independent of all the things in a person’s head, and independent of all of the ideas being placed into heads.

Real exercise is exercise that has not been repackaged to fit the desires of people who don’t have the will to do the boring, tedious things it takes to be truly fit.  All other exercise methods, diets, gyms, trainers, they all require full dependence for lasting results, or are designed to take an individual’s money before the goal is met.

The goal of personal trainers, athletes, yogis, and all other practice-oriented fitness enthusiasts should be to understand and accept that they are the one-percent of society, because those who are active but are so because of superficial reasons are also a part of the fitness problem.  These individuals should lead their practices and businesses with this understanding in mind.  Those who exercise to understand deeper levels of focus, discipline, accomplishment and strength are the ones who obtain what one might call permanent results from exercise, they’re also the individuals in our society with the most desired after bodies and who soak up crowded rooms with their sexual energy.

Taking control of your body is about fighting liberal urges.  When it comes to fitness, no outside power can help you more than you can help yourself.  I tell it to bewildered clients all the time: My goal is to cure obesity, so that in fifteen years I’m out of a job.  The liberal needs the help and begs for the help and is dying for the help, but when the help comes, they aren’t as passionate about doing the work.  They’d rather pay to have the work done for them.   If not, they’d rather do something to keep up appearances.

Conservative fitness is about constant exercise, so that appearances don’t need to be kept up.  Let the liberals worry about appearance.

Fat people and fitness liberals are already trying.

Keeping it Simple

Posted by scalesonfire on June 16, 2010
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Although your mom told you so, you may not be as unique as you think. This is a pretty superficial world, and most people are looking for the same things. Most just want to look good and feel better, the definitions of the two being loose and sometimes ambiguous. For me, looking good and feeling good has simply meant having a lighter body that performs well athletically. I could really care less about making certain body parts look any certain way, because that comes along with the activity. Now, that’s a unique way to feel and I know that. It’s not very unique to think that looking good is impressing and attracting other people and that feeling good is pampering yourself. The fact is that the fitness industry is created around this concept. Everything that involves fitness crazes, gyms, supplements and diets is centered around the idea that people want to look as great as they possibly could and feel even better doing it.

John Basedow, although the cheesiest of the cheesy, had a great pitch and product name. "Fitness Made Simple" in concept was what exercise and training should be, helping people learn to work out the way they should, and learn techniques, it just so happens that you get in shape.

So that’s created generations of people who don’t realize that effective exercise is never easy, fun, or comfortable, all selling points for new products and exercise fads. As an active person, I can tell you that exercise is boring, especially when you’re thinking about how boring it is. That sort of thing might suck the interest out of exercise. To make things less boring, people try all types of fun and dynamic techniques that they don’t need like supersets, “Arnold” movements, or anything that’s a variation to a regular exercise.

Exercise is more about learning than looking good, and I strongly advise anyone attempting to be fit to LEARN THE PROPER TECHNIQUE for anything they’re doing or trying to do. So for example, it’s great that plyometrics are so popular these days, but how can squat jumps help you if you don’t do regular squats correctly and if you do, you don’t practice them regularly? If you were solid with basic exercises like that, then you’d have lost the weight and built the definition already that squat jumps might give you if you quickly learn to do the entire movement correctly. Poor results, injuries, and eventually quitting all start with poor technique. For the people looking for that “quick fix” or a thing that is enjoyable, easy or effortless and produces the exact desired results, learning how to do things properly is last on the list.

Now we know how we ended up here. Millions of Americans filling gyms for the wrong reasons, working out for ridiculous amounts of time, seeing no results, and making every excuse to quit. The ugly, common sense truth that this author wants to press onto you is that exercise isn’t comfortable, and most things that give a sense of power are not. Politicians, doctors, clergy, and yes, personal trainers all possess a certain power over their constituents, patients, parishioners and clients. They all provide a service based on the premise that they know the exact answers to the toughest questions like, ‘should gays be married?’ ‘why am I so tired?’ or ‘what’s God’s plan for me?’ So as a trainer, the questions thrown at me every day are cut and dry:

How do I lose my belly?

How do I shorten my exercise time?

Am I overweight?

Now, if I were to answer the way a typical trainer would, I’d say “You lose your belly with a thirty-minute daily abdominal routine that involves fourteen exercises. You shouldn’t be trying to shorten you exercise time, you should be trying to make a better program. No, you look just fine.” Do you see the problem here? Trainers don’t. These things sell in our world. More variations on exercises, more structure and planning, more coddling lies. When I give clients and prospective clients answers like “You should be asking how to never make your belly a problem. You should be looking to do twice as much in less time. You should work on being able to move your body weight, and by the time you can, you won’t ever think you’re overweight.” These things are not only simple, they’re much easier said than applied.

An example of the ridiculous movements that trainers are trying to push on clients:

Sorry to break the news, but most people who work out, work out the way body builders and athletes should, but they’re not trying to increase muscle size or perform athletically. They just want to look good, and they don’t do any of the things that keep us looking good. Learning, practicing and mastering basic movements is much more different than trying to have fun. As with everything we have to learn, the fun comes with mastery.