There’s a funny comedy routine, I think it’s by Josh Sneed, where he talks about why he hates the Insanity workout. He talks about how the first step, designed to see how many exercises you can do, is impossibly difficult. He says he hated the instructor, some impossibly fit woman, who made it look easy. And he talked about a Marines Workout where his goal was to look like the dude in the “before” picture. “He seems like he’s in pretty good shape. I’d like to look like that.”
I thought of this reading an Atlantic article (q.v) about gyms and how many members sign up and hardly show up. The article states the assumptions that many people are younger, without injury and simply looking to get bigger or lose small amounts of weight intimidate; and do not apply to many people. They may have abusive memories of gym class or struggle to do one pushup or squat. Maybe a gum environment is disheartening. The market for easier instruction is big, according to the article.
But everyone starts somewhere. And everyone can improve. And it is important they do. Exercise is important to health and fewer than 1 in 4 get enough, worse with aging.
Are there other courses like this?
Did the article ring true?
Did anyone have well adjusted gym instructors? (I’d score 50%).
Anyone scarred by the “Presidential Fitness” Model?