Problems with the Fitness Industry

Problems With the Fitness Industry

For the sake of this discussion, we'll hone in more on the fitness industry than the health/wellness industry, even though the two can be closely related.

At face value, its an industry with good intentions. Provide services that help people achieve the physical changes they want, creating a healthier, more capable society.

But of course, a major measure of success in an industry is how much money comes in. This leads to competition between businesses and marketing campaigns designed to guide the customers thought processes and desires towards what they provide.

Here's a couple questions worth pondering. What does being "fit" mean to you, and what influences have driven you to think that way?

There could be so many different answers to those questions. It would make for a good Family Feud prompt.

My guess on order of most common responses would be....

1. A thin and/or muscular aesthetic.

2. Being able to hit weightlifting standards (eg. bench pressing your body weight)

3. Being able run a certain distance in a set amount of time.

4. Being able to play/perform well in a sport.

5. Being able to work and perform common daily activities.

Personally, my list would be reversed, but I think the most common #1 reason somebody starts working out is to achieve a change in body image. The other options may be motivators too, but so many people struggle accepting how their body looks when compared with an idealized human physique that we see portrayed in commercials, tv, movies, social media, and anywhere else.

I'm not sure that the body image issue is the fault of the fitness industry, but it definitely has taken it's opportunity to exploit it. Many workout classes, programs and products have been designed using the formula of more work = more results. Gym spaces and cultures revolve around burning more calories and building more muscle to attain dream bodies.

This isn't all bad. Joining a community that helps you put in more time and effort then you would otherwise is fantastic. The foundational problem is that most fitness methods are geared towards helping as many people as possible achieve aesthetic changes as fast as possible. This leads to the creation of services that prioritize movement quantity instead of movement quality.

For some people who are lucky to have naturally healthy movement patterns and the sense of how to push themselves without overdoing it, these services can work great. However many others with underlying health and movement obstacles end up straining their way through their workouts, trying to keep up with those around them, only to experience multiple set backs, discouragement, and either the feeling that the fitness industry isn't being inclusive for them, or that they are the problem for not working hard enough.

The fitness industry has glorified pushing through discomfort without educating people on all the nuance of adjusting expectations, mindset, and intentions for where you are at right now and the kind of discomfort you are feeling.

It doesn’t teach how to listen to the signs your body gives you or what to do with its messages. It doesn’t acknowledge that if we’re already over our capacity, we first need to reset our system to come down from a highly stressed state to a more sustainable baseline of activity, then how to build sustainably from there.

It undervalues the amount of technique that can go into simple actions like walking, running, pressing, pulling, jumping, etc., and how just getting stronger at gym exercises doesn't guarantee that strength is useful for those movements.

It doesn't acknowledge that in order to improve movement quality, you may actually need to lessen the quantity and really slow things down in order to learn a new movement pattern well before stress-testing the pattern with speed, load, and volume.

The fitness industry is failing more and more people, but thankfully many continue to try to make positive changes and are seeking out alternatives to standard fitness practices, and more thought leaders in the industry itself are seeing these problems and figuring out how to make exercise more inclusive to everyone.

RE:TRAIN is one of those offering a needed perspective shift and expansion on fitness. We blend exercise, education, and recovery to give the tools for managing what life throws at you, creating a high-quality approach to exercise, and improving at what matters most to you.