Mainstream Gym Culture is Holding you Back from Becoming Seriously Fit

Fitness is more than just bodybuilding and/or powerlifting.

I can't believe people have to be reminded of this.

If you're stuck in an exclusive bodybuilding or powerlifting mindset of fitness, you're missing out on bucketfuls of gains...gains that are more than just muscular size and personal best 1 rep maxes. 

Yes, I'm eluding to the crazy idea that there is more to exercising than simply building as much muscle in specific areas as possible or building as much strength as possible.

Allow me to rant for a little bit...

Too many people have such a narrow focus when it comes to fitness.

They focus solely on building more muscle, while sacrificing movement quality, variety, and athleticism in the process.

It's not that building muscle negates these other qualities. But rather, an issue of focusing so narrowly on building muscle that you NEVER bother to train any other qualities of fitness. That's the problem.

I'm a big fan of building muscle. Don't get me wrong.

But I don't get caught up in all this mainstream fitness nonsense that confuses one quality of fitness (hypertrophy) as the definition for being fit. Part of your general plan should involve packing on muscle mass! But, it shouldn't be the sole focus. And I'd like people to realize that muscle mass and an aesthetic physique are also a byproduct of a fit, healthy, athletic body. 

So, while you should include specific hypertrophy work, you should also realize that doing exercises that challenge your stability, movement quality, body control, coordination, power, conditioning, and mobility also benefit muscle mass while sculpting an attractive, graceful, and capable physique! Not just a bulky, awkward, stiff figure. 

I don't care much to do many exercises that have zero benefit besides increasing hypertrophy in a specific area/muscle group. Just like in the same token, I don't care to do exercises in a way that do nothing other than test my limit strength. Every time I resistance train I am strength training. But I'm not focusing on getting my big 3 powerlifts as strong as possible [anymore]. I train in moderate to high rep ranges.

This is why I never listen to those goofy “exercise tier list” videos. Those videos probably would hate an exercise like, kettlebell clean & press – one of my all time favorite things to do. Those hypertrophy-only geeks would likely, nasally, whine that the "clean" portion is all momentum and therefore serves no purpose, and pressing a kettlebell overhead can't build muscle because it's shaped like an orb and I've never learned how to even hold a kettlebell correctly (a true crime in society) so surely it's just uncomfortable and a silly trend. 

Yet, the truth is that kettlebell cleans are not just an act of momentum. It's a highly skilled movement that combines strength, power production, timing, and coordination. And while ballistic, fast, explosive exercises definitely are NOT as productive for building as much muscle as slower, high tension, grind lifts, these ballistics do require, and therefore, stimulate many muscles in the body. The forearms, lats, traps, glutes, hamstrings, and quads all play a critical role in the kettlebell clean. It's also a wonderful combination of movement patterns. If you're doing a 1 arm clean, that's a hinge, a pull, an anti-rotation, and a redirection movement. 

But the clean by itself isn't what makes it special. Because in the clean & press, each clean is followed by an overhead press. And the mighty overhead press is a great muscle builder because it uses a lot of the body's muscles and, unlike cleans, it is a slow, high tension grind. The overhead press is one of the best upper body exercises known to mankind, despite the debate on whether it builds muscle or not (😒). It builds muscle in the shoulders, triceps, upper back, and even the upper chest. It's a push pattern, and, again, if done unilaterally, it's a great anti-rotation exercise that will forge a stronger midsection, aka, core. Using kettlebells or dumbbells for this exercise also helps eliminate imbalances and builds unilateral strength. After all, we are contra-lateral creatures, so it behooves us to train one arm and one leg at a time, at least some of the time.

Lastly, exercises like the clean & press (whether done with kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells, or a sandbag) are super fantastic because they combine multiple movement patterns AND fitness qualities. Each rep of clean & press includes a hinge, a pull, a press, and anti-rotation; but each rep also involves a powerful, explosive, fast, ballistic AND a slow, high tension, muscularly challenging, grind. 

Do you grasp how awesome this is? The ability to move fast and slow, and transition from one to the other, seamlessly and repetively is a very high level fitness skill! Yet, the unoriginal YouTube hypertrophy bros – who all just copy each other's content – would probably place an exercise like kettlebell clean & press somewhere in the basement tier because they're painfully ignorant about the exercise and what fitness should be about. 

Moving on from that specific example...

I do exercises that are fun – physically and mentally stimulating to me – that build muscle while also improving my ability to stabilize, move through space, and even practice movements that require explosiveness AND coordination (such as the example above).

I also believe in fitness freedom, which I define as the ability to perform resistance exercise anywhere with any or no equipment. Don't become someone that relies on a commercial gym packed full with machines to train.

Learn how to perform challenging exercises that tackle the main movement patterns with a wide variety of equipment, or no equipment at all!

Learn to move dynamically and practice doing so.

Get creative with your training.

This is the beauty of using kettlebells, sandbags, clubs, calisthenics, and yes, even dumbbells. The movement and resistance training possibilities are endless.

This is one reason I always will love free weights and calisthenics over barbells and gym machines. Everything has its place, but certain implements and programs are far better suited for general, holistic fitness – like building muscle AND power, mobility AND conditioning, strength AND endurance – which all equates to greater function and higher levels of athleticism. This is much different than what you find most people doing in the commercial gym, or what's recommended by the grifters on social media/YouTube who pretend all that matters is maximizing the size of each muscle in the body.

I love my curls, tricep extensions, and lateral raises as much as the next guy. But I also love cleaning weights from the ground into the front rack before pressing them. I love unilateral leg training. I love lifting and carrying awkward objects. I love kettlebell ballistics. I love basic bodyweight exercises for high reps. And I love being able to train in my backyard with a few simple pieces of equipment – or even training in my hotel room with nothing but my own body and a chair – while effectively training each muscle, every basic movement pattern, a few choice isolation exercises, and many qualities of fitness in a short period of time. 

A little creativity and knowledge makes everywhere a potential gym for you to use!

Let's talk about another problem that arises thanks to the mainstream fitness culture's obsession with bodybuilding and powerlifting.

Anyone that's been in the gym working or training for awhile knows that people fall off the wagon all the time. We all have family members, friends, and frenemies alike, whom at one time were loud and proud gym rats, only to one day become injured, burnt out, or acquire new responsibilities that took away from potential gym time. Before you know it, they've got zero gains, zero motivation, and they never get back in shape again (until, if their lucky, they find an article like this one, redefining what physical fitness practice is all about).

For many people, going to the gym or exercising is a phase of their life. When they move on from that phase, they realize it wasn't a sustainable hobby long term. 

Let's get one thing crystal clear: fitness is NOT a hobby. It's a personal responsibility!

But, the way mainstream media and fitness outlets market exercise is very much in the fashion of a hobby. And I agree, traditional bodybuilding or powerlifting training is NOT sustainable long term.

The mainstream fitness image of bodybuilding or powerlifting is extremely time consuming and requires a gym and a plethora of equipment.

It's not holistic. Most people in this rat race are working on just one quality – either hypertrophy or limit strength.

Frustration eventually takes over because you don't look like that professional bodybuilder who's program you're following, or you've plateaued on your powerlifts with PRs that the forums dedicated to competitive powerlifting declare – with disgust, I might add – to be "intermediate." Both of these are dreadful places to find yourself. And either way it comes down to this self defeating prophecy of, "I'm not good enough."

There will also be injuries when training like a robotic bodybuilding bro or one of those people who is a rigid, stubborn recreational powerlifter. 

Finally, boredom strikes. Yes, I said it. Boredom. Training like a mainstream commercial gym recreational bodybuilder is b-o-r-i-n-g, boring! It's terrible. I know in the early days it seems fun and new and exciting. I was also once a teenager in love...with commercial gym bodybuilding style training. 

But after several years of 4 sets of 10 reps and 5 days per week dedicated to 1 or 2 muscle groups per day, and 2 hour sessions, and doing one seated exercise after another, things begin to become extremely boring. I remember after 4-5 years of this my mind begged for more stimulation, something that seemed more productive.

So, I began powerlifting. Again, this was fun at first. But eventually, I got painfully bored again. But kike most recreational powerlifters, I was stubborn and stayed the course. And then my body slowly got beat up. And eventually chronically injured. Now I've got a billion labrum tears in both hips, impingement in both hips, deterioration, and I've had arthritis in my hips since the ripe old age of 27! Worst of all, I never got beyond low level intermediate powerlifting numbers, nor did I ever compete. 

So why did I waste 4 years doing boring, time sucking, powerlifting routines, doing squats, bench press, and deadlift variations several times per week for high volumes, with nothing to show for it?

The answer is: I drank the cool-aid. From 2014-2018 (my powerlifting phase), the fitness social media space was all about powerlifting. Focus on these 3 exercises and you'll be jacked, strong, and cool! (The space has recently shifted back to being all about bodybuilding).

The one thing that powerlifting had that kept me from going back to commercial gym style bodybuilding was that the programming variations were very stimulating to me. But it didn't change the fact that being solely focused on increasing strength on 3 lifts was a net negative for my health and fitness at the time. I allowed myself to carry more body fat than ever (I was always predisposed to being super skinny, but powerlifting lifestyle led me to bulking up into fairly fluffy territory). I got weaker in many exercises just to get stronger in 3 exercises. My conditioning went way down hill. I was still in the Army National Guard during this time and my 2 minute pushups, 2 minute situps, and 2 mile run times all decreased. Even during my recreational boring bodybuilding days I used to score 100+ points in each event, slaughtering the perfect score standards (each event topped out at a score of 100 beyond a certain amount of pushups, situps, and any time under 13 minute 2 mile run). But towards the end of my powerlifting era, I was burning out a few reps shy of 100% score on pushups, I was still aceing the situps – but barely – and the 2 mile run became a miserable 14-15 minutes of pain for me. 

Not only that, but my performance in other activities, like sports diminished – and I was always good at sports. But focusing too much on only bodybuilding or only powerlifting made me only one dimensional during those years.

You see, a quick glance around social media, YouTube, and your local gym will tell you that society has placed fitness – specifically resistance training – in 2 little boxes: box 1 is mainstream bodybuilding (which, ironically, isn't all that effective for building muscle for most people) and box 2 is powerlifting (which is an effective way to limit distractions and get strong lifting the barbell, but does not help other qualities of fitness and often leads to a decrease in everything not specific to squat, bench, deadlift).

It's no wonder most people fall off the exercise wagon. Mainstream fitness culture has promoted forms of exercise that are mundane, time-consuming, boring, injurious, and one dimensional.

Heck, those mundane routines don't even build muscle efficiently, which is why most people doing them don't look impressive, anyway.

Furthermore, most of these short term gym rats see these 2 options as "all or nothing." So if you can't give 10 hours at the gym per week plus commuting time to and from the gym, you're better off doing nothing.

Or you have those people that train forever in a manner that only focuses on bodybuilding or only the powerlifts and they remain the same for years until they hit an age where they steadily begin to decline, because they never prepared their body for anything other than 3 specific lifts or a bunch of seated exercises targeting isolated muscles with slow, controlled movements guided by machines or cables. They don't actually challenge the body, they go through the motions, and since they don't use other qualities pertaining to fitness, they lose the skill of these other qualities. And since most people don't have the genetics to be elite at bodybuilding or powerlifting for the rest of their lives, they end up just being an average, unathletic gym fixture. 

Fitness is not all or nothing. It's not bodybuilding or powerlifting. It's a lifestyle and a combination of play, voluntary hardship, movement practice, persistence, resilience, overcoming challenges, and ongoing, never ending personal development. 

Fitness should never get boring because there are so many unique qualities and skills to be practiced. It can be simple or complex.

It's perfectly reasonable to prioritize hypertrophy or raw strength in your fitness regimen....but don't solely focus on any one quality of fitness (just like I wouldn't advise someone to focus on only flexibility).

I would say that currently, I prioritize hypertrophy in my own training. But I also do a lot of non-hypertrophy specific work during my workouts. Many of my exercises are not the most optimal hypertrophy exercises, but they are pretty darn good options for hypertrophy but also great exercises because they train other qualities alongside hypertrophy (an example might be doing single leg RDLs instead of regular RDLs, or box step ups instead of quad extensions, jump rope instead of machine calf raises, or even pushup variations instead of barbell/machine bench presses).

As I've shared, I've gone through phases where I trained solely for hypertrophy and then solely for strength/powerlifting. I spent about 4 years doing each. While I improved specific qualities of fitness during those periods, I went backwards in many – most, even – qualities of fitness. I've learned and continue to learn. I now train in a way where I train many qualities simultaneously throughout each program.

The funny thing is, while my limit strength may or may not be as strong as it was 10 years ago (I don't know if it is or not because I haven't bothered to test it) I'm much fitter than ever, much stronger for moderate to high rep ranges than ever, and I look better than ever before. Rebuilding my body and embracing a balanced, well-rounded fitness regimen during the last 4 years has catapulted my physique beyond what it ever was during the phase where I solely focused on maximizing my body composition, but I've also improved many other qualities of fitness at the same time. 

I take a much more generalist approach to fitness than I did in my 20s, but my training is more fun, more time-efficient (my website is called 30minutephysique.com because my workouts take only about 30 minutes), my physique is the most aesthetic it's been, my body feels better, I don't rely on any specific equipment, I look forward to exercising each day, and I'm constantly improving various skills and qualities of fitness that I didn't even realize existed 15 years ago.

Break away from the fitness industry's obsession with bodybuilding (or, to a lesser degree, powerlifting). Become a better mover, a stronger athlete, healthier adult, and a more resilient human who also happens to be jacked. 

Get jacked as a byproduct of being fit. Resist the boring, mundane mainstream gym training routine that builds a little bit of muscle while sacrificing enjoyment and high levels of total fitness. Focus on a holistic, generalist, time efficient fitness regimen that you can repeat and build upon for decades so you become a well-rounded athletic powerhouse for life!