

Everything You Know About Fitness Is a Lie (2010) - dredmorbius
http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504

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dredmorbius
Yes, it's been seen before. However it's worth seeing again -- fundamental
truths are like that.

The straightforward lessons for personal fitness are important, but also the
business insights:

 _Here 's the problem: If you're in the fitness-equipment business, free
weights are a loser. The 2010 model looks too much like the 1950 model, and
they both last forever. Far better to create gleaming $4,000 contraptions that
can be reinvented every two years, and then hire a PR firm to promote some
made-up training theory claiming that machines are the answer..._

 _Commercial health clubs need about 10 times as many members as their
facilities can handle, so designing them for athletes, or even aspiring
athletes, makes no sense...._

 _But the personal-training business model doesn 't include teaching (or even
learning) the fundamentals anyway. Trainers make a living by keeping clients
coming back; fundamentals liberate clients to train themselves. So the savvy
trainer tells you that these days, it's all about "functional fitness," a
complex integration of balance and stability and strength...._

 _Shaul gave me a great gift that day, cluing me in to a little secret: True
sport-specific training, for literally everybody except elite athletes, isn 't
sport-specific at all. It's about getting strong, durable, and relentless in
simple, old-school ways that a man can train, test, and measure._

Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7371478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7371478)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224634)

Oh, and single-page link: [http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-
view/everything-yo...](http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-
view/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504)

