Check Please

I think I'm about to be sick. No really. I might actually be seconds away from having to purchase a new keyboard. Clean up on aisle 4 man.

I just received this season's copy of a so called fitness trade journal in the mail at my club. I say "so called" because there are all sorts of trade journals in the fitness industry. This one rates as a thinly veiled advertisement vehicle for anyone who wants to pay enough to get a feature length article published about their, usually shoddy, product. The cover story on this one....all about how gym memberships are up....because "vanity is a recession industry."

How should you, the clever, trendy, yet ever so thrifty club owner/operator capitalize on this? Well son, by purchasing some of our low cost, highly indestructible mirrors, so everyone can get the best view of any angle while they toil away in your dungeon of torture and sorrow they'd likely never set foot in if they couldn't stare at their own abs while they work.

Actual quote here "With ______ mirrors, you can go completely off the wall....You can hang them from the ceiling so members can check their form on flat bench presses, or proper body positioning in supine exercises...." I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if your back is supported by a full length flat bench, or THE FLOOR, you've probably got good form.

Or let's look at another one here. "With vanity on the rise, your members will be grateful to be able to monitor their progress towards physical and economic recovery." The economic part comes in earlier in the article as the author equates joining a gym and staring at your @ss to bettering your ability to land a job in a recession.

Are you freaking kidding me? I know you're trying to hawk a product here. But seriously? This single author somehow encapsulates every last thing in the fitness world that keeps America fat.

Get out of the mirror. Forget about the aesthetics. Focus on the movement. Focus on moving your body through space with as much efficiency as possible. Create a strong machine capable of performing under increasing load or intensity. Your beach body will follow. I promise. And you will have created the functionality in your body that lends its self to sustained results.

You know what? Go ahead. Get into the mirror. Watch those biceps curl that dumbbell. Watch those pecs push that bar. How long are those results going to last? How long have you been trying to break through to that next heavier bench press or into that next size smaller jean? It's time to try something else.

Aesthetics are a consequence of fitness.

Get fit, learn to move first. Everything else you want will follow.