The definition of ‘fit’ in the Oxford English Dictionary is: ‘suitable for the required purpose’. Nowhere does the definition of ‘fit’ include: ‘good body’. Nor does it mean ‘athletically capable’. In fact, ‘fit’ is nothing more than a minimum standard of base utility. It is as deeply unimpressive as a thing can be before it is too incompetent to perform its basest purpose.
In terms of physicality, ‘fitness’ (in the US Oxford dictionary) is defined as being: ‘in good health’. The definition of health is: “the state of being free from illness or injury”. Nobody wants to be ill or injured but aspirations do not get much lower than simply being ‘free of illness or injury’. Yet that is all fitness is!
Fitness is something so poor you should be disgusted with yourself for LOSING it; not harping on about strategies to GET it. ‘Fitness’ is truly the worst you can be before you are physically diseased. It is, by definition, the absence of any and all athleticism. It is, by definition, absolute base-level physical mediocrity!
So for everybody confused about the myriad contradictions in ‘fitness’ advice there is an easy solution: always replace the words ‘health’ and/or ‘fitness’ with ‘mediocrity’. Some examples:
- walking is good for your mediocrity
- yoga is great for your mediocrity
- a personal trainer can help you get really mediocre
- boot camps can really boost your mediocrity
- high protein diets could be a risk to your mediocrity
See how it works?
for everybody confused about the contradictions about ‘fitness’ advice there is an easy solution: replace the word ‘fitness’ with ‘mediocrity’.
Any uninjured person capable of walking into a gym (without falling over in pain and exhaustion) is already ‘fit’. There is nothing of benefit a ‘Fitness’ Trainer (‘Mediocrity Trainer’?) is qualified to offer them! This is why Personal Trainers misrepresent their service as training for a more athletic body. For example, they will imply ‘core stability’ means ‘hard abs’. It doesn’t! ‘Core stability’ is a literal description. It means a midsection that doesnt collapse when you stand up or walk. Its not an aspiration. It’s an absurdity that any person who WALKED into a gym would pay to train for what they quite obviously already have! Likewise for ‘functional fitness’ and ‘CrossFit’. They are all wasteful rehabilitation exercises being sold to people who do not need rehabilitating!
If you are someone who trains hard for a lean, muscular body, then you are engaged in the practice of ‘athlete development’; NOT fitness! Any activity you engage in for ‘fitness’ – ie mediocrity – is actually making you a WORSE athlete, by definition! Athleticism is high physical performance. (Fitness) mediocrity is LOW performance. So if you train for LOW performance then you are literally training AGAINST your high performance training. ‘Fitness’ is literally training to be WORSE!
This is why I despise the concept of using low-performance endurance training to produce superior strength athletes. Bodybuilders prefer to hide from the stupidity of what they are doing by calling their endurance training ‘cardio’. Like calling the proverbial rose by another name stops it being a rose?
‘Cardio’ is short for ‘cardio vascular exercise’; meaning ‘exercise for the heart and vascular system’. It is used interchangeably with the phrase ‘cardio vascular fitness’. Thats because ‘cardio’ is specifically for physical mediocrity. If a person cannot walk for half an hour because they do not possess the aerobic capacity then they are physically diseased! They are ‘unfit’/’unsuitable’ to function as a human should be able. They need to develop cardiovascular mediocrity. This is where the adage about walking for half an hour, 3x per week being ‘all you NEED’. The ability to walk for 30 minutes is all you NEED to qualify as ‘fit’! That is how disgracefully mediocre ‘fitness’ really is! It is about NOT DYING from your physical decrepitness! And that is a concern far removed from worrying about the clarity of separations between your abdominal muscles!
To any person involved in training with weights for a lean, muscular body, walking is transport. Walking doesn’t create superior athleticism! Running is athletic but running is training to be a runner! And nobody ever described an endurance runners body as desirable or sexy let alone muscular. Neither walking nor running has a positive contribution to make to an athlete trying to excel in strength training for an ultimately lean and muscular body.
As an athlete, ‘fitness’ is a disgraceful level of physical mediocrity you are training to move beyond and AWAY from! You are already BEYOND ‘fit’. You do NOT want to go backwards to ‘fitness’ so do not partake in practices designed to send you back! If something is good for your ‘fitness’ – ie your mediocrity – then it is BAD for your ultimate athleticism and body composition!
Health and fitness are the lowest states of physical mediocrity. Replace the words ‘health’ and ‘fitness’ with ‘mediocrity’ wherever you see them and then you will properly understand what is being said!
