Escaping the 'fitness industrial complex'.

Upmarket commercial gyms, pushy personal trainers with convoluted workout systems, fitbits, workout tracker apps, scientific scales, pre-workout supplements, post-workout supplements, creatine, fat-burners etc etc etc. When it comes to getting and staying in shape there are no end of products and services vying for your hard earned money.

After years of working out, it’s my contention that everything on the afore-mentioned list is utterly superfluous; a triumph of pure unadulterated capitalist salesmanship fomenting articial demand in the midst of a contemporary culture of consumption and excess. I grow tired of seeing fools lumbering into the gym with absurdly large gear bags, poncing around in expensive training gear adocked with 'beast mode', 'gains' etc - conspicuously displaying their membership of the ‘fitness subculture’ (incidentally, a classic example of artificial group identity based on consumption), fiddling around with resistance bands, drinking rip-off protein shakes, taking post-workout selfies, and generally following the exact script laid out for them by fitness industry magazines.

Let’s take chest day as an example. Fitness industry gurus implore, ‘you need to hit the muscle from every angle’, or ‘you need to mix things up regularly so the muscles don’t get used to your workouts!’ They would have you believe developing a muscular chest requires a full compliment of olympic barbells, dumbells, smith machines, incline press machines, pectoral machines, and cables... The truth is you can build a muscular chest with just high volume press ups alone. Ask any prison inmate.

Cardio is perhaps an even better example of commercial superfluousness. Gyms offer you a myriad of luxury state of the art treadmills, bikes, cross trainers, rowing machines and stairmasters - all with the latest high-tech features and apps... You can achieve the same result going out for a run, and consume a heck of a lot less electricity in the process!

When it comes to diet the gurus will tell you to ‘eat 2 grams of protein for every pound of bodyweight’, or ‘you need to bulk before you can shred’ and other assorted nonsense. The bulking mindset is totally misguided. Almost without exception the guys lifting the heaviest weights in the gym have obese waistlines, chronic back problems, and struggle to climb a set of stairs let alone run around the block. Eschew mass gainers, protein powder, creatine etc... And simply eat cheap healthy food like eggs, tuna, nuts and fruit.

Ultimately, unless you are training for Mr Olympia... A set of dumbbells, an adjustable bench, a chin up bar, an ab wheel, and a decent pair of running shoes are all the gear you need. And rather than sitting around staring at a phone between sets, you can get on with housework or something else productive. Home workouts can replicate every basic exercise you do in a gym, and save time and money in the process. No membership fees, no commuting, no waiting to use equipment. These exercises are all you will ever need to achieve a lean, toned physique:

Arms - Curls, hammer curls, dumbbell tricep extensions, diamond push ups.

Shoulders - Pike push ups, dumbbell shoulder press.

Chest - Press ups, dumbbell chest press, flies.

Back – Dumbbell bent over rows, chin ups, pull ups, australian push ups.

Abs - Ab wheel rolls, sit ups, leg raises, dragon flies.

Legs - Goblet squats, calf raises, stair step-ups.

Cardio – Distance running, sprint intervals, burpees.