Rage against the machines

2009, January 26th



Fitness machines are so bad.
Two days ago I had an overweight member, came in for a training. I thought to have him try circuit training, so I took him to the selectorized strength training equipment area. While he worked out, I was thinking all the time: “These machines are so bad; I will never, ever buy them again in the future”. I did not speak about the brand from my club, but about all selectorized machines. They are all bad.
I speak about the heavy machines, with a weight stack which enables you to select the weight inserting a pin along the stack; the plate loaded come in close too. I am talking about “the chrome and fern”, about the conversation machines; conversation machines, because you can chat with your friend while using them.
How did the machines appear on the face of the earth?
Around 60’s, 70’s almost no one did strength training. Not even athletes. That time Arthur Jones founder of Nautilus, thought about a way to make strength training more appealing to masses, so he invented the first weight stack selctorized strength training machines. Arthur Jones was very knowledgeable about strength training, but that time something else beside sound training advice was needed to lure the consumer to fitness clubs. In the beginning it was OK, but since then the machines took over like a monster who transforms itself as the time passes. Now we know a lot about exercise; you can find tons of good advice on the web, books and magazines. You do not need the machines anymore to get into strength training; you can use your reasoning and common sense to start and exercise well.
People trust the machines. The machines are good in all the other fields and industries; they brought a lot of work power and industrial progress. But when it about physical exercise, what you should consider first is your body and its ability to move. Physical exercise is about your body moving and not about moving the machines.
Why do people shy away from free weights? Because training with free weights it is “too difficult and exhausting”. The whole purpose of training is overloading (you may read “exhausting”) your body and waiting for recovery and supercompensation (improvement), than overload again. Training is about pushing your body towards its limits over and over and over again. It is about your heart pounding and about your muscles pulling. It is about challenging yourself, conquering yourself and becoming better every day.
Training it is not about being comfortable on a “Glute master”, chatting your way through your workout. “Machines are the wusses way out of exercising”.
Check out a quote from “Dinosaur training” of Brooks Kubik.
“The typical gym is crammed with non-essential machines, most of which are less than half as functional as if they were designed by a baboon and assembled by an orangutan. The purpose of the machines is to entice members of the public into shelling out their cash to join the establishment and reap the (R)¨benefits? of training on what the instructors (who are nothing more than glorified sales-people) tell them are the (R)¨latest? and (R)¨most scientific and high tech machines on the market. Ninety percent of the equipment in the average gym could be melted down or sold for scrap without diminishing the value of the place one iota.”
Machines are designed to be sold to the club owners by the producers, they are bought by club owners to enable them to sell more memberships, and they are used by gym members to PRETEND they work out. Yes, pretend, mimic or fool themselves the same way a baby fools himself with a pacifier. Machines are not designed for training and getting results.

Why do I despise them so much?
First of all they are not functional, they rip you off your time and effort you dedicate to training. If you train using the machines you will get less than a third of the results you would get using free weights; you would be much, much better off by just doing body weight training. Sometimes you might get to see some results even training on the machines. Training on the machines, of course it is better than not doing any kind of training. No matter what you do, if you are persistent enough, you may see some results. Even if you fish with a stone, you might cripple a fish sometimes.
What is the meaning of “they rip you off your time and effort”? You come to the gym to exercise and to get results, so the machines will lure you into exercising, but will not deliver any major improvements for your physique and conditioning. That is right. They trick you into using them. I have to admit they are appealing. They look “so professional” The kettlebell and the barbell against the machines pale in the mirror. They are like a girl which looks beautiful when wearing a lot of make up and designer clothes. Underneath her make up she is ugly, under the clothes her body looks unappealing, she is weak, stupid and uneducated.
The problem is that many so called trainees would use only or almost only the machines. They won’t get visible results and give up saying. “I have tried. I signed up for a membership, I trained for a while, but I did not see any improvements. I guess fitness training doesn’t work at all, or it doesn’t work for me”
The machines feel bad. The path of movement, the friction, the adjustability, the amplitude, the sound they make when used, the position of your body are all bad. Try doing a push up or a kettlebell standing shoulder press. Everything that you hate when using a machine is not present when you do free weights or body weight training.
I will never buy them again. I will go against the modern wave in fitness industry, of having a high tech club. I am sure that they will disappear someday, because people will understand they are not needed. I do not wish they disappear all together. You can have some in one corner of your club and in the rehab department. But they should be like an endangered animal seen only on TV and at the ZOO.
In the future I will make a pink squat rack and pink dumbbells and kettlebells to appeal more to women. Women are more pro machines, because the rubber floor area with free weights is “for men”; but I am sure that proper information aided by the pink color of the “women power rack” will make changes - changes of thoughts and changes of your physique.
It is hard work to make club owners and members grow unfond of machines. On the other side there is an army of sellers and designers dressed with fancy suits and backed up by the deep pockets of equipment producers. But I am sure that our army of athletes backed up by big hearts and strong forearms will win the fight. We will win because we are right, because free weights and body weight training will be around forever and ever.
One day all these big machines producers with nice ad campaigns and armies of “pencil necks” sellers will go down like the typing machine, like the camera film and like the pager. Their machines will become obsolete when almost everybody will understand the truth about physical exercise and fitness equipment.
Club owners and managers will someday realize that they do not need to waste the expensive space and a lot of cash for selectorized machines in order to close more membership sales. They just need common sense, good training advice and lots of heart and passion for health and fitness.
I am speaking here about machines designed and sold by Life Fitness, Nautilus, Cybex, Body Masters, Gym 80 and all their imitators.
I specially dislike Technogym, the Italian company with some of the best marketing and sales team in the world. They associate themselves with the Olympic Games and top athletes. If all Olympic athletes would train on Technogym equipment, their results and performance would not be even at high school level. The Technogym machines are not good enough even for the Paralympic athletes; most of them too will be much better off training just with body weight and free weights.
As I wrote in my yesterday’s blog: “There is nothing but the money”.

I will give you here the simplest alternative to selectorized training machines: body weight training. Body weight training will give you much better results than any machine based training. Believe me, because I am not selling pushups for a living.
Just do pushups, for your upper body pushing strength and core stability, squats for your lower body and pull ups for upper body pulling strength.
There are different ways of doing body weight drills to satisfy everybody from my grandmother (she is 80) to NBA star LeBron James.
I will come later with pics for every drill bellow.

Fitness industry - “quo vadis” which way ?

(January 25th ,2009, Chinese New Year)

After 8 years inside the fitness industry I finally came to realize what the industry is all about. I started 8 years ago as a part time personal trainer. Then I went up to Personal Trainer Manager, Fitness Manager, 3 clubs Fitness Manager, Club Manager assistant, Club Manager and finally my first dream came true and opened my own club. So I thought my dream came true; until I had a revelation.
My revelation is that fitness is just another business. The same like McDonald’s, Macy’s or the restaurant from the corner. It is all about money. How much do I have to invest? How much my operation costs will amount to? What is my projected revenue? And finally and most important question: what profits can I get? Period.

It is not about health and conditioning, it is not about strength and cardiovascular endurance. It is not about challenge, passion and the desire to improve. It is not about living a better life and being a better man (or woman). It is just about money.

I look back and I realize that everybody knew that. It was just me alone who was dreaming to increase the health of the nation and to have everybody who comes through my doors train seriously and get impressive results.
Many chain clubs knew this thing 20 – 30 years ago. 10 bucks a month (the same you pay for a pizza pie), for a full month membership. You can come every day and use all the club’s facilities and services. They knew that most of the members will come and leave 10 bucks at the front desk, or even better, pay through EFT and almost never come again; but they will continue to pay, because who cares about 10 bucks a month.
Even if you are well intentioned, like me, and provide every member with free personal instruction and personalized training programs, most of the members will not stick to a good program more than 2 weeks. They will drive their car to the club, wait 20 minutes for a parking space, change a new Nike outfit and then walk 30 minutes on a treadmill starring on a small TV. After this they will line up for the Ab Machine and finish with some triceps extensions. That’s all. No squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, no overload and supercompensation; nothing but pretending to exercise.
The equipment producers also knew about the business and helped the club owners close sales and helped members mimic training. They came up with computer aided machinery, padded with comfortable fine touch handles and upholstery. They thought hard how to make the physical exercise more comfortable, likable and effortless. Almost nobody thought like me: how to become and also help others become stronger, healthier and better looking? How to help everyone change his or her life for better?

I look back at most of the club owners I worked for, worked with and met; big bellies, which smoked and almost never exercise. They sometimes bothered to do it; I guess that they were just trying to show that they know and respect the value of physical exercise. Just trying to show, that’s all.

I look back at the Athletic Business Trade Show I attended last year in Orlando. Attending one of the world’s leading fitness trade shows, in the country which believes it leads the fitness industry today (I am talking about USA), I haven’t almost met any knowledgeable (about training and fitness) and fit looking people. I said almost, because there were a few of them lost between the lazy ones.
Almost no one was interested about the Power Rack or kettlebells; I remember there were a lot of people around a Dance Revolution type of machine; and the new feature which allowed Ipod connection with the Life Fitness treadmill also received great interest.
Not to mention that being fat was the rule at the show and in Orlando.

It is nothing wrong with the fact that most of the people inside the fitness business are in just for the money. McDonald’s did not start with the idea of creating a healthier food for the people, or to change people’s lives. It started as a simple business from “how can I earn better profits?”
I also thought that if I would be opening a company which provides business consulting and training for example I would think exactly the same: “How can I maximize MY profits?” Maybe I would have a competitor which graduated from Harvard, Doctor in Business Administration, who would think the same as I think now about my competitors: “How can he do this?” “It is for sure that his clients will not get to much value from his consulting”. And I would not care as long as I would make good profits. Why would I care, I do not like and care about business consulting. I am here just to make a living.

I will not give up on my dream. My dream is to help people start to exercise, get results and make fitness a part of their life. My dream is to help fitness become a way of life for most people, the same as brushing teeth.
I will open in the future training clubs (because I believe that fitness clubs are a lost cause), write books, and be an active presence on the web; I will train fitness professionals and train members, athletes and people. I will not give up.

Today’s blog ends like this: the fitness industry, the fitness clubs - It is nothing but the sale; nothing but the money.

See you again