Today we’ve almost literally confined “fitness” in a box. The sad reality is that most of us are training to be tools, not the powerful animals that we are. We can flip that around.
One of the most empowering personal practices is physical exercise, with profound effects on physical health, mental health, productivity, appearance, aging, strength, performance, and happiness. However, most of us don’t tend to do very much of it. Only about one quarter of Americans meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ very modest recommended exercise guidelines. For those of us who do exercise regularly, the mainstream fitness industry and our typical modern exercise activities only scratch the surface of what exercise can do for us. Despite our sore muscles, our sweaty gym clothes, and our calories burned, few of us are realizing the full potential of our efforts.
For an industry with a powerful impact on mental health, our fitness industry could benefit from some therapy and deep self-reflection itself. The most current covers of popular fitness magazines entice us with statements like “Lose Your Gut,” “Sculpt Amazing Legs & A Killer Butt,” “Weight Loss Pills Decoded,” “Eat Pasta, Get Lean,” and “Boost Your Body Confidence” and all feature large touched up pictures of people posing with six-pack abs. These shame and vanity-based messages are a sad reflection of the state of suffering in the United States as we think about “fitness.” When 75% of Americans are overweight and 40% are obese, it makes sense that the media focuses so much attention on slimming down. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good; the instinct makes sense for a procreating social animal. However, the front page focus on vanity seems imbalanced and unhealthy. It keeps millions of us trapped on a treadmill of body suffering. In addition, for people who feel drawn to build strength and develop our bodies, our fitness culture channels much of this productive energy into sad narcissistic games played out in boxes of mirrors.
What do our fitness activities today truly train us for? Examining mainstream fitness industry offerings, recommendations from government agencies and leading fitness nonprofits, and what people actually do, most of our focus is on cardiovascular health and weight control so that we can avoid obesity and other lifestyle diseases. We also emphasize basic strength and mobility so that we can maintain modest activity without injury as we age. Businesses are increasingly promoting fitness activity as well, as numerous studies have shown that exercise increases work productivity and reduces employee health care costs. All of these objectives make sense for a sedentary high technology world. They also set a really low bar for us considering our true personal development potential.
Although things like Crossfit and Spartan races are starting to crack things open a bit, our mainstream fitness industry is fairly stuck in a mechanized world. Its primary offerings are indoor gyms and home gym equipment. Treadmills and elliptical machines are the top tools, and unnatural weight machines and cable systems are still a mainstay for training muscles. As we move away from these machines we often focus on choreographed motions with barbells and dumbells. These are more natural than the machines but they remain fairly restrictive and there is an odd emphasis on using cushioned benches. Given our hectic schedules, we like to exercise at certain intensities that get us really tired, burn a lot of calories, and flood our systems with endorphins to help keep us happy and balanced enough in our tame day-to-day existence. These intensities, however, actually don’t help us deeply develop as athletes or build healthy aerobic systems over the long term. We also focus substantial attention on tracking data about how many calories we burn so that we can carefully match our inputs and outputs.
Overall, our fitness culture looks more like life support or factory farm management than something based on true human development. Grindy workouts on indoor equipment removed from nature turns us into grindy cogs in life, disconnected from nature. Training inside boxes doesn’t train us to think outside of boxes. This is hardly a formula for training people who can find authenticity, freedom, and inspiration and for developing humans who can guide an imbalanced civilization back into harmony with nature.
What if we tear up this entire “fitness” playbook and start over? What if we break fitness out of its box, stop training to be cogs, and stop hiding behind walls? What if we start training ourselves in a way that physically and mentally empowers us? What if we start training ourselves to be the animals that we are?
That’s exactly what we’re doing at Indigenous Strength. We propose replacing “fitness” activities with empowering athletic training. Here’s the basic idea:
Physical and mental training are not separate. They are one, and when we integrate the physical and mental aspects our training will empower us to new heights.
We don’t pull our training out of nature. We do as much of it as we can outside and we use it to reconnect with nature.
We recognize that focusing on narrow physical objectives limits us. We aim to develop our bodies as robust athletic platforms with good mobility, stamina, durability, and power. This is who we are born to be.
We train to be truly strong, both physically and mentally, when it matters most rather than to just look strong or just be strong in carefully controlled rituals.
We focus on gradually building our tolerance to discomfort and resistance so that we can crush our obstacles in life and transform our suffering.
We don’t just “work out”; we train to pursue progressively greater challenges. As these challenges bring us face to face with our fears and limitations, we will transform our very relationship with fear and limitation.
As we become more attuned to our unique bodies and capabilities we will become better at finding our own path.
We use training and adventure to experience life powerfully and age with grace and wisdom rather than suffer as we resist in vain the reality of aging and death.
As we follow this path, the animals that we are will start to appear in our mirrors and the challenges in our lives will never feel the same.
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