Category: fitness

It doesn’t surprise me at all but it does disgust me — you can’t do the most basic exercise that a human can do (pick something off the floor) at a major gym chain. Apparently it was about a year ago that Planet Fitness just outright banned deadlifting instead of being wishywashy about it like they have for the last few years.

On the one hand, joining a gym like Planet Fitness isn’t a transformative experience at all. People are expected to be totally ignorant of all fitness knowledge when they join, the gym’s policies insure they don’t bump into anyone remotely knowledgeable while they’re there, and then people quit going in an equally ignorant state. Let’s be honest and admit that these places cater to the ignorant.

Planet Fitness policies insure they stay that way.

Someone in private pointed out that the deadlift is banned there likely because that type of clientele would be injured by deadlifts and then sue the gym. This person is probably right and that directly points to a lack of any notion of personal responsibility on the part of those that workout there and an overlitigious society that supports that lack of responsibility. People these days feel a need to sue over the slightest things. They aren’t responsible for anything that happens to them. So because these people can’t be trusted to deadlift without possibly hurting themselves and sueing the gym, NO ONE can deadlift. Welcome to modern society.

But on the other hand there’s this — AVOID THIS KIND OF GYM! Sorry for the caps but as an independent gym owner, I feel strongly about this. Why would you want to support a place that HATES people like you? They don’t want you. Their ads say you’re pathetic:

And notice how this BS is a “judgment free zone.” What a load of bull. They are totally judging people they don’t like — people like you! The guy who just “lifts things up and puts them down” has more results and more knowledge than all those other people, trainers included, combined. Heck, if I was working out there, I’d get up and follow that guy out the door to wherever he’s going. He obviously knows what he’s doing and he’ll wind up at a place full of knowledgeable people.

I occasionally hear someone tell me that they love what we do, but their Planet Fitness-type gym is, geewhiz, just so convenient. And I’ll talk to these people next year and they’ll look exactly the same, lift the same weights they do now, and have exactly the same level of fitness. And never in a million years would they put those two things together. Sad.

Planet Fitness and gyms like it cater to weak-minded people that will sue over possibly getting injured from real exercises while smaller gyms that cater to serious training often struggle. If you believe in serious training, then avoid the low-testosterone atmosphere and go to a real gym.
There’s a smaller but more serious gym just waiting for you to join. Seek it out and join up.

Confused as to how you should warmup? Here’s what we recommend.

Functional fitness is what I started with and the concepts from this fitness philosophy have built Formosa Fitness into what it is today. But time and experience have clarified some things for me, one of those being quad dominance.

The idea is that people tend to favor the quads in leg movements and will unintentionally try to avoid using the hamstrings and glutes because those muscles aren’t firing due to underuse. Basically, almost everyone we see has glute and hamstring amnesia. Most people treat these muscles as cushions to sit on and nothing else. Since they tend to use the quads more, we call them quad-dominant.

But we’d be better of just calling these people weak and strengthening the whole leg, the quads included. Sure, they aren’t using the hamstrings and glutes but it’s not like their quads are actually strong. They’re stronger than the muscles they aren’t using but that’s only because their posterior chain is so weak. So bringing up someone’s posterior chain isn’t enough. We have to address quad weakness too because once they learn to start using the posterior chain, they often forget how to use the quads!

The idea is that no one untrained is intentionally using ANY muscle. Their bodies are simply using the path of least resistance. But once you start altering that path, you have to teach folks how to use ALL the muscle groups or people will develop imbalances.

So don’t leave quads out of your workouts and if you have for a while, emphasize them until they’re built back up. Don’t let a useful concept blind you to other possibilities!

New PR of 197kg!

Looks like deadlift for the win! Come join us and lift some heavy stuff off the floor!

I can remember when I used to enjoy going to the gym. I looked forward to it every time. I felt great doing it. I would go and work out, get pumped, get sweaty, and leave with more energy than when I went in. That left me ready to jump on the next workout.

Back then, things weren’t so hypercompetitive. Now it seems like you have to be obsessed with your Fran time, the number of clean and jerks you can do with double kettlebells, how much you’re deadlifting, how low your body fat is, etc.

In this hypercompetitive rush, we’ve lost the simple joy of going to the gym and enjoying a workout. Yes! It actually happens, believe it or not. Working out can feel good, not like you’re gonna die every time. But when you turn it into a mindless competition all the time, you get exhausted. Why? Because it’s never enough. No matter what you do today, your Fran time isn’t as good as Rich Froning’s, your deadlift is inadequate compared to Dave Tate’s, your kettlebell clean and jerks never compare to any Russian’s. You have 18% body fat? Good grief, what’s wrong with you?!?

Competition is good when it encourages you to reach higher and go further. It can really help with motivation. But it can also become a survival of the fittest really quickly. We want more people to work out and get the benefits of fitness. Turning fitness into something only the fit can do isn’t the answer.

So if you need to go into the gym and wear your headphones and do YOUR OWN THING then go do it. Cause in the end, you’re the only person you have to please.