Fitness Camp

When I label a blog post “Fitness Camp,” I imagine that many people immediately assume I’m going to talk about an event and location of some kind where people go to work on fitness. Like all those ‘bootcamp’ programs that have been popular the last 15 or so years.

Alas, dear reader, I must inform you that I mean ‘camp’ more in the sense of something “exaggerated, kitschy [,an] amalgamation that's simultaneously ironic, over the top, and intentionally tacky”.

Except in this case, unintentionally.

So let’s back up. I follow a lot of fitness professionals on social media. Generally speaking, I don’t follow the ones who post nothing but rote exhortations about how everyone should get in shape or else blah blah shame shame. Most of the ones I follow post useful content, though sometimes with a bit more Stern Exhortations than I would apply in my own practice.

Today, one of those accounts posted a challenge: earn the right to do barbell squats by demonstrating that you have the strength, stamina, and skill for them. How? Perform goblet squats (holding a dumbbell or kettlebell in front of you) for at least 25 repetitions at 50% of your body weight.

(Imagine that I have inserted one of those emojis that conveys astonishment and an eye-roll at the same time.)

Now let’s be clear. The account in question has a serious vibe in the direction of ‘helping people learn how to exercise for long-term health by teaching good form and proper safety’. The proposed challenge, in this case, is almost certainly meant to get people thinking about how barbell squats entail certain kinds of training and injury risk, and that working up to them in a smart way by starting with something much more controllable … goblet squats being a typical alternative to barbell work in this case … is likely to pay huge dividends.

But there’s that phrasing. “Earn the right.” And then there’s that standard of achievement: 50% body weight, for at least 25 reps.

If we roll our beautiful bean footage, or haul out a calculator or two, here’s what that standard says. Let’s say you’re, um … me. 192 pounds this morning. What we’re saying is: don’t put a barbell on my back and squat with it until I can do 25 goblet squats with a 100-pound dumbbell. (96 pounds is half my body weight this morning, but let’s take the standard seriously and say that 95 pounds isn’t enough. The next likely dumbbell or kettlebell weight is 100.)

An empty barbell weighs 45 pounds. We’re implying that I should not PRACTICE barbell squats for, oh, sets of 10 … not even with an empty bar … until I can handle more than double that weight for a lot of repetitions.

To say nothing of: anyone who has done both traditional barbell squats and “front squats” (the difference being: front squats are performed with the barbell balanced more-or-less precariously along one’s collarbone area with the hands and arms maintaining it there and the spine and core holding a correct posture, versus ‘back squats’ where the bar sits along the trapezius muscles and the upper spine) will tell you that they are very different beasts. Typically back squats permit a lot higher load. The reported heaviest front squat in history was done by Jezza Uepa of the island nation of Nauru, coming in at 882 pounds. The world record back squat is on the order of 200 pounds heavier.

Goblet squats have a lot in common with front barbell squats, due to the position of the load. This is precisely what makes them useful for training. But 25 goblet squats at 100 pounds is a fairly big ‘ask’ before allowing someone to back squat. It’s not just the core strength required, you’re demanding a lot of arm as well.

It’s exaggerated. It’s more than a little over the top. It’s nearly kitschy in its fitness-world insistence that you better train up to something really heavy before you dare set foot in the part of the gym where ‘real’ people train.

It’s full-on CAMP.

If I wanted to propose this challenge to someone, using the same language used in the post, you know what I’d do? I’d put on a wrestling singlet, I’d do full-on “Viking cosplay” or “Khal Drogo” makeup, and I’d advertise myself as a drag persona named Paula Roids. (Or, perhaps, Anna Bollocks, which is somewhere in double-triple entendre territory).

Even then, I think I might sound less campy.

Not because the challenge itself is so bad. I can dig it. But because there’s still this curious phrasing. “Earn the right.”

Listen. There is a LOT of chatter in first world cultures the last ten or twenty years about entitlement and ‘gold stars for everything’ and ‘people don’t work hard enough any more.’ And there is a LOT of chatter in fitness spaces about how people who don’t work out are ‘lazy’.

We’ll always be able to cherry-pick our evidence and land on true stories that confirm these insights. It would be very odd if human nature suddenly changed so profoundly that there were ZERO ‘lazy’ people out there, and nobody who felt entitled to something they hadn’t ‘earned’ in someone else’s eyes.

But an Instagram feed dedicated to helping people train sensibly and avoid injury, which then talks about ‘earning the right’, strikes me as a feed almost deliberately running the risk of setting off people’s “fuck you, I do what I want” instincts. Especially if it’s true that ‘everybody’ nowadays ‘doesn’t want to really work for things’.

Was the phrase “Develop the skill” (to perform barbell squats with great form and low risk of injury) … was that phrase busy doing something more important, on the day the post was uploaded? Like, “earn the right” was hanging out in the phrase box when they went looking for a useful way to sell this challenge, but “Train sensibly, here’s how” was busy doing its nails or waxing its mustache, and couldn’t be asked to step in and perform?

Because if you want to help people avoid injury, playing to their aggressive, entitled, “I do what I want” instincts, practically waving a red cape of “you can’t handle it” in front of people’s tendency to turn into the angry full-of-shit bull, well: it strikes me as less than ideal form. In terms of what’s likely to hook and convince the very people who might need to hear it.

It is, of course, 100% fine if you’re preaching to a choir of people who already possess the skill and strength to goblet squat half their body weight for 25+ reps. And to be honest, a great many fitness accounts seem to be about precisely that: preaching to the choir, reinforcing the choir’s certainty that they sing for the BEST church, with the BEST fitness doctrine, and to Hell with everyone else.

But then can’t we just call that what it is? Preaching to the already-fit, the already-strong, to make sure they know how Super Awesome, Better People they are? And not actually encouraging people to take a step back away from the squat rack and develop their skills?

CAMP. Fitness camp.

© 2022 Grampa Fitness

Disclaimer: Ideas expressed in this blog post should not be construed as official advice on how to safely perform fitness activities. Always consult with your doctor and other medical professionals as necessary, before engaging in exercise.