Torches and Pitch Forks

Do you know what everyone has time for? Everyone has time to have an opinion. When it comes to fitness, however, most of us apparently don’t have time for equally as passionate results. In 2017, you’d be hard pressed to find a single man or woman who is ambivalent towards lifting weights. Everyone has an opinion. Ask someone about CrossFit and they’ll give you one of two extreme responses. Either they’ll not shut up for the next forty minutes about how much they love it, or they let you in on their little secret that CrossFit causes cancer.

When it comes to fitness, it’s all torches and pitch forks. It’s a shame, though, because it’s predicted that two out of every three Americans will be diabetic in a decade. Meanwhile, coaches are busy defending their castles of dogma that will make up not even a sliver of the health and fitness conversation. Not only are our populations killing themselves with preventable disease, our fitness professionals are jousting over who has the best squat technique. Those are the trees, gentlemen. This is the forrest.

Shame on us.

If we as a fitness community can grow up enough to understand movement in the context of something bigger than our little bubbles, we might be able to do something remarkable. The good news is that in some ways the revolution is happening. More people than ever are taking charge of their own fitness journey and seeking best practices to move the needle on the physical and mental health of our country, but it’d be a shame if we continued to shoot ourselves in the foot over and over again in the comments section of this movement.

I’m a coach, too. I get it. You want to be the guy. You want to make your mark. Well, here’s my advice. The best mark you can make is to do your damn job and get people to see the forrest of looking, feeling, and performing better.

This is roll call. The world doesn’t need any more coaches with fake secrets, a half a dozen lifters under their spell to collect medals no one cares about, and a knack for negativity. Movement can save this sinking ship and we need you to put down the torches and pitch forks just long enough so you can help.

Thank you.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach