There are a lot of good things about the fitness industry, but this is not one of them. (See picture) Perhaps you've been mailed some soft-core porn, errr, gym advertisement in the mail with a picture like the one on the right. As a trainer, it represents everything wrong with the industry.
We get it. Sex sells. But it can also be destructive.
As a trainer I see a number of people, not the least of which includes fellow trainers, who get so hung up on how they look that they actually become quite destructive about it. They exchange the fun, healthy aspects of fitness for mirrored vanity and high heels and illegal fat burners.
We all want to look good, and in our quest to feel better about who we are, fitness is a great first step. When we achieve discipline in one area of our life, it proves, if only to ourselves, that we can achieve it other areas.
It pisses me off that gyms appeal to the lowest common denominator, and use unhealthy motivations to help people get "healthy". It doesn't work that way. I've seen it a thousand times, and the discouragement is always greater when someone realizes they are not going to become an airbrushed photo of someone taking HGH and whatever other fatburner they can afford, while their choloesterol and blood pressure levels spike.
Fitness should be about fun and health and learning to be more human, not some grainy image tacked to the bedroom wall of a twelve-year-old boy just going through puberty. Don't be intimidated from changing your life because of these types of promotions. Get out there and start exercising and have some fun. You won't regret it.
-Steve
