If you’ve read any of the articles on this website, then you’ll know that I try to keep these relatively formal (with the occasional swearword) but that generally, my aim is to help you reflect on some themes that I’ve been pondering and that I believe you might find useful to reflect on.

But this week I’ve been pissed off and so naturally, I am going to write about it (and you might choose to read it and get pissed off with me!).

Toxicity in the fitness industry

As you may (or may not) know, I am currently conducting a research project examining how personal trainers and their clients build good quality and long-standing working relationships. A key part of conducting research is reading other peoples’ research, and I’ve stumbled across some pretty horrifying articles.

Articles in which clients discussed PTs calling them “a p*ssy” for not pushing themselves harder whilst working out; or when PTs displayed inappropriate behaviour towards them… I mean, with these disgusting examples of poor coaching, I don’t think I need to argue my case to get you on my side (although you’d be surprised to know that a client sued their PT for making them push so hard they had a cardiac arrest in their first ever 1:1 session, and they lost the case)…

But it really did get me thinking about how accustomed we have become to this type of language and to the coercive practices being used and normalised in fitness environments.

The examples above are quite extreme, but I shared a screenshot of the article discussing the case above (Ciccolella et al., 2008 for the curious mind) and I had FOUR separate people message me on Instagram, taking about how their personal trainer had said things to them like “do you want to be a fat cow for ever?”, “you’ll never get results if you keep stuffing your face with chocolate”, “nobody wants to go out with the fat girl”, and “the ladies don’t like guys with dad bods”.

I wish I was joking.

It’s not always that obvious

“Not every PT” is like this, of course, but the fitness industry is known for many of its other ways of insidiously imposing some of its toxic beliefs on the “consumer” or client.

For example, many fitness influencers or coaches will talk about how you need to “go hard or go home”, have a “no excuses mindset”, or tell their followers that “if you wanted to you would” in the context of making time or prioritising their fitness goals (amongst other things such as their career, their family, their social life, etc., not to even mention navigating the social determinants of health…). I cringe every time I see a post like this. The one that makes me roll my eyes so hard I risk snapping an optic nerve every time I read it, is the infamous “Nobody cares, work harder”.

How about you work harder at minding you own damn business?!

ANYWAY. I appreciate that I’m just going on a rant here, but it honestly just pains me to know that there are so many people out there who want to become more physically active, who want to start exercising, who want to improve the nutritional composition of their diet… and yet find themselves repeatedly feeling like a failure because no matter how hard they try, someone with 30k followers is going to make them feel like it’s simply not good enough, like they must do more, “never settle”.

I wish I could convince us all to ignore what those morons are saying, but it’s inescapable. So I guess the point of this weeks’s newsletter is just to highlight this issue, and bring it to your attention.

I certainly know that these reflections have helped me become a lot more mindful of the language I use to speak about myself and my own relative engagement with health behaviours.

In fact, it’s changed my use of sentences like “go hard or go home”, “training like a wet wipe”, the use of certain (pig) emojis to pass judgement on myself for eating round bread with tomato sauce, cheese and vegetables (i.e., pizza), and it’s stopped me from even using terms such as “fluffy” to describe my body (FYI lambs are fluffy – you’re just human). But I used to say these things, and I honestly cringe so hard when I think back to how it may have come across.

So, perhaps this article might help you think about what you say a bit more too. You might even want to call it out when you see it online, although honestly I’d spare you the frustration and just encourage you to unfollow and/or block/mute anyone who makes you feel like you’re not good enough simply for trying.

But I do need to be trying harder…

Yes, maybe this is the case. But the chances are that you already know that, and that your expectations of yourself to do better are preventing you from even doing the bare minimum, because the pressure to be perfect and “on point” is too overwhelming. So, in fact, you should be aiming to build your discomfort/distress tolerance with being good enough, and doing what you can right now so that you don’t end up getting so tangled up in the process that you get in your own way.

If this feels impossible or you don’t know where to begin then today is your lucky day, because on Wednesday 27th March 2024 at 7pm GMT I will be delivering a free webinar on this very topic, titled “Overcoming self-sabotage for perfectionists”, in which I’ll dig deeper and share some practical strategies to help you break that cycle that’s keeping you stuck.

You can sign up here and join me on the day for 1h to learn more about what you can do to untangle from the tight grip of perfectionism that’s making you sabotage your progress. I look forward to hopefully seeing you there 🙂

And if you come across this article after the 27th March and would like to access the video recording of the webinar, then get in touch!