Shhhh, I have a secret
read more to find out what it is
When you're done discovering the secret
check out the sizzle

There’s been a rather inciting article circulating the fitness world for the better part of a year now.  The facts within shine light on the dark secret of the fitness world.  Due to of its implications this secret, which has been closely guarded and privy to only a chosen few, will change the way most think about modern day fitness.

 For nearly three quarters of a century, the basis for mainstream fitness in America has been focused on isolation exercises, go back any further, to the time of the strongman, and you’ll find practices that favored routines emphasizing a core centric or full body workout - or as it was phrased in those days, workouts where the entire body was worked “in concert”.  

As many of you know, Art of Strength is a huge proponent of the old strongman lifts and training routines.  It’s in these routines that man (and woman) were at their best, many of the weight lifting records set back during this time still remain today and it’s now nearly 75 years later that people are recognizing what was lost in the transition between core centric routines and isolation exercises with experts now finally understanding the relevance and importance of those early routines.

I suppose by now you can tell where I am going with this.  This secret as I mentioned earlier has been known by a select few and it’s in these select few that the secret was closely guarded.  So what is this secret?  A list appeared In an issue of Best Life which outlined the top 10 WORST machines found in your gym. The article which not only outlined these machines but also blasted the big box gym enterprise for their part in creating what seems to be an “exercise utopia” all the while offering nothing more than a culture where the blind lead the blind in a fruitless effort at getting fit, where temporary gains give way to the inevitable worn down and injured body.

For many of us this article offered no real surprise, more vindication if anything, of what we have been living and preaching for quite some time.  Big Box Gyms just don’t work.  Anyone familiar with kettlebell training will tell you that 45 minutes on an elliptical machine can’t touch 60 seconds of swings.  Why is this?  Has the modern day fitness industry fooled you into believing that while you aimlessly peddle away, head tilted upward towards your favorite show that you’re actually burning those calories that slowly and predictably tick away on the machines display?  In a sense these gyms have lulled you into a false sense of health…a sense that you really are as fit as you look.

Luckily there’s a movement afoot, one that has seen mainstream gyms opening their minds, and doors, to the possibility that what they’ve been doing just isn’t working.  More and more, these gyms are incorporating these tools that will help tell the tale as to who looks fit and who is fit.  One of the first to do such a thing is Mid City Gym in NYC, where they’ve taken the idea of authentic strength and kettlebell based routines and incorporated them into the gym’s daily schedule.  Offering it as a separate class to all of their members.  This insert, as the experts refer to it as, is aimed at opening the eyes of mainstream gym goers to the possibility that there are better things out there for you than just running on a treadmill for cardio health and hitting the free weights for strength training.  Known formally as Art of Strength Training Centers these inserts will show that you can gather both cardio and strength benefits from a single 30 minute circuit.  A circuit consists of usually no more than 7 or 8 stations where an exercise is performed for a minute before moving on to the next station.  The entire circuit is repeated two to three times.  These workouts are so intense that nearly 3 of them per week will replace 45 minutes of daily standard cardio training.  This means no more running in place; no more machines estimating how many calories you burned, you’ll know by the size of the puddle you left behind just how many calories you managed to shed.

Having been on both sides of fitness, it’s easy to see that the isolation exercise, big box gym way is archaic and irrelevant and with any luck will be relegated to nothing more than an ugly footnote in the history of American fitness.  With this new approach of bringing Art of Strength Training Centers into mainstream gyms it’s our hope that everyone will soon be able to enjoy the benefits of true authentic fitness; that somehow we will be able to make people as fit as they can be.  It’s time that everyone recognizes the mistakes of the modern day and embraces fitness of a long ago day when fitness was more than how you looked in the mirror.

For your enjoyment I’ve listed those top 10 WORST machines as reported by Best Life:
Seated Leg Extension
Seated Military Press
Seated Lat Pulldown Machine
Seated Pec Deck
Seated Hip Abductor Machine
Seated Rotation Machine
Seated Leg Press
Smith Machine
Roman Chair Back Extension
Roman Chair Sit-up

For an example of what an Art of Strength Training Center workout might look like check out the sizzle below:

Interested in putting an Art of Strength Training Center in your facility, or perhaps you'd rather have your own full Punch Kettlebell Gym?  Contact Scott at scott@punchgym.com for info on how you could become the next new training hot spot.