It’s Time To Kill The Gym Industry

“Be fit to be useful”

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“You are fit if you can adapt to the demands of your environment with ease and imagination”

-Tom Meyers.

Let’s play a mental game.

You’re walking down the street, and a human-flesh-hungry 20-foot crocodile (presumably escaped from a zoo, but invent your details as you see fit, I can’t do bloody everything around here) jumps out from behind a dumpster and roars at you.

You turn and start running, but you’ve seen enough documentaries to know that you’re not faster than this prehistoric death machine. You spot a fire escape in front of you, the bottom rung 8–9 feet off the ground.

Your survival depends on being able to jump and push off the wall, grab that rung, pull yourself up, and climb to safety. Can you do it?

The method that trained moral machines

Georges Hebert was a turn-of-the-century physical educator in the French military, who pioneered what he called the “Natural Method,” driven by the slogan “be fit to be useful.” From one of his writings:

“The true Natural Method, in its broadest sense, must be considered as the result of these three particular forces; it is a physical, virile and moral synthesis. It resides…