I am getting seriously annoyed about something and don't want to blow up in someone's face so here it goes:
I am sick and tired of fitness and physical strength and Going To The Gym being touted as objectively morally good as well as in everyone's capacity. And that anyone not at peak physical state and going to the gym for weight training several times a week is not doing something for their fitness.
I am sick and fucking tired of it.
"Oh walking up and down the stairs 5 times a day is not training." Well it is. If it's outside someone's daily base movements.
"If your hand strength isn't good then you need to train it!" Well no shit. What if i already do? What then?
"Working a manual labour job does not count as being physically active, you need to go to the gym to lift weights additionally." How about you go fuck yourself?
It's also this insistence on "you need to". I need to pay taxes and die someday, that's it. But joking aside, this statement is based on the implicit assumption that the state a supposedly insufficiently fit person is in is something they strive and prioritise to change. That it needs to be fixed.
And these people, even if they are kind and gentle and mean well, they never ever believe that the person is already doing everything in their capacity. That the person is already working on it. Prioritising it, even.
Because if you did, you would go to the gym. And several times a week. And it would have worked by now.
They are often naturally fit people for who physical activity always came easy. And they can't, and often refuse, to comprehend that this is not a universal experience.
Also, i want to challenge the underlying value system. While i agree that physical ability is generally beneficial for a persons happiness and contentment because it contributes to autonomy and is a tool for goal fulfillment, it is not of inherent objective value. And while being physically active is absolutely relevant for physical and mental health, the amount that counts as "physically active" is not and cannot be set objectively. It differs from person to person and depends on baseline physical ability and activity, and natural fitness. And those are also value neutral.
If someone tells you they can't do more fitness stuff or don't have more physical ability, you don't have the right to doubt that or question it. If it's so damn important to you, you can ask for more information and offer support, but "Everyone has time for the gym, it's just about willpower" is not support, and neither is saying "Well if you trained your muscles they'd get stronger ;)" as if people don't already fucking know that.
Like yeah, no shit, if i started working extremely reduced hours and dedicated most of my daily life to training my body and prioritising fitness over everything else, including all my other interests, then yeah i would have better grip strength and wouldn't see going up flights of stairs as physical activity. I also wouldn't be able to pay my rent. And i would want to kill myself because i neglected all my interests and values in life.
But sure, Going To The Gym will objectively and concretely improve my life and happiness and satisfaction.
Fitness training is not just a physical thing, it also relies on executive, mental, and emotional capacity, and on accessibility in numerous ways.
Physical fitness and ability is a tool. A very relevant tool to interacting with the physical world, but just a tool. People are free to choose it as a goal in of itself, but that is not objective truth and not an obligation for anyone else, and they are not morally or otherwise superior for it.
You have the right to be physically weak and unfit, and you don't have the obligation to change that. Even if you can change it.
