What motivates the men obsessed with going to the gym?
Gyms are open, the weather’s above 15 degrees again and if you’re a guy, this inevitably means you’re back at Barry’s Bootcamp or watching Jeff Cavaliere ab workout videos on loop. Despite the period of hibernation thanks to Covid, UK fitness centers are packed once more. Kids are starting to go to the gym at a younger age, and the guys have never been bigger.
Is this a good thing? On the surface, a generation of health-conscious men who take pride in their appearance seems positive for both themselves and public health. But the number of men taking the gym to the extreme is also on the rise. And a 2015 study by the University of Ariel found that those who compulsively exercise are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety and depression, which can result in binge drinking and steroid use. Those who exercise for professional purposes are more likely to be depressed than those who exercise recreationally.
Let’s not pretend that going to the gym and caring about body image was invented in the last ten years. Film has been packed full of steroid-pumping beefcakes since the 80s heyday of Schwarzenegger and Stallone. But for men, societal attitudes towards pumping iron seem to have shifted from being a lifestyle choice to a lifestyle necessity.
Chasing waterfalls
Speaking to gym-goers, you get the feeling the obsession has become a “hedonic treadmill,'” or to speak in more TLC friendly terms: chasing waterfalls.
Adam Young, 40, is a personal trainer, gym manager and amateur bodybuilder, who has spent the last 12 years in the fitness industry. He said “competitive bodybuilding is 100 per cent. It’s a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour commitment; some bodybuilders will get up in the middle of the night to eat and then go back to sleep. I’ve literally dedicated the last six years to it.”
Young’s routine consists of two hours of training every evening in his “Offseason.” But once prep for a bodybuilding show begins, he’ll be training twice every day for around four hours, getting up at 5 am to complete fasted cardio sessions, and eating up to 4,500 calories a day.
He explains that maintaining a bodybuilder’s physique is incompatible with working a full-time job. “It takes an exceptional person to be able to do a 9-5 job or work on a building site, get all your meals in, and still have the energy to train.”
With the intense sacrifice Young makes every day, exposing his body to all sorts of punishment in the pursuit of perfection, the question remains: do you ever get to the point where you look at your body and think, “I’m happy now”?
“To be honest, I think it only gets worse,” said Young. “Going to the gym and lifting weights as most people do is very beneficial. It’s good for the body, and it’s good for headspace. [I’ve found] competing, on the other hand, is the polar opposite.”
Before Young began bodybuilding six years ago, he was still a fitness fanatic, doing triathlons, marathons, and playing competitive squash, but during this time he says he was always happy with his body.
“It’s only since I became competitive with bodybuilding. And because I’m so competitive and I want to be so good, it’s made me very body conscious. Once you take it to that next level and dedicate 24 hours a day, you get the impression that nothing will be good enough now.”
“Now, every morning, I look at the scales. And the scales have gone up. So, I’m putting on muscle and size. But on a daily basis, I look slimmer, and skinnier than I did the day before. And I know that’s not true, but that’s the way I feel.”
It is something he attributes, in part, to social media. The constant option to compare himself to “super heavyweight” and “pro” bodybuilders on Instagram he admits, “gets in your head in a serious way.”
Muscles make money
As the Narrator in the 1999 film Fight Club says: “I felt sorry for the guys packed into gyms trying to look how Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger said they should…Is that what a man looks like?”
Be it on social media, traditional TV or magazine advertising: muscles make money. In men’s mags, sports shows and on Instagram, the predominant male image with a six-pack is almost guaranteed to sell a product. And in our media-obsessed world, that means there’s no way of escaping the image.
Shows like Love Island, renowned for showing incredibly muscular, speedo-clad male contestants, help to reinforce this image. Contestants Curtis Pritchard or Jack Fincham were mocked for being “fat” just because they didn’t have abs that could grate parmesan onto your bolognese. Despite being perfectly healthy, they didn’t fit the narrow ideal of beauty the show demands.
Young also attributes this saturation to the growing number of boys he sees joining the gym at a younger and younger age. “I’ve never signed up so many 16-year-olds, or under 16s, for the gym.
“I think that’s where social media comes into it. All these kids think they’ve got to be a certain shape, and they seem to be wanting to work on that from such a young age. I’ve got parents wanting to bring their 12-year-olds.”
“I adore it”
Sanchez Payne, 28, an entrepreneur and radio presenter, has a completely positive outlook on his passion for the gym. “I adore it,” he said. “I love the socialising, the mental health benefits, the physical transformation. When you’re lifting weights using your mind, body and soul, or sprinting on a treadmill, it alleviates any pressure from anything else because you’re one-track-minded.”
Payne has been seriously going to the gym for four years now, and will spend around two hours, six days-a-week working out. He started at the gym from the age of 12, whilst playing football for Leeds United’s academy, initially for more functional purposes. “I just want to be the best version of myself I can be,” he said.
Rather than comparing himself with others on Instagram, he sees it as a source of personal inspiration. But he accepts that for some, it may have led to an increase in body image issues and steroid-taking.
“There are illegal ways of getting in shape and there’s a lot of people taking steroids,” he said. “It’s similar to how girls have these horrible beauty standards set by people that have fake bodies, and that can make someone insecure. There was a taboo around [steroids] but I feel like it’s been lifted a bit.”
This so-called “drive for masculinity” runs parallel to women’s body issues, including the pressure to be thin. But rather men feel pressured to develop a muscular physique. Although body dysmorphia is a topic not often discussed for men, it can lead to gym addiction and unhealthy habits such as steroid abuse and extreme diet restriction.