Fitness is so much fun! The more you learn, the more you get to harass people online about how stupid and wrong they are! Few people can appreciate the glory that comes with being an enlightened fitness troll; you get to bash both fitness newbies AND other professionals whenever you want. The best part is that you are making the world a better place for doing so. Here I’ll discuss the main types of fitness troll and how you can become one by following their “special” form of critiquing online.
Fitness Troll #1: The Elitist Snob
The Elitist Snob Fitness Troll is a very experienced and dedicated fitness professional who knows everything. They love fitness to death and can’t grasp how everyone else doesn’t commit to it like they do. Why can’t you spend six hours on Sunday preparing your meals for the week? Why can’t you workout for ninety minutes every night followed by an ice bath? Why can’t you read and analyze the latest fitness program?
This fitness troll fails to realize that fitness is not a high priority to most people, and if it is a priority, it’s not that interesting to them. They have things to do other than fitness, like raise kids, work jobs outside of fitness, or enjoy things that actually interest them.
Fitness Troll #2: The Old Coach
“I’ve been teaching gymnastics for fifty years and that video of a planche by a 45-year-old trainee is pathetic compared to my 13-year-old students!” As good as this troll is at coaching, they are pathetic at realizing the motivations and performance of people outside of their specific sport.
I wouldn’t have a problem with this if they could perform the moves they harass people about failing at, but a lot of times they can’t. They simply compare everyone to an olympic standard despite the fact that most people are simply trying some movements to challenge themselves and gain some kind of benefit outside of competition from the drills.
Fitness Troll #3: The Newly Enlightened Disciple
The Disciple Troll is recently enlightened by their newly minted $2,000 certification paper. They now know that the only way to achieve anything is by following what they learned over the weekend TO THE T. Anyone who doesn’t is stupid and wrong, and MUST be informed of their inferiority. The problem with this, is they easily succumb to the sales pitch that made them spend their money on the certification in the first place.
What the creators of the certification say is gold, and even if they say something different in the future that contradicts what they said in the past, that’s okay too (as long as you spend the money to re-up your cert). No point in arguing with this guy, he has the support of all the other brainwashed simpletons who went to the same workshop.
Fitness Troll #4: The Muscle Bro
The Muscle Bro Troll is a simple creature that looks at one thing and one thing only: how much can you lift? If you put up a vid and the weight is not maxed (even if the set involves multiple exercises, sets, etc), you bet you’re going to hear about it! There is only one way to lift and one way to lift it, the heavy way!
Their views on nutrition are equally extreme. Have you heard one of these before? “I need you to get 400 grams of protein every day!” “If you do not eat every three hours you will shrivel away and turn into a girly man.” “You have to eat at least thirty minutes after you wake up!” And of course; ” You must have a whey protein shake immediately following your workout! If you don’t, you will never get HUGE!” The Muscle Bro crawls the web destroying everyone in his path who is not lifting heavy or eating bland meals out of a plastic tupperware every twenty minutes. Driven by aesthetics, they think it is “so tight” when their biceps are so “pumped” that they cannot reach over their head.
Don’t Be a Fitness Troll
Needless to say, I don’t advocate being a fitness troll. Getting people excited about exercise is hard enough without the separate sects of the fitness world fighting amongst themselves. As “right” as you think you are, unless you have something useful to contribute (without being a dick of course), there is no reason to say anything at all. Unhealthy or ineffective fitness methodologies will expose themselves to the people demonstrating them, usually through injury, boredom, or otherwise. You can not save these people most of the time, and if you can, it won’t be through acting like a fitness troll.
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