In one literal feature it is entry-level housing. Our local PF has a member who is homeless (lives in a van.) But his membership allows him use of a nice bath/shower facility that is open most of the time.
Interesting. A much lighter version of that was that my friend and I back in high school used to go on Pizza Monday (or Tuesday, I don't recall) because it was literally a free lunch. And of course we also worked out, although using the machines costs the company something in wear and tear, so if we just signed in to grab pizza and leave it would actually cost the company relatively less. It's interesting - this is one of those little perks/extras that I remember a lot from earlier in my life, and it feels like most of that sort of thing has dried up. Maybe the end of zero-interest-rates.
Planet Fitness is big with the van life crowd. My partner is one of them. He's traveled all over the country in his van, and Planet Fitness is one place he can park at overnight and use their facilities (showers, bathrooms). No one will chase him off for being there. They're open 24x7 so very convenient. for those on the move.
This is a really great point. That kind of flexibility is just missing in a lot of ways. This is similar to what Chris Arnade always says about McDonalds - that you get free internet, cheap food, a place to sit, and rarely will they police you as long as you're not causing a scene. It's a whole set of opportunities that affluent people don't really notice or need, but also that doesn't bother them in any way.
Piggybacking onto your comment, a lot of the people who do this van life thing aren't poor. They could as easily be traveling in a converted Dodge Ram ProMaster like my partner or an Airstream van. Probably a fair percentage are retired or semi-retired.
There aren't a lot of places for this kind of travel. I had a chance to see what it's like for over 6 weeks a couple of years ago. It's easier out west where there are a lot more US Forestry Service sites and national monuments and campgrounds, but if you're tired and want to pull over, it can be tough.
I've often wondered if old malls could be converted into places that could become the campers' version of truck stops, with bathrooms, showers and food courts.
Chiming in to add my own story to the "affordable gyms provide an indispensable place to shower for those who aren't near a home" genre.
One of my Marine buddies works in IT and grew up in rural south-central PA. Needless to say, there's not much of an IT career path in that region, so he started looking to Pittsburgh and Northern Virginia and eventually found that he could earn a good living working in the Dulles technology corridor, and drive the 2 hours back to his home when his workweek finished.
Initially he was renting a local room during the work part of his week, but he's extremely frugal and realized that he'd already had experience sleeping in a vehicle at the worksite (we shared the cab of a truck in Iraq). He spent $5K for an old Chevy conversion van and made that his off-duty bunk - and of course, used a Planet Fitness to shower.
That’s what I was going to add. I thought from the headline that it was going to be about the many homeless people who belong to affordable gyms to have a place to shower.
Also, “Saying “Planet Fitness isn’t a real gym” is true objectively”? What? It’s totally a real gym. Most of the ones I’ve been in are pretty well-appointed. No worse than any other mass market gym like LA Fitness or Anytime Fitness, etc.
I think you’ve touched on a universal human tendency that tracks closely with tribalism and identity. This pattern emerges everywhere, and in every instance it deserves to be called out and scrutinized. Thank you.
I feel like you could write this article about a variety of things. One that comes to mind would have the headline "The Kei Car is Entry Level Housing." For those who don't know, a Kei car is a very basic level vehicle in Japan that is excempt various taxes, parking permit requirements, and have very cheap insurance.
I would love for the US to build more basic level housing. Honestly, I would love it to be cheap, subsidized, and available to anyone. Good for someone in poverty, but also good for someone moving to a new city, or a recent grad, or someone cutting back to make a career change.
I believe most people’s biases are just that, unconditioned responses. They hear something, react to it positively or negatively, then incorporate it and move on without thinking.
So much not-thinking.
For example, I went to a party this past weekend where a recent grad was sharing that landlords in NYC expect proof of a salary that is at least 40x monthly rent. The folks at the party were aghast.
40x!!! That is ridiculous.
40x is a 3.3x annual gross income housing factor. Generally speaking, “affordable” housing should have no lower than 4x, meaning if you make $96k per year you can “afford” $2k per month.
40x means 1/3 of gross income goes to housing, which often happens to folks living on the edge and is a deeply u pleasant scenario. Roughly 1/3 of income for a young grad in NYC goes to state/city/federal taxes.
So 40x is completely rational as a floor of affordability. Yet *everyone* at the party responded with shock. Because exactly zero people engaged their brain at any moment in the conversation. And in fact the kept the conversation going without once stepping back and figuring out whether 40x was totally rational.
That might be rational economically, but perhaps the reaction is because if you take those numbers literally, very few even upper-middle-class people can afford an average market rent. That plus lots of people really stretch what they can afford. Maybe even more so with cars than housing.
I absolutely agree. And I recognize that many people pay a larger percentage, which is criminal, as I know you are aware.
But the party was in Marin, and the shock was more a lack of awareness about what affordability even means. 40x is an economic threshold where you are not affording your housing. You are paying the rent by going without insurance or food or other essentials.
But they were shocked that 40x was excessive, while you and I know that it is on the conservative end of normal.
I see. Yeah, I do know that, but I still don't totally understand what that's supposed to mean. Like when I see childcare costs that are larger than most U.S. salaries - like how does literally anybody do it? Then again I live in a crazy market here.
The interesting thing about this example is that the tenant’s and landlord’s incentives are theoretically aligned. In an eviction situation everybody loses (it’s very costly for the landlord, and obviously awful for the tenant) so both parties, along with policymakers “should” be motivated to figure out exactly what is/isn’t affordable. But that obviously rarely happens.
Seems like a good example of the prisoner’s dilemma.
Interestingly, over the Fourth I hung out with a couple (my wife went to school with one) who were serious tennis players that had made the jump to pickleball and had become somewhat obsessed with it recently. They estimate playing ~20 hours/week, which is about double what they used to play for tennis
I think this is in an interesting and valid analogy. One associated concept you could possibly consider is the ingrained idea of progressive consumerism, which is hinted at by the term "starter home". There is built-in assumption that if someone buys a small home, they will be required, at some point, to move into a bigger one. Which may be true if they plan to have many children, but a lot of people these days do not have any children, and so a life spent in a smaller home may be perfectly sensible. For example, my wife and I live in a very small condo, the sort of condo that every single person in online housing discussions *insists* vehemently that nobody could possibly want to live in. Yet, here we are two decades on, it's enough for us, and it frees up time, money and resources to do other things, like travel or work fewer hours or less soul-sucking jobs.
The same logic is often applied to cars: a small, cheap car is fine for your "first car" they say, but by 30 (or 32 or 40 or some arbitrary age) you should be "upgrading" to something bigger or fancier, because... well, I'm not sure why. To impress others? To differentiate yourself from those younger than yourself? The concept of the stages of life comes into play, but the stages are not the same for everyone.
And so for Planet Fitness: if your goal is to bulk up with a lot of muscle and be a "gym guy/girl" and that's your hobby and identity, then Planet Fitness is probably inadequate. But if your goal is to run on a treadmill or cycle for a few times every week, maybe do some stretching, just to try to stay reasonably healthy into middle age and old age, then Planet Fitness is perfectly fine into perpetuity.
Good point. I'm probably to your right politically, I wouldn't necessarily consider that "consumerism" as much as just the assumption that most people's lives have a progression that entails more space/more stuff. Obviously not everyone, and obviously nobody who doesn't need that stuff should have to consume it just to prove a point/keep up with the Joneses. That's kind of the point about reforming single-family zoning - that basically requires people in huge areas of the country to consume like a large family to live in that place. More options should exist.
Personally, though, I prefer pointing out that each individual will need these different things. Even if you get married and have a bunch of kids, you will still be single and likely cash strapped at some point in your life. You'll still get old and maybe want to remain in your community but downsize or be able to get around without a car. I feel like a lot of people don't think about this. It's easy to say "Well, that's for other people, who cares," but even if you grant that, no, it's very likely for you too!
Even with kids, the "starter home" doesn't really need to be moved on from. I live in a 3 bedroom story and a half from the 40's. I've got two kids. Many people here view this as a "starter home."
Depends what you mean. I would probably think of starter home as two bedrooms, or even smaller, like a single person's apartment, but in these crazy markets everyone wants more. I see teardowns of perfectly reasonable smallish houses and they build 7,000 square foot monstrosities with almost full lot coverage that don't fit in little narrow suburban streets from the 50s. All over the place.
I think you're on to something here - there does feel like an implicit assumption that we should always be gunning for more, wanting more - bigger house in a more exclusive neighborhood; bigger and fancier car; larger TV; etc. When you swim against that current, by continuing to live in your little condo or my beloved 3 bedroom bungalow, others (even some of your friends) think there's something vaguely wrong with you. It would be one thing if you had a sort of house envy, but to be satisfied, even happy, with the small place does not compute. un-American somehow...
If you're a true "gym rat" Planet Fitness is probably not for you. They have pretty much all the equipment you need, but your "tribe" of fitness/muscle warriors will be small or nonexistent compared to the "civilians" who just want to stay in shape. But why would you think you would find your tribe there? The whole business model of Planet Fitness, everything in their public persona, is a gym for people who AREN'T gym rats. Why hate on the place? Go find your tribe.
"NIMBYism is at heart not an opinion on housing policy, but a miserly attitude regarding other people." This reminds me of the Jerusalem Demsas piece on the people who hate other people. An anecdote on that tendency:
A few years ago, there was a major construction project on the Trans Canada Highway just west of Banff and Yoho national parks. Mostly this meant delays, but there were a few week-long windows where there was a total closure, resulting in a 95km (60 mile) cul-de-sac. Which were great opportunities to get out and ride bikes on a jaw droppingly beautiful stretch of highway that is usually very busy and dangerous and generally unpleasant for cycling.
At one point, I stopped at a rest area and there was a group of older cyclists out; we got to chatting about what an amazing opportunity the vehicle closure was, and how nice it was to be able to safely and comfortably ride such an epic road. We exchanged some pleasantries and I said something along the lines of 'wouldn't it be great if these vehicle closures were promoted as a recreational opportunity, so more people could enjoy this experience' and the conversation just fell off a cliff. No, that would be terrible, there'd be so many people, it would be awful and crowded and terrible, it would ruin the solitude. Keep in mind we're talking about the closed-to-vehicles Trans Canada Highway, not some kind of fragile backcountry hiking experience - there was room for hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to ride. I think I asked if they were disappointed to have to run into me, too, before just kind of shaking my head at the reflexive default assumption that people = bad, as I rode away.
Oh, for sure, and I appreciate that as well. Just an observation that the preference for solitude when communing with nature seems to spread well beyond the space of 'communing with nature' into all kinds of parts of life, such as (in this case) cycling on a large paved highway. My theory is partly that we don't have a ton of widespread places available in which adding more people adds to the positive experience of the place (usually it just means parking hassles or other issues), and so we end up applying the solitude/communing mindset to nearly everything. But fully agree, there are times and places for solitude as well, and we would be wise not to neglect those.
I think Taco Bell is another great example of this. Taco Bell isn’t “real” Mexican food and I’m not in the mood for it all the time. But sometimes, a frito burrito hits the spot. I’m unfortunately inclined towards displays of snobbery and have to remind myself that it’s ok to enjoy popular things.
My first gym in the 70’s was Ryan’s Gym in the Philadelphia suburbs. There were serious weightlifters and competitive bodybuilders there and regular types like me. Snobbish was not an adjective that could be applied to Ryan’s Gym. The equipment looked like it was salvaged from a junkyard. The best thing about it was it had personality in the form of Big Ed Ryan. I still stay away from chain gyms because I like small and local as opposed to corporate. I understand a lot of people join these gyms and never come which is part of the business model. If you’re going to join a gym and not use it, it makes sense to find the lowest rate.
Planet Fitness as housing (for van trekkers, job seekers, people in dire straits) is an intriguing feature of the sheltering marketplace. Many of us are naturally inclined to travel and to improvise by choice or necessity. Our antecedents modeled the traits of adaptation, frugality, and "getting by with less." These traits fit the holiness template. And I'm not using this word "holiness" satirically, in ridicule, or in disparagement. Holiness is a rock-solid biblical measurement of character.
Also, a burning question about the "Lunk Alarm": how exactly are you supposed to do deadlifts (or similar exercises) if you can't drop the bar at the end of your rep?
I'm guessing that the answer is "use a sufficiently light weight that you never fail a rep" but that seems awfully limiting.
Yeah - I think the conceit is that real serious lifting is intimidation or making a show of yourself. Which, if you're an actual lifter, is obviously not true. So in that sense I get where the "real gym" stuff comes from. But like I wrote, fine, maybe it isn't, but why not let the poor lazy folks have their own stripped-down gym? What's the harm to you?
It’s been over a decade since I used a Planet Fitness but at the time there were no barbells and a very limited selection of free weights, just machines and cardio equipment. So you’re deadlifting light dumbbells or not deadlifting at all.
In one literal feature it is entry-level housing. Our local PF has a member who is homeless (lives in a van.) But his membership allows him use of a nice bath/shower facility that is open most of the time.
Interesting. A much lighter version of that was that my friend and I back in high school used to go on Pizza Monday (or Tuesday, I don't recall) because it was literally a free lunch. And of course we also worked out, although using the machines costs the company something in wear and tear, so if we just signed in to grab pizza and leave it would actually cost the company relatively less. It's interesting - this is one of those little perks/extras that I remember a lot from earlier in my life, and it feels like most of that sort of thing has dried up. Maybe the end of zero-interest-rates.
Planet Fitness is big with the van life crowd. My partner is one of them. He's traveled all over the country in his van, and Planet Fitness is one place he can park at overnight and use their facilities (showers, bathrooms). No one will chase him off for being there. They're open 24x7 so very convenient. for those on the move.
This is a really great point. That kind of flexibility is just missing in a lot of ways. This is similar to what Chris Arnade always says about McDonalds - that you get free internet, cheap food, a place to sit, and rarely will they police you as long as you're not causing a scene. It's a whole set of opportunities that affluent people don't really notice or need, but also that doesn't bother them in any way.
Piggybacking onto your comment, a lot of the people who do this van life thing aren't poor. They could as easily be traveling in a converted Dodge Ram ProMaster like my partner or an Airstream van. Probably a fair percentage are retired or semi-retired.
There aren't a lot of places for this kind of travel. I had a chance to see what it's like for over 6 weeks a couple of years ago. It's easier out west where there are a lot more US Forestry Service sites and national monuments and campgrounds, but if you're tired and want to pull over, it can be tough.
I've often wondered if old malls could be converted into places that could become the campers' version of truck stops, with bathrooms, showers and food courts.
Chiming in to add my own story to the "affordable gyms provide an indispensable place to shower for those who aren't near a home" genre.
One of my Marine buddies works in IT and grew up in rural south-central PA. Needless to say, there's not much of an IT career path in that region, so he started looking to Pittsburgh and Northern Virginia and eventually found that he could earn a good living working in the Dulles technology corridor, and drive the 2 hours back to his home when his workweek finished.
Initially he was renting a local room during the work part of his week, but he's extremely frugal and realized that he'd already had experience sleeping in a vehicle at the worksite (we shared the cab of a truck in Iraq). He spent $5K for an old Chevy conversion van and made that his off-duty bunk - and of course, used a Planet Fitness to shower.
That’s what I was going to add. I thought from the headline that it was going to be about the many homeless people who belong to affordable gyms to have a place to shower.
Also, “Saying “Planet Fitness isn’t a real gym” is true objectively”? What? It’s totally a real gym. Most of the ones I’ve been in are pretty well-appointed. No worse than any other mass market gym like LA Fitness or Anytime Fitness, etc.
I think you’ve touched on a universal human tendency that tracks closely with tribalism and identity. This pattern emerges everywhere, and in every instance it deserves to be called out and scrutinized. Thank you.
Thank you!
I feel like you could write this article about a variety of things. One that comes to mind would have the headline "The Kei Car is Entry Level Housing." For those who don't know, a Kei car is a very basic level vehicle in Japan that is excempt various taxes, parking permit requirements, and have very cheap insurance.
I would love for the US to build more basic level housing. Honestly, I would love it to be cheap, subsidized, and available to anyone. Good for someone in poverty, but also good for someone moving to a new city, or a recent grad, or someone cutting back to make a career change.
Affordable housing isn’t about the house. We could build cheaper houses. It is about the land.
Arguably about both. What type of housing gets built on a specific piece of land. That is land & land use, and also the specific housing.
The "Keep On Trucking" piece in the related reading is basically that!
Love this.
I believe most people’s biases are just that, unconditioned responses. They hear something, react to it positively or negatively, then incorporate it and move on without thinking.
So much not-thinking.
For example, I went to a party this past weekend where a recent grad was sharing that landlords in NYC expect proof of a salary that is at least 40x monthly rent. The folks at the party were aghast.
40x!!! That is ridiculous.
40x is a 3.3x annual gross income housing factor. Generally speaking, “affordable” housing should have no lower than 4x, meaning if you make $96k per year you can “afford” $2k per month.
40x means 1/3 of gross income goes to housing, which often happens to folks living on the edge and is a deeply u pleasant scenario. Roughly 1/3 of income for a young grad in NYC goes to state/city/federal taxes.
So 40x is completely rational as a floor of affordability. Yet *everyone* at the party responded with shock. Because exactly zero people engaged their brain at any moment in the conversation. And in fact the kept the conversation going without once stepping back and figuring out whether 40x was totally rational.
That might be rational economically, but perhaps the reaction is because if you take those numbers literally, very few even upper-middle-class people can afford an average market rent. That plus lots of people really stretch what they can afford. Maybe even more so with cars than housing.
I absolutely agree. And I recognize that many people pay a larger percentage, which is criminal, as I know you are aware.
But the party was in Marin, and the shock was more a lack of awareness about what affordability even means. 40x is an economic threshold where you are not affording your housing. You are paying the rent by going without insurance or food or other essentials.
But they were shocked that 40x was excessive, while you and I know that it is on the conservative end of normal.
I see. Yeah, I do know that, but I still don't totally understand what that's supposed to mean. Like when I see childcare costs that are larger than most U.S. salaries - like how does literally anybody do it? Then again I live in a crazy market here.
The interesting thing about this example is that the tenant’s and landlord’s incentives are theoretically aligned. In an eviction situation everybody loses (it’s very costly for the landlord, and obviously awful for the tenant) so both parties, along with policymakers “should” be motivated to figure out exactly what is/isn’t affordable. But that obviously rarely happens.
Seems like a good example of the prisoner’s dilemma.
Interestingly, over the Fourth I hung out with a couple (my wife went to school with one) who were serious tennis players that had made the jump to pickleball and had become somewhat obsessed with it recently. They estimate playing ~20 hours/week, which is about double what they used to play for tennis
I think this is in an interesting and valid analogy. One associated concept you could possibly consider is the ingrained idea of progressive consumerism, which is hinted at by the term "starter home". There is built-in assumption that if someone buys a small home, they will be required, at some point, to move into a bigger one. Which may be true if they plan to have many children, but a lot of people these days do not have any children, and so a life spent in a smaller home may be perfectly sensible. For example, my wife and I live in a very small condo, the sort of condo that every single person in online housing discussions *insists* vehemently that nobody could possibly want to live in. Yet, here we are two decades on, it's enough for us, and it frees up time, money and resources to do other things, like travel or work fewer hours or less soul-sucking jobs.
The same logic is often applied to cars: a small, cheap car is fine for your "first car" they say, but by 30 (or 32 or 40 or some arbitrary age) you should be "upgrading" to something bigger or fancier, because... well, I'm not sure why. To impress others? To differentiate yourself from those younger than yourself? The concept of the stages of life comes into play, but the stages are not the same for everyone.
And so for Planet Fitness: if your goal is to bulk up with a lot of muscle and be a "gym guy/girl" and that's your hobby and identity, then Planet Fitness is probably inadequate. But if your goal is to run on a treadmill or cycle for a few times every week, maybe do some stretching, just to try to stay reasonably healthy into middle age and old age, then Planet Fitness is perfectly fine into perpetuity.
Good point. I'm probably to your right politically, I wouldn't necessarily consider that "consumerism" as much as just the assumption that most people's lives have a progression that entails more space/more stuff. Obviously not everyone, and obviously nobody who doesn't need that stuff should have to consume it just to prove a point/keep up with the Joneses. That's kind of the point about reforming single-family zoning - that basically requires people in huge areas of the country to consume like a large family to live in that place. More options should exist.
Personally, though, I prefer pointing out that each individual will need these different things. Even if you get married and have a bunch of kids, you will still be single and likely cash strapped at some point in your life. You'll still get old and maybe want to remain in your community but downsize or be able to get around without a car. I feel like a lot of people don't think about this. It's easy to say "Well, that's for other people, who cares," but even if you grant that, no, it's very likely for you too!
Even with kids, the "starter home" doesn't really need to be moved on from. I live in a 3 bedroom story and a half from the 40's. I've got two kids. Many people here view this as a "starter home."
Depends what you mean. I would probably think of starter home as two bedrooms, or even smaller, like a single person's apartment, but in these crazy markets everyone wants more. I see teardowns of perfectly reasonable smallish houses and they build 7,000 square foot monstrosities with almost full lot coverage that don't fit in little narrow suburban streets from the 50s. All over the place.
I think you're on to something here - there does feel like an implicit assumption that we should always be gunning for more, wanting more - bigger house in a more exclusive neighborhood; bigger and fancier car; larger TV; etc. When you swim against that current, by continuing to live in your little condo or my beloved 3 bedroom bungalow, others (even some of your friends) think there's something vaguely wrong with you. It would be one thing if you had a sort of house envy, but to be satisfied, even happy, with the small place does not compute. un-American somehow...
If you're a true "gym rat" Planet Fitness is probably not for you. They have pretty much all the equipment you need, but your "tribe" of fitness/muscle warriors will be small or nonexistent compared to the "civilians" who just want to stay in shape. But why would you think you would find your tribe there? The whole business model of Planet Fitness, everything in their public persona, is a gym for people who AREN'T gym rats. Why hate on the place? Go find your tribe.
"NIMBYism is at heart not an opinion on housing policy, but a miserly attitude regarding other people." This reminds me of the Jerusalem Demsas piece on the people who hate other people. An anecdote on that tendency:
A few years ago, there was a major construction project on the Trans Canada Highway just west of Banff and Yoho national parks. Mostly this meant delays, but there were a few week-long windows where there was a total closure, resulting in a 95km (60 mile) cul-de-sac. Which were great opportunities to get out and ride bikes on a jaw droppingly beautiful stretch of highway that is usually very busy and dangerous and generally unpleasant for cycling.
At one point, I stopped at a rest area and there was a group of older cyclists out; we got to chatting about what an amazing opportunity the vehicle closure was, and how nice it was to be able to safely and comfortably ride such an epic road. We exchanged some pleasantries and I said something along the lines of 'wouldn't it be great if these vehicle closures were promoted as a recreational opportunity, so more people could enjoy this experience' and the conversation just fell off a cliff. No, that would be terrible, there'd be so many people, it would be awful and crowded and terrible, it would ruin the solitude. Keep in mind we're talking about the closed-to-vehicles Trans Canada Highway, not some kind of fragile backcountry hiking experience - there was room for hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to ride. I think I asked if they were disappointed to have to run into me, too, before just kind of shaking my head at the reflexive default assumption that people = bad, as I rode away.
I mean most people want solitude when they commune with nature.
Oh, for sure, and I appreciate that as well. Just an observation that the preference for solitude when communing with nature seems to spread well beyond the space of 'communing with nature' into all kinds of parts of life, such as (in this case) cycling on a large paved highway. My theory is partly that we don't have a ton of widespread places available in which adding more people adds to the positive experience of the place (usually it just means parking hassles or other issues), and so we end up applying the solitude/communing mindset to nearly everything. But fully agree, there are times and places for solitude as well, and we would be wise not to neglect those.
I think Taco Bell is another great example of this. Taco Bell isn’t “real” Mexican food and I’m not in the mood for it all the time. But sometimes, a frito burrito hits the spot. I’m unfortunately inclined towards displays of snobbery and have to remind myself that it’s ok to enjoy popular things.
Why we ever tolerated hard shell tacos that weren’t dorito loco tacos I’ll never understand
My first gym in the 70’s was Ryan’s Gym in the Philadelphia suburbs. There were serious weightlifters and competitive bodybuilders there and regular types like me. Snobbish was not an adjective that could be applied to Ryan’s Gym. The equipment looked like it was salvaged from a junkyard. The best thing about it was it had personality in the form of Big Ed Ryan. I still stay away from chain gyms because I like small and local as opposed to corporate. I understand a lot of people join these gyms and never come which is part of the business model. If you’re going to join a gym and not use it, it makes sense to find the lowest rate.
Planet Fitness as housing (for van trekkers, job seekers, people in dire straits) is an intriguing feature of the sheltering marketplace. Many of us are naturally inclined to travel and to improvise by choice or necessity. Our antecedents modeled the traits of adaptation, frugality, and "getting by with less." These traits fit the holiness template. And I'm not using this word "holiness" satirically, in ridicule, or in disparagement. Holiness is a rock-solid biblical measurement of character.
Also, a burning question about the "Lunk Alarm": how exactly are you supposed to do deadlifts (or similar exercises) if you can't drop the bar at the end of your rep?
I'm guessing that the answer is "use a sufficiently light weight that you never fail a rep" but that seems awfully limiting.
Yeah - I think the conceit is that real serious lifting is intimidation or making a show of yourself. Which, if you're an actual lifter, is obviously not true. So in that sense I get where the "real gym" stuff comes from. But like I wrote, fine, maybe it isn't, but why not let the poor lazy folks have their own stripped-down gym? What's the harm to you?
It’s been over a decade since I used a Planet Fitness but at the time there were no barbells and a very limited selection of free weights, just machines and cardio equipment. So you’re deadlifting light dumbbells or not deadlifting at all.
Got it, thanks. Just looked at pics of one of their clubs, and it appears they still have machines and cardio dominating.