Regardless of likable lyrics the music itself if disharmonious. That type of music kills the soul and debases a human dragging them down to the level of beasts.
4 Reasons Why Lifting In Gyms Is A Bad Idea
- Thread starter Roosh
- Start date
Modern rap literally sounds like a drugged out zombie mumbling incoherently, but the repetitious nature of the mumbling makes you think its sinister ––like a spell or a voodoo curse.
@pathos Found this statement you made interesting, but was wondering if you could clarify a bit more?
What are the difference between what you refer to as "purity" spiral and a Christian life? As Christians should we not desire salvation for oneself, and begin the work of moral perfection?
Seen a similar lukewarm interpretation within the ladies forum, as where, it is okay for culture to have influence on religion. Having "culture dictate religion" is an example of what we have today in the United States - a Godless culture with no respect for faith; and an ill tolerance for looking past differences that go against God's Word.
You've totally missed the point of my post if you think I'm advocating for the rationalization of sins or somehow disagree with Christ's teaching. What I'm pointing out is that there's a lot of extrapolation and guilt-ridden projection going on in this article and that this approach can actually be detrimental to your spiritual well-being as it leads to scrupulosity and excessive anxiety about the world. It's an approach to the "spiritual life" that can be escapist and self-indulgent like anything else can in our lives.
This is why in another thread I referred to Fr. Kosmas who said in his talk that there are people coming to the Church who only want the "spiritual life" to escape the world and its responsibilities. We may not be "of" the world but we still live "in" it and the "secular" or temporal world has its place in our lives, as well. Likewise, not everything in this fallen world is some great evil that we have to purify ourselves of. Or are we gnostics now who believe the material world is evil in and of itself?
I see we have a visitor from the late 19th century. Last time I checked this was the 21st century and most of us have taken swimming lessons or have at least taken a stroll down the beach. You reply by saying you had a bad experience and that there should be separation of sexes. Okay, fine. Let's destroy Christian liberty altogether and make your experiences the standard for Christians. Let's put any faithful Christian who's going to the swimming pool or the beach on a massive anxiety-induced guilt trip for inadvertently supporting moral degeneracy and the equality of the sexes. Why not boycott swimming pools and organize protests at their doors to call for the separation of the sexes in full Westboro Baptist style, too? But purity spiral some more.
Oh, really? For your information, I'm a former Traditionalist Catholic who knows very well how self-absorbed people can get and how crippling their approach to the spiritual life can be. I'm afraid it's partly due to Catholicism's tendency to reduce the spiritual life to a codified set of rules to follow rather than a process in which we are healed and reconciled with God. I've seen plenty of Pharisees among them and not just among Traditionalists but Christians of any "church"/denomination for that matter, including many self-described "based" Orthodox who mistake their overreaction to the world's degeneracy for "piety".
Constantly in fear of committing mortal or venial sin, constantly being in fear of hellfire, trying to find some emotional relief in confession, constantly concerned about not living up to some high-minded standard, about the image you project to others, imposing such high standards on yourself that you feel you're constantly failing and not making any progress, that you're worthless. In other words, God is some sort of Tyrant who hates you when in actual fact it's the devil setting you up for spiritual pride, judgment, and, ultimately, discouragement. Neuroticism isn't a "spiritual life".
That's damaging to the soul and to your faith as well as a failure to see conversion and repentance as a healing process but rather as some sort of code of conduct. But I suppose you'll conclude I'm a "liberal" and a "modernist" for pointing out that traditional-minded Christians can be prone to spiritual excess, fanaticism and falling into the trap of sanctimony and crippling scrupulosity. You want to know who once warned his flock against spiritual "activism", though? A Traditonalist Catholic priest.
If you are such a faithful Catholic then you should know that your very own Church teaches there are two spheres: the spiritual and the temporal, and that we serve God by serving our neighbor as well, that we have various duties in life and that failing to live up to them out of some misplaced desire to "put God first" is actually failure to serve God. If I'm converting to Orthodoxy it's not to replace one legalistic mindset by another one but so I can work out my salvation free from all this autistic nonsense.
But from your response I suppose Christ's harsh words toward the right-believing but haughty and hypocritical Pharisees (whom He called a brood of vipers) is no longer relevant to our age.
What is meant by "purity spiral" (as opposed to actual moral perfection as you might call it) is fake external piety that is more about keeping up appearances and telling ourselves how "spiritually advanced" we are than it is reflective of actual inner change and repentance. It's needlessly putting the bar ever higher, not just for ourselves but for others as well. It's projecting an image of personal holiness when it's actually a superficial outward layer concealing pride, and judging others for failing to conform to it.
No offense or judgment, but you strike me as a man who is very angry and in rebellion against God's teachings and His requirements of you. This topic about gyms does not necessitate this type of response. I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit.
Yes, I suppose I am "angry" at the sanctimonious Pharisees that I've seen destroy people's faith with their self-righteous and simplistic, overzealous and judgmental nonsense and who like to use names of "saints" as their handle or icons as their profile picture to show off their piety.
OK, best of luck
Yes, both male and female. Which makes single gender gyms not much of a solution. Sometimes people forget that something like 30% ( I could be off about the exact number, but it was disturbingly high) of people under age 25 claim to be homosexuals. Single gender spaces are no longer necessarily exempt from the kind of (deviant ) behavior mentioned throughout the thread. Perhaps Christian-only single gender spaces with a clear code of conduct?
Or just keep it simple and workout at home. No satanic music, no commute, is a plus.
There is great value in silence. No one needs music. I'd love a gym with no music at all (and preferably no weight machines: just free weights). I bought an olympic bar and barbell weights for around $600 - big lumps of rubber covered iron are not cheap as there are no suitable gyms here. I would like a treadmill, but I can't justify the cost at the moment.
joost
Kingfisher
I've been hitting the gym for +20y. I want to look the best I can and at the same time be the strongest (within reason) I can get. Stronger muscles give better support for the body. No knee or back pain for me.
Nobody likes being a weakling with pin-arms. I like my toxic masculinity.
Nobody likes being a weakling with pin-arms. I like my toxic masculinity.
Not to mention the 3rd grade level lyrics... It doesn't sound like any of these rappers are educated. It is a combination of that and the themes of sex, drugs, women, and/or 'being gangsta.'
I'm hesitant to readily accept social survey results that could push a subversive agenda, but from I've seen with Zoomers at the gym, the trends appear to be accurate. On several occasions I've entered the locker room and seen a couple nude or lightly-clothed Zoomer males squeezing each other's bodies and posing for pictures together as if they were women trawling for followers on Instagram. You could claim it's just a consequence of gym culture, but the behavior seems undignified for men.
Well, I have some personal experience with this. Twenty years ago, when I was in my early 30s, I developed some severe, chronic upper and lower back spasms that were debilitating and greatly hindered my well-being. They were probably caused by some of the physical labor I did while in the military. I also shattered the rotator cuff in my left elbow playing flag football, which made the whole arm weak and less flexible. For the back spasms, the doctors, following western medicine, wanted to keep pumping steroid shots into my back muscles.
I fixed the back spasms myself and greatly improved my arm situation by weightlifting. It seems that strengthening my core and developing the major muscle groups in my body, especially my back and abdomen, cleared up the back spasms. They have not bothered me in years. My elbow rarely bothers me either. Lifting heavy weights increased the range of motion of the injured elbow and strengthened it sufficiently that it really doesn't get in my way.
In my opinion, our male bodies are designed to be at their best carrying strong, dense, fairly heavy muscles. You shouldn't juice, but you should have a heavy weight regimen that you follow your entire life, perhaps reducing it a little once you're in your 70s.
My area has somewhat severe winters, and since I'm training for an Ironman, I really rely on the treadmill at my local Gold's gym for indoor running in the winter months. I know I could buy a treadmill for home, but I don't have that much room and the expensive treadmills at the gym have wider running surfaces and withstand the wear and tear better than a cheaper home treadmill. The gym also has a lap pool that is absolutely necessary for triathlon training. Swimming laps at Gold's is much cheaper than paying to do it at the local rec center. My health insurance gets me a discount at Gold's.
Yes, some of the women at my gym seem to be competing with each other at how close to being naked they can be without someone calling them out for it. My wife, who usually goes to the gym with me, and I joke about it all the time. She thinks they're being silly rabbits. My wife doesn't dress like that. It makes me almost laugh out loud sometimes at some of the outlandish outfits some of the women wear. It doesn't seem to make me want to fornicate, but perhaps that's more because of my age and my focus on getting ready for the Ironman, which is no joking matter.
My gym plays general Top-40 music at a low enough volume that I can tune-out the lyrics. Also, there is very little, if any, pick-up action going on there. In fact, in two years, I've only seen once some guy try to pick up one of the girls. Also, there is no open LGBTQAXYZ nonsense going on, that I can see.
I would suggest choosing whether to train at home or at a commercial gym based on your goals and needs. Try to arrange your schedule so that you can workout when there aren't as many scantily-clad women present, which is usually anytime except the evening. I do recommend weight training with the express purpose of building the size and strength of your muscles, as you'll discover the benefits of it as you get older and have less problems with your back and joints.
Before the 80s, gyms weren't even really a thing except in large schools and pro athletics. There was a 70s fitness trend boom which turned into big business gyms and workout clothing lines, which coincided with the American worker having an increasingly sedentary and office lifestyle, which also coincided with Americans being more out of shape naturally. Historically, people got enough physical workout just with their daily life and work routine that the idea of running or lifting weights would have been nonsensical. You had a family and kids by age 20, and worked a physical, demanding job and then you might even have a small farm at home to tend. Beyond that you might even have civic responsibilities.
Anyway, gyms and the fitness industry in general are largely a product of consumerism, vanity and modernity in America with a soft service-oriented workforce, mostly performing jobs that don't really matter (as Thomas Sowell would say, jobs that don't add real economic value, especially the rise of middle management positions). As an aside, guys like Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno even brag that when they and other bodybuilders came over from Europe in the 70s/80s, they easily duped a lot of Americans who were obsessed with this culture and treated them essentially like idols.
Modernity is simulation; the more your life is comfortable and removed from nature, the more simulation you need. Take the bicycle; it was invented as a simulation of a horse, then used for transportation before increasingly being replaced by the car. Now people primarily use bikes for exercise outside of big cities, and they even increasingly use fancy indoor bikes to simulate the outdoor biking experience. Simulation is all around us, and the exercise industry is a great example of the obsession with simulation. A traditional lifestyle has no need for a gym.
Anyway, gyms and the fitness industry in general are largely a product of consumerism, vanity and modernity in America with a soft service-oriented workforce, mostly performing jobs that don't really matter (as Thomas Sowell would say, jobs that don't add real economic value, especially the rise of middle management positions). As an aside, guys like Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno even brag that when they and other bodybuilders came over from Europe in the 70s/80s, they easily duped a lot of Americans who were obsessed with this culture and treated them essentially like idols.
Modernity is simulation; the more your life is comfortable and removed from nature, the more simulation you need. Take the bicycle; it was invented as a simulation of a horse, then used for transportation before increasingly being replaced by the car. Now people primarily use bikes for exercise outside of big cities, and they even increasingly use fancy indoor bikes to simulate the outdoor biking experience. Simulation is all around us, and the exercise industry is a great example of the obsession with simulation. A traditional lifestyle has no need for a gym.
I often go to an indoor bouldering (rock climbing) gym. Unfortunately, the women climbers often wear yoga pants and other immodest clothing. There is somewhat of a cooperative element to problem-solving the climbing routes where observing others technique is required.
It's difficult to separate the anatomy from the technique so I feel I have to either ignore the women when the climb or stop going to these places.
It really is the definition of a surrogate activity, climbing fake plastic holds under fluorescent lighting.
Yoga pants are a terrible invention that no one even speaks about anymore. A key battle in the culture war conceeded without a shot fired (so to speak).
It's difficult to separate the anatomy from the technique so I feel I have to either ignore the women when the climb or stop going to these places.
It really is the definition of a surrogate activity, climbing fake plastic holds under fluorescent lighting.
Yoga pants are a terrible invention that no one even speaks about anymore. A key battle in the culture war conceeded without a shot fired (so to speak).
TheOnceAndFutureKing
Woodpecker
Gyms are very bad for those trying to stay pure of mind, lots of women in skimpy clothing. I have a home gym now since I got more into boxing training instead of just doing my old 6 day split routine. If a home gym is not an option, I recommend only going to a regular gym early in the day, I used to go in the mornings and it was practically empty with only a few really old people there on the bikes.
Unfortunately, the gyms are not making women more attractive, but more masculine. Strong fitness women with no hips are not very attractive. Here in Scandinavia every other woman goes to the gym, and it is vulgarizing their bodies. If you compare Russian women with Finnish women (who are racially alike), the Russian women are superior. Since they come from an Orthodox culture they are much more feminine and elegant. Feminism and gyms are literally shrinking the hips of Western women and making them into something in between a man and a woman.
TheOnceAndFutureKing
Woodpecker
I think it depends on the type of workout, a cardio routine with some calisthenics is nice for toning up a woman to prevent her from being flabby, but intense lifting with a supplement and high protein diet will start to get into androgynous territory.
You make interesting points but the ancient Greeks had gymnasiums where the aristocrats would hang out during the day and train, lift weights, do calisthenics, wrestle and talk philosophy. So training isn't necessarily a modern invention. And as someone who does manual labor for a living I also supplement weight lifting because manual labor, or at least modern manual labor (I have never been a primitive farmer) is very hard on the joints. Training your muscles, especially your lower back is important for longevity. And plenty of construction workers are skinny, skinny fat and obese. Not everyone has a natural Adonis body type and those people stand to gain a lot from going to the gym.
I do have some friends who never lift weights or do manual labor and just naturally have very large muscles, but they are in a small minority.
Also lifting weights is a good competitive activity for young men to get into to. I see lots of high school guys at my gym and they are taking their training very seriously and making progress. It is a self-directed activity they are pouring themselves into and gives them a sense of accomplishment. Ten years ago when I was their age, very few guys were training, and even fewer were making such good gains like these guys are. Our recreational activities were far less wholesome.