Men’s Health, Epic Battles, and the Revolutionary Dark Horse

Have you noticed that there are really two “clans” in the health and fitness world?

Like the epic battle between the Spartans and the Trojans, these two groups are battling it out in the classic quest to help people look better and feel better.

On the one hand, you’ve got the “Gym Rats.” These are the guys with chiseled abs, who can bench press twice their weight, and could easily play the hero in an upcoming action movie.

They are the ones who devote a lot of time to hitting the gym. They take a lot of supplements and haul Tupperware around everywhere so they can eat six times a day.

On the other hand, you’ve got the “New Agers.” These are the guys who have refrigerators filled with fresh food from the farmers market. They ride their bikes to yoga class.

They are the ones who spend most of their disposable income on food. They’re into detoxes and cleanses.

Which clan do you belong to? Which is right? And is there any way to combine the best of both worlds to find something that works best for you?

The Life of a Gym Rat

If there’s one thing to say about the gym rats, they are the experts on strength training and muscle building.

They’re the ones who brought you squats, push ups, and pull ups. They know the importance of deadlifts, cleans, and presses.

It’s because of them that most of us have easy access to barbells, dumbbells, and kettlebells, equipment optimized to maximize strength and muscle gain.

But at the same time, they also ruined exercise. After they mastered the big lifts listed above, they started focusing on minutiae to the point that now the types of exercises that have minimal impact are emphasized over the things that actually do.

It’s the reason that most guys’s exercise routines consist primarily of a couple thousand varieties of bench presses, bicep curls, and crunches.

It’s the reason that people spend good money on crappy gizmos such as Bowflexes, Shake Weights, and electronic ab belts.

And while I give the gym rats props for being (at least moderately) pro-meat and pro-animal products, things start to go downhill rapidly after that.

While their knowledge of the scientific underpinnings of muscle building is no doubt impressive, it leads them to suggest one of the blandest diets on the planet.

Perhaps the most worrying part of the Gym Rats’s nutrition philosophy is the obsession with supplements. With the endless supply of shakes, powders, and gels out there, you’re getting dangerously close to those futuristic movies where everyone eats their food in pill form.

Lastly, credit must be given to their attitude toward sleep, at least in theory. They strongly believe that it is important to get a full night’s sleep if you are to lose fat and build muscle, although it may not be strictly followed in practice in order to get to the gym at the break-a-break-a dawn.

The Life of a New Ager

Where the Gym Rats are undoubtedly the masters of strength training and muscle building, the New Agers excel in their approach to nutrition.

They understand the importance of food that comes from farms and fields, not from factories and laboratories.

In addition to the grandparents out there–who were among the last to learn from their parents how to cook–the New Agers are the reason that you can still go to the supermarket and find fresh meat and produce.

While most people under the age of 60 have quite honestly never learned how to cook much more than a prepared bag of pasta, these guys are scouring the shelves for fresh fish and seasonal asparagus.

They’re the reason these stores still stock these items, even though they aren’t as obvious to prepare.

But just as the Gym Rats have overdone exercise, the New Agers have overdone nutrition.

The biggest “whoopsie” they have committed is the campaign against meat and animal products. They have won a resounding victory in convincing most people that these foods are bad for them, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

They have also alienated most people into thinking they need to eat “rich people food.” You know, organic/grass-fed/local/pastured, etc.

And while the Gym Rats are the go-to-guys on building strength, speed, and power, the New Agers are undoubtedly the geniuses of lower-intensity physical activity such as endurance and flexibility.

They preach the importance of such things as running, biking, hiking, surfing, and skiing, and as a result have the added benefit of getting people out of stuffy gyms and out into nature with their exercising.

They even focus on things such as yoga and pilates, which can be a little too “woo-woo” for some, but are much more difficult than most of the nay-sayers believe. These types of activities also have a marked ability to reduce stress levels, which are an oft-forgotten part of the equation.

Which Clan Do You Want to Be a Part Of?

So there you have it.

If you want to start amping up your health and fitness, you have a choice of clan to join:
1. The Gym Rats, who have unbelievably low body fat percentages and could easily moonlight as superheroes, but who forego their social lives for long gym sessions and bizarre eating habits.
2. The New Agers, who get to eat good food, spend time outside, and experience low stress levels, but spend all their disposable income on food and are a little skinnier than many would like.

Or…

Could there be a way to combine the best of these two and eliminate the worst of them?

Could we start a brand-new third clan?

Could we establish a brand-new philosophy? One that doesn’t require you to drop your whole paycheck on food? Or require you to turn down going out with friends so you can hit the gym every night?

Oh, hell yes!

Gym Rats, New Agers, and the “Big Four”

Why do people want to lose fat, gain muscle, and maximize their health in general?

I think if you dig far enough it comes down to one or more of these four things:
1. Sexual Attractiveness
2. Social Status
3. Short-Term Health–(lack of injury, illness)
4. Long-Term Health–(the ability to live to old age)

What does this have to do with anything? Well, let’s think about the two different clans and what they value.

The Gym Rats? For them, it’s all about building as much muscle and losing as much fat as is possible. It’s almost singularly focused on appearance and doesn’t really care about extending lifespan or reducing illness and injury.

These guys achieve impressively low body fat percentages. They’re the envy of every guy who got sand kicked in his face and his girlfriend stolen by some guy on the beach. (Wait, maybe that was just in the comics. But still…)

While getting in shape undoubtedly improves your sexual attractiveness and social status, it only does so up to a certain point. If you are really interested in these things you’ll want to focus on things such as body language, voice tonality, and especially working to make your life something worth living in the first place.

Know any former pro bodybuilders, powerlifters, or athletes that have aged gracefully? All of that wear and tear they put on their bodies has left them a mess, with plenty of injuries and in all likelihood a shorter lifespan.

How about the New Agers? For them it’s all about the health. It’s living a long life free of injuries brought on by overtraining, eating like crap, and being exposed to toxins. Rising up the social hierarchy and attracting women are too un-p.c. to be a priority here.

These guys wake up in the morning and feel energetic all day long. They’re not suffering from back problems from a botched squat session. They aren’t feeling under the weather from a weakened immune system.

At the same time they seem a little… emaciated. Sure, they’re in better shape than the average joe, but I think most of us would prefer to be a little more “strong like bull” than the average yoga dude is.

The New Clan, the Dark Horse

You see the problem here?

Sure, some people may want to focus on one of the big four, or perhaps two, as the Gym Rats and the New Agers both do, but what about the rest of us?

What about those of us who are less interested in getting a “10” in two categories and a “0” in the others than they are in getting a “9” in all four categories?

What about those of us who DON’T make health and fitness the center of our lives and frankly don’t WANT to because we frankly have bigger things going on?

For us, it is more important to maximize all four rather than trying to be the best at one or another.

We want our girlfriends and wives to find us irresistible. We want to instantly make a good first impression on others. We want to live until old age, and to be as efficient and productive as possible for those days.

By taking the best of both worlds, we can create an all-new Third Clan. We need to focus on the big wins from each of the clans, ignore the minutiae that creates all the buzz, and blaze our own trail.

We can take the following from the Gym Rats:

1. “Big Lifts” such as deadlifts, cleans, presses, push ups, squats, and pull ups.
2. Pro-meat (or at least meat-agnostic) diet.
3. Focus on sleep.

And combine with the following from the New Agers:

1. More recreational activities OUTSIDE THE GYM.
2. A diet of primarily fresh, minimally-processed food.
3. Emphasis on reducing stress.

By focusing on the big wins learned from the Gym Rats and New Agers, we can reap the main benefits of being healthy and fit without letting it overrun our lives.

A NEW kind of health nut is coming to take the world by storm, and he’s more of a revolutionary dark horse than someone who blindly follows the rules.

He realizes that being healthy and fit is more of a means towards getting what he really wants out of life than an end in and of itself.

This guy isn’t afraid to go down the road less travelled in order to get what he wants.

And he will stop for nothing on his epic adventure to get there.