A female in her early 20’s enters the gym in full make up, perfect hair, and a latex-thin outfit of pants and matching bra. An older woman, who looks to be her mother, follows closely behind. Both women are armed with their cellphones.

Over the next hour, the younger woman proceeds to do a few repetitions of some very basic exercise (bench dips, anyone?), meanwhile the mother takes pictures and records videos. In between these grueling sets of sleep-inducing effort, both mother and daughter spend a minimum of 5 minutes on their respective phones, presumably editing the captured content for maximum Instagram virality.

All in all, the ratio of exercise time to phone time is easily 1:20. I would be surprised if cumulatively more than a few minutes of actual effort were exerted over the hour the women were “working out at the gym.” Their thumbs certainly got a punishing workout.

Perhaps I’m out of touch with today’s world, but I struggle to understand the above behavior.

I’m all for motivation and empowerment. Heck, I follow the likes of The Rock, Jocko Willink, Amelia Boone, and Amanda Sullivan on Instagram for exactly this purpose. But the images and videos these individuals share are of genuine effort and exertion; they are sweaty, winded, their hands callused. I see an image of a sweat-covered floor mat next to a couple of kettle bells time-stamped at 5:00am on Willink’s feed, and I can’t help wanting to get after it myself.

I assume, albeit perhaps naively, that the primary reason the latter examples are going to the gym or hitting the trail is to do the work, to push themselves; the images and videos are secondary.

On the other hand, in the example that started this post, the key driver is a good photo or video, while the actual effort and work takes a backseat. Being young and having good genetics requires no effort.

Being older, having countless competing life priorities and still making it to the gym, or pushing through injuries to compete in grueling physical feats – this takes effort.

In a way, one feed celebrates the superficial, the idealized finished product of ‘fitness’, while the other focuses on the effort of the journey. One is driven by being (fit, young, beautiful), while the other is centered on doing, on the behavior.

While we have little control over our age or genetics, we have complete control over our own behavior.

For this reason, I’m of the opinion that social media feeds that celebrate the journey of health and fitness rather than the destination is likely to inspire more people to take action.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this topic.

What do you find most motivating: idealized images of fitness perfection or the blood, sweat, and tears of those doing the hard work required to get there?

Peter