What is Fitness Minimalism?

All of my coaching and programs are built around a few core principles. If you have followed my articles you likely know that I am highly focused on results oriented and data driven fitness. This probably sounds pretty complex but another one of my core principles is the 80/20 rule of fitness. This rule states that 80% of our results are driven by only 20% of our efforts. Based on this rule, we only focus on the 20% of efforts that produce 80% of our results and essentially ignore the rest.

This is part of a much larger "Freedom from Fitness" mindset where fitness is seen as way to enhance every other part of a persons life instead of become the main focus or purpose of that persons life.

Fitness minimalism is the opposite of what most will do by following a more-is-always-better approach. These are the people who spend as much time and effort as possible trying to reach their fitness goals but never seem to make real progress after the first year or so. Most will cope and call this the "fitness lifestyle" but I just call it "fitness maximalism."

I'm not the first person to recognize this, in fact I learned about it nearly 15 years ago from a trainer named Martin Berkhan, better known to most people on the internet at the time as "LeanGains." Instead of "fitness maximalism" he calls it "fuckarounditis", but it all amounts to the same thing. Despite it being a little dated, lets take a look at what Martin had to say:

Fuckarounditis is a behavioral disorder characterized by a mediocre physique and complete lack of progress, despite significant amounts of time spent in the gym.
Fuckarounditis most commonly manifests itself as an intense preoccupation with crunches, curls, cable movements, belts, gloves, balance boards, Swiss Balls and Tyler Durden. Fear of squats and deadlifts is another distinguishing trait. Physical exertion is either completely lacking or misapplied (towards questionable or unproductive training practices).
Despite an alarming increase of fuckarounditis in recent years, prevalence may vary greatly depending on location. However, in most commercial gyms, it has been estimated that 90-100% of individuals are afflicted to varying degrees.
Environment and social networks are crucial factors for triggering the disease. It has been proposed that the roots of the disease stems from misinformation and counterproductive training advice found in popular media (“fitness magazines”) and information hubs on the Internet.
Human nature and the so-called “laziness”, “magic bullet” and “complacency” genes plays a permissive role for allowing the disease to take hold.
The disease spreads rapidly, as carriers of the disease communicate with other individuals in locker rooms, Internet discussion forums and other arenas of interaction and information exchange in real life or otherwise.
The onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood and may go undiagnosed for a lifetime. Diagnosis is set by a professional and based on observed behaviors and physique progress.
Symptoms, preventative measures and intervention strategies are reviewed and discussed.
-Berkhan, M. (2011) “Targeting The Fuckarounditis Epidemic: Preventative Measures and Intervention Strategies.”

And to be fair to most people, most fitness advice that came from the magazines, fitness boards, and now Instagram and tick-tock is trash. And it all came from huge names in the fitness industry...actually, it still does. The average person really doesn't stand much of a chance. You would do better to unlearn everything and start over with a blank slate and a heavy barbell.

Luckily, I came from a competent sports background rather than a fitness background so I had a bit of immunity from the disease although I will admit that I have gone through periods where I have felt some of the symptoms.

Choosing to focus on fitness minimalism rather than maxilmalism means we spend far less time in the gym, save our sanity by not obsessing over every little detail, and much more importantly... we see much faster results. And that's really what it's all about right? We work out primarily so we can get jacked and lean. Everything else is just frosting on the fitness cake.

Now keep in mind, only focusing on 20% of our efforts doesn't mean we don't work hard. We work very hard. It just means that we focus all of our hard work on a few number of fitness inputs.

Ok great, but what does that even look like?

First lets take a look at how the fitness maximalist and the fitness minimalist view fitness: