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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3346 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I attended a gym that offered Crossfit among other things for years and tried a few of the classes.

The 'cultish' aspect is actually part of the appeal, I think. And it's less cultish if you just consider it a method of leveraging social instincts to make workouts more enjoyable and keep people coming back.

Rather than a bunch of people quietly doing different workouts on different machines, everyone is doing the same workout of the day, all at the same time, and oftentimes there's a teamwork element to it. So this triggers all those social circuits in our brains that tend to find group/team activities fun and rewarding.

For many (not me, I'll say) this really helps with motivation to actually work out. If you miss a workout day, people will notice and ask about it; maybe you feel guilty for 'letting them down.' If you're feeling off and underperforming, others will encourage you to keep going. If you have a particularly strong performance, maybe set a personal record, people will congratulate you and recognize you for it.

So by making exercise into a social activity it helps a certain type of person exercise more consistently and push themselves further. And these types of persons often like to 'evangelize' about their experience.

There's no penalties for leaving the 'cult' so I don't really see the harm.

Can confirm anecdotally: For me, the social aspect of group sports easily trumped my own aversions against repetitive exercise.

It’s a shame cults get such a bad rap nowadays. They’re the traditional way to make yourself transform into your ideal. Unfortunately a few pederasts + our intolerance for any risks have ruined the model entirely.

Now I imagine a dark dungeon full of guys in the traditional hooded cloaks who spend their time lifting. Wait, isn't that just the Forge cult in Cultist Simulator?

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