Decline of Western (lifting) Civilization: Part I
by Thom Van Vleck
Can you guess what this does?
The title of the article is play off of some documentaries that pondered the decline of the western civilization through the various music movements such as punk rock, heavy metal and so on. They were as much tongue in cheek as they were a serious case that these musical movements would collapse our society and that’s how this article is intended. You may notice it has a “part I”…..I plan on doing a series of these.
Recently I was in a gym and they had a new piece of equipment. It took me awhile to figure it out but once I did I had to admit I felt myself becoming the type of self righteous complainer that I usually hate. But I just have to make a comment on this one. It was an assisted chin up/dip bar machine. If you can’t do a single dip or chin up this machine will lift your fat butt up so you can dip and chin with the best of them! Now, before someone goes all postal on me let me tell you the real reason I see this as the decline of Western “lifting” Civilization. I get it that there are many people who can’t do a chin or dip and need help and this machine could offer the chance for them to get to that point where they don’t need help.
What I’m mad about is what has happened to the “gym”. They seem to be getting worse and worse about equipment that caters for those that never had a childhood that involved hard work or exercise and instead was video games and maybe passive labor that was horribly overpaid. It seems to me that it lowers the bar and in essence it lowers the lofty standards of fitness and strength that made America great. But hey, that’s just me.
On another note, I did 100 chin ups today….and 1000 dips. Pretty amazing, huh!?