Fake Fitness: Beware!
The other day in class, a long-time training partner of mine and fellow BJJ Black belt asked me how the KB Flow shoot was going. I told him great! He then said, why don’t you hit up some famous BJJ players like Andre Galvao to do your workouts. Then you can post the video. I told him, I have actually thought of that. But, I don’t feel that it is being authentic. I don’t want to fool people by training some famous person once with my programs and parade it all over the internet to get more business. In my opinion, that is fake. Now if someone like Galvao, embraced my programs and truly enjoyed it, that’s a different story. That would be genuine.
Unfortunately, this industry has a lot of fraudulent fitness programs and organizations out there. The salesmanship in this industry is at an all-time high. You have people professing the superiority of kettlebells and look super fit. Yet, they merely use kettlebells as a supplement to barbells, dumbbell, and other fitness equipment. You have organizations that were once all kettlebell oriented, but when the industry shifted and Crossfit became popular, these organizations quickly added body weight and barbell to their curriculum. To me that’s fake.
Since I posted pictures of the recent cast of my new KB Flow shoot, I have been getting a ton of positive feedback. Someone said, “That’s so cool that you are using your own students in the shoot.” My response was, I have always used only my students who actually train regularly in my Kettle-jitsu Bootcamps. The only exception is my addition of KBfit Britt in this shoot. Although she is not a student of mine, she is a legitimate practitioner of all things kettlebell. Her and I have been friends and fans of one another on social media for a long time now.
I honestly would not feel comfortable hiring some random fitness professionals to be in my video shoots. This is what you see in fitness magazines and a lot of workout DVDS. In my opinion that is false advertisement.
I see and hear a some of these fraudulent fitness gurus making the most outrageous claims about their programs. Listen, if someone has to sell you a certain workout program like as if he were selling you a car, then there is a problem. All it should take is for someone to try out a program once to see whether it is for them or not. If you need to convince, or manipulate them further to stick with the program then that is a red flag.
I owned a gym for close to 10 years and I have worked at Legacy Burbank for the last 3 years. At both facilities, I merely offer my Kettle-Jitsu boot camp. It is entirely the client’s choice whether to try it out or not. I’ve never had to force or use my power of influence to make people do my classes.
At 46 years old, I am in the best shape of my life. Kettlebell and body weight are my sole sources of strength and conditioning. The physique I have was attained by using all of the kb workouts that you see me doing on social media and my downloads. The only additions to that is my martial arts training.
So, beware of fraudulent fitness gurus making outrageous claims like, this will heal you, or this will make your BJJ better, I have even heard one ninny say that it reverses the aging process!!! One should merely be able to try out a workout once to be convinced whether it’s for them or not!