Home: our Gym, our Philosophy
Who Are We: The Gym
We’re Bodytribe Fitness, Sacramento ambassadors to the Physical Subculture. We’re a small but intense gym, highly unique, in Midtown Sacramento. You can find us at 920 21st Street. Contact us at chip@bodytribe.com or at 916 444 2384. Our open gym hours are from noon - 7 pm every weekday and the rest of what we do is by appointment with one of our 5 coaches. Contact us for more info.
Open Gym Membership: $55. Personal training and class costs depend on the trainer. Group rates and classes are available!
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Upcoming Events and Specials:
July 26th and 27th, 2008
More strength philosophy and technique in a weekend than you’ll receive the rest of the year!
Strength Camp from Winter, 2008:
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For trainers and anyone else with a passion for movement and strength. An intensive collection of physical culture history, philosophy and technique, complete with guest presenters, new exercises, and personal empowerment tools that will challenge you for the rest of your life.
More info, including sign-up, here: SUMMER STRENGTH CAMP 2008
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The Book
LIFT WITH YOUR HEAD has finally arrived. Now available, after much ado.
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What We Do:
Who we are: The philosophy:
What is Physical Subculture?
The body is a tool for greater purpose, not just the end result of your training. Therefore, training is the means to an increase the quality of life through movement. The Physical SubCulture movement is the modern organized effort to incorporate centuries of physical rituals and beliefs in exercise and movement into an integral part of all aspects of culture. Whether through lifting heavy objects of all shapes and sizes or finding new ways to move the body by itself, the Physical SubCulture movement is about strengthening the spirit through pushing the limits of the body.
Why a SubCulture?
Simple. We’re independent from the mainstream modern fitness movement, practicing and playing almost as an underground movement against the modern corporate structure. About a century ago, the quest for strength and ability WAS the fitness movement, and Physical Culture was the banner it fell under.
So What Went Wrong?
Since more money can be made from trying to sell the quest for aesthetic perfection and exploiting exercise as the snake oil for ‘beauty,’ a very limited view of exercise and training has emerged. The obligatory path to a better appearance. Marketing and promoting of exercise as the tool for simple appearance helped usher in decades of self image woes and issues that have created entire industries to both feed and cure low self esteem (and give therapists job security for centuries). The formula was easy, and is still used today (look at any ‘health and fitness’ magazine cover). Here’s the equation that has proven an effective money maker for many years:
You are ugly. We can help.
This marketing formula sure works better in our society then trying to sell the Physical Culture concept of movement; that physical strength and performance increases other qualities of life as well. As Bernarr MacFadden used as a slogan for his Physical Culture magazine that he started in 1899, “Weakness is a Crime – Don’t be a Criminal.”
Movement should be that integral to our existence, but not through the obligation of aesthetics. Over time the performance and ability of the body, which has a direct and strong impact on the spirit and mind, took a minor role in training. Today, the ‘fitness’ industry is a sham, selling gadgets, supplements and imagery, not actual exercise or ability. Curves, 24-Hour Fitness, and their kin, promote and perpetuate aesthetic stereotypes while providing very little in REAL exercise science or training. The mere fact that there are such things as ‘ab’ machines just proves how silly the industry has become. But the Physical Culture movement has always been around. It just may be hard to find these days. It has become a subculture, a movement forcing the mainstream to evaluate what training really is.
So What is the Physical Subculture?
- A passion for strength, not an obligation of the scale.
- Training without mirrors
- Understanding the mind and spirit better through movement.
- Picking up something heavy. Really heavy.
- No fear of the body’s abilities.
- Using REAL training tools with long histories. No gadgets or fads.
- Embracing training as play-time.
- Acknowledging and exploring capability.
- Training techniques that are useful, enjoyable and sacred.
- Banishing weakness.
