By John Feldkamp

The legendary Greek athlete Milo of Croton carried a bull calf on his back every single day. As Milo got older, the bull grew as well, forcing his muscles to compensate to take on the heavier load. A six-time Olympic champion, Milo’s feats were lauded in stories by artists and authors like Aristotle, Cicero, and Herodotus.

Today, Milo is perhaps best known for inspiring the concept of progressive overload in modern weightlifting. Like with the bull calf the theory of progressive overload demands that we increase the weight we lift over time to stimulate muscle hypertrophy (growth). All too often, though, men betray this concept by attempting to tackle a burden, whether physical or mental, that is far too much—and we are crushed under the weight and accompanied by shame.

As a competitive powerlifter, this emotional conundrum is particularly relevant to me. In just three weeks, I’m set to compete at the Pennsylvania State Championship in Scranton, but overtraining mixed with lack of recovery has caused me debilitating knee pain and tremendous anxiety about coming up short. I have ambitious goals for this meet: a 500 pound squat, 320 pound bench press, and 620 pound deadlift. However, I fell victim to a villain that many men are familiar with—a battle cry in my ear to go harder, further, faster—and my body is paying the price. The call to dominate is a sound that I imagine resonates with every man in some capacity. Today I’d like to open a conversation about masculinity, the gym, and shame.

I’ve noticed a strong trend of social media personas that try to attract an impressionable audience to fitness. The underlying point of the content is a noble one, particularly in promoting fitness as a health intervention. The content itself, though, is often delivered with a hypermasculine undertone. Fitness influencers will use scare tactics, like citing studies on waning levels of testosterone in men or hypothetical scenarios of anticipated physical combat to scare men into grabbing a barbell.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the diffrence.

This method is a cunning one: By attaching an emotional connection to the already controversial content, creators can grab a consumer’s attention and establish trust because they offer a “solution”. In fact, it’s become commonplace to elicit envy through content proclaiming that you’re not strong enough if you can’t lift X or too skinny because you don’t weigh Y. In our modern capitalist system, we exist in an attention economy. Your attention is a valuable commodity to corporations and creators. Our attention is most drawn to images and video which elicit an emotional reaction and, in turn, create an unconscious and powerful personal connection. Be wary of profiteers who prey on hypermasculine traits such as jealousy, aggression, and dysmorphia to fuel the demand of your inner ego. When we bring men into the gym through shame, envy, and self-hate, we only amplify those insecurities.

Shame is an unreliable motivator; but for men, who are socialized to avoid it at all costs, it can also be a powerful catalyst for change. A shame-avoidant mindset centers on the fear of interpersonal judgment. When we place our self-worth in the hands of social perception, we fall victim to the volatility of society’s preferences. For example, many men go to the gym as a means to shed fat, look more muscular, or gain more confidence. These insights aren’t particularly hostile, but when we peel back the layers hiding beneath them, we often find men that are really just dissatisfied with their dating lives, or tired of being at the bottom of the masculine social hierarchy.

Many men think that muscles will greatly impact their desirability, and in turn make assumptions on behalf of what women want. By assuming the male and female gaze are synonymous, we are greatly misleading men in our society to believe that what they find admirable also translates to what women find attractive. To take it a step further, men will even begin to blame women for their dysmorphia, which was almost certainly built upon patriarchal concepts in the first place. If you worked out to be “more attractive,” but potential partners don’t find you more attractive, it must be their fault, right? Preferences, though, are unique to the individual. Additionally, it goes without saying that muscular hypertrophy will not supplant toxic personality traits, like narcissism or aggression. If you center your self-perception extrinsically, and you believe that a gym membership will remedy your insecurity, I hear your frustration, but I promise that you won’t find what you’re looking for. It’s common for men to try to remedy an emotional crisis with a logical solution like substituting therapy with a workout. Until we address our emotional conflict with mindful intervention (self-reflection, talk therapy, men’s groups), these problems will fester, no matter how big our biceps get. Short-lived post-workout endorphins may offer a notable stress release, but they are not a substitute for the real emotional work that, as men, we chronically avoid.

The gym itself has a patriarchal food chain, built on vague concepts of strength and aesthetics, which perpetuate a “shame cycle” for both men and women. Recently, I had a man whom I’d never met tell me that, upon seeing my physique, he “expected more” of my bench press—and even began to compare his numbers to mine. With no healthy tools to cope with shame, men get locked into the shame cycle, where we tear others down in a futile effort to avoid our own shame. This kind of projection happens frequently, often in more subtle ways, and creates an atmosphere of isolation. We constantly stack ourselves up in a never-ending competition of who is the strongest, often forgetting that the gym is in fact a tool to get strong(er). Oftentimes this leads to male hypervigilance, where we constantly surveil the gym to either hide from those deemed “the strongest” or prey on those who don’t meet the abstract criteria for manliness that we create. In fact, this intimidation even keeps some from coming to the gym in the first place.

Patriarchy dictates that the lowest rungs of the masculine hierarchy belong to “feminine” men and women. While this is a separate issue worthy of tremendous discussion, I find it necessary to mention that our male shame is often projected onto women and “feminine” men through fatphobia, casual misogyny, and rape culture. It is not uncommon to hear men chuckling amongst themselves about a fat woman at the gym, interrupting a woman’s workouts to hit on them, or ostracizing both men and women for doing exercises deemed “gay” or “girly.” The advice and knowledge of women or those who do not appear “traditionally fit” is often discredited because they do not meet the standard of male appraisal.

Within the fitness realm, there exists communities that contradict the aforementioned shame cycle. Ironically, the strongest individuals I’ve met, of both mind and body, tend to encourage and inspire the progress of others, rather than participate in the ritual of “sizing up” to other men. In fact, at my first powerlifting competition, I was shocked to learn how helpful, encouraging, and thoughtful the other male lifters were. When my second deadlift attempt at 530 lbs was disqualified for a soft knee lockout, one of the men who I was competing against offered sound advice and coaching that allowed me to crush 560 lbs, win my division, and take the second highest total of the day.

The results of my first Powerlifting meet!

I believe that the key to creating and maintaining a healthy environment in the gym is to be willing to be vulnerable, make an active commitment to break the cycle of shame, and welcome our insecurity as an opportunity to grow. We need to challenge our “why.” Are we in the gym for the betterment of our health, or to improve our perceived status in the eyes of the masculine hierarchy? I was able to solve the mystery of my knee pain when I stopped trying to be “man enough,” stepped out of the food chain, and asked some teenage powerlifters at my YMCA for help. When we as men begin to decouple our validity with the endless pursuit of being muscular enough, strong enough, or fit enough in the eyes of society, we can break the shame cycle, and begin to build supportive, enriching fitness communities for all.