No pain, no gain?

Matt on a Wildfitness course in Crete

It’s cool (and rare unfortunately!) when a journalist “gets it”. So often journalists who cover Wildfitness can’t seem to stay away from the fitness clichés… playing up how tough the training is and focussing on how skinny they got. So it was a nice relief to read the great coverage in The Independent’s ‘Traveller’ section (Sat 20th March) by Matt Carroll, who joined one of courses in Crete, entitled ‘How I joined Crete’s fit club’. He realised that rather than being faddy we’re all about the super simple – “a new approach to exercise where the emphasis is on sunshine, fresh air and relaxation.” (Though it’s fairly comical that this is described as “new” – surely it is the most ancient approach to ‘exercise’ there is?)

He says: “Pop your head into any high-street gym and you might notice rows of complicated-looking machines, and miserable-looking people desperately trying to conform to unrealistic physical stereotypes. The philosophy behind Wild Fitness is to do away with this and get back to exercise basics. So one of the first things we were taught was to forget everything we’ve been taught; this meant no weights machines and no ridiculous balancing acts with Swiss balls. Just six days in the great Greek outdoors – running on the beach, swimming in the sea and taking regular snoozes.”

The point being that if you enjoy moving and eat simple, delicious foods that nourish and satisfy you, then good health and fitness is no longer an arduous add-on to your life but the natural outcome of a lifestyle. He says, “Months later, I’m still managing to stick to the diet (almost) and am enjoying my workouts instead of dreading them.” But clearly enjoying exercise is so alien to the newspaper editors that they still included a photo of him grimacing in pain! Seems the fitness industry (& media) are still a way off from changing yet.