But the image of “Incredible Hulks who push papers,” as Greif describes one type of contemporary gym rat, is absurd—a physical adaptation entirely out of whack with environmental conditions, serving little practical purpose, as if to repudiate the idea of evolution itself, or to suggest that it no longer manifests itself primarily in our bodily... See more

“Because we spend our life indoors—like animals in a zoo—we are obsessed with the weather,” architect Rem Koolhaas once cynically quipped. We remain similarly obsessed with our bodies as the internet hypothetically diminishes their practical significance.

Greif situates fitness culture at the nexus of several contemporary threads: the relentless quantification of everything, the drive to optimize the self, the decline of public space—and, of course, “wellness,” as the concept has come to be known. We all want to be “well,” or should want to, at least. But why?

The opening salvo of Mark Greif’s 2016 essay collection Against Everything is a polemic on exercise, which he says is “like a punishment for our liberation. The most onerous forms of necessity, the struggle for food, against disease, always by means of hard labor, have been overcome.” And instead of channeling this collective surplus into public... See more