TOTW: Fitness

Now that summer is here and things are starting to heat up, what do you do to stay active? What does your anarchist fitness and exercise program look like? Is it motivated by revolutionary goals and a defense mentality or something else?

Over the past few years, some gyms like the Haymaker Gym in Chicago have opened up to “attempt to create a radical culture of fitness and self-defense.”[1] For them, the body is “the most intimate of material forces” and “as a tool for revolution, and strength as a means by which to change the world.” What is your gym?

[1] Maximum Potential by Max Res

There are 78 Comments

Macro counting, intermittent fasting, eating low-carb/unprocessed/clean/whole foods, strength training, kickboxing, brazilian jiu-jitsu, knife fighting, swimming, hiking, and target practice.

Why though?

Warriors of the world relax!

Because there's already plenty of reasons and temptations to sit on your ass and you don't really need to go to bat for that issue?

what do you really need to "go to bat for" that commando larping will help you achieve?

Well I'm not the same person who posted that list but it seems like even if you never actually use most of those skills, you'll still be physically active and increasing your skillset and it seems strange to dismiss these things as just "commando larping"?

Do we really see so much "commando larping" out there in the world that this is the bigger problem? Or is the overwhelming tendency towards sedentary tech fixations?

phrasing it as "knife fighting" (not knife defense mind you) reveals to us that the "knife fighter" (commando jaguar) believes they need to be prepared for when bad guys approach them with knives where they will then draw their own knife and they and the bad guys can have a knife fight duel and their knife fighting training will allow them to win the knife fight (so much stabbing and slashing and blood!!!!)… or perhaps they are training "knife fighting" to better prepare themselves for awesome knife-based ATTACK on bad guys without knives where they will surely win due to superior "knife fighting" training (and the fact the bad guys do not have knives… or perhaps they just like the very athletic challenge of "knife fighting" training but combined with all the other things they listed i do not think so. everybody knows that jaguars are not a fucking game. so yes, senileoldtroll, it is mentally unhealthy commando larping that will result in hurricane jaguar stalking around with quickdraw holsters filled with knives ready to gut the first fool that can not appropriately answer the question: "the fuck you lookin' at?" as they admire his urban camo fatigues at the neighborhood tgi-fridays

Knife defense isn't knife fighting? Squares aren't rectangles?

knife defense is the art of defending your knife
knife fighting is unmediated knife-on-knife violence

Question:- "The fuck you lookin' at?"
Answer:- " Your head about to,,," * head explodes *

Just to make sure I understand your theory, is it every single person who trains with weapons that will definitely go all "hurricane jaguar"? That sounds like pretty standard liberal bullshit mu. This is my unimpressed face as an emoji ---> : \

you understand nothing. nothing!

heart disease will get you before the bad guy with the knife.

enjoy your larp cheerleading of stone cold knife fighting feral commandos! may you cast many successful fireballs against the enemy!

larp cheerleaders of stone cold knife fighting feral commandos hmu bbs ; ) xoxo

This is pretty desperate strawmanning, gotta say. Considering you picked out one detail of an obvious troll post, started a pointless debate about whether knife fighting has any validity in any context and have now shifted to snarking at me as if I care about any of this at all.

One of the first things I said was most people leading comfortable lives will probably never use the skills and that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to do things. Snarkers gonna snark?

oh you care. this is abundantly clear. otherwise you wouldn't jump into every thread that questions or throws shade at activism and/or commando larping by screaming "strawman edgelords! do something!"

that was an awfully quick response my dear ;) no u

no u!

first shade gets shade
then shade gets darkness
then darkness get silence
then nothing


Wow, all the air blown out means nothing?

I was the "Why though?" anon.

I think it's a valid question if someone is just going to drop a list like jagYOUare did up there. I do and have done some of the things in that list. The relax part was my idea of a silly joke, oops.

But now that you have taken it there SoldierOfTrolldom, what exactly is /wrong/ with sitting on one's patoot?
Or is it just too obvious and I shouldn't have asked because it's: war with the state! street fights against the fascists, body image and dating, getting people to shut up and listen when you talk?

Question about your question: when you ask it, is there any moment where you feel the slightest bit sad or silly?

"What's wrong with doing nothing?!"

There's NOTHING WRONG. I keep telling myself there's nothing else worth doing. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong.There's nothing wrongThere's nothing wrong...

don’t mind that troll

now let’s get to the important questions:
do u even lift?
u ripped?
or u got a dadbod goin on? u a thicc daddy?
or r u twinkalicious?
give us ur measures?

i’m joking around, senileoldtroll
don’t want to make you feel too uncomfortable

In some Canadian big cities they got stupid trendy entertainment centers where yuppies burn money for throwing axes, shooting bows, fencing, and the more conventional wall-climbing... Urbanites need to be training for the fantasy Hollywood post-apo/revolution scenario that's anyways never gonna happen because they're such careless dweebs (i.e. hipsters).

The handiest martial arts I ever developed was just throwing everyday objects like bricks, tyre levers, cast-iron skillets, wheel hubs, pestle and mortars (the mortar part), glass ashtrays, chairs, terracotta potplants, with accuracy, and its free.

You may also wanna try throwing rocks at windows... Oh wait.

my gym is the land on which i live and create my life. never a shortage of physical activities. nothing revolutionary about it, but it does carry some sense of "self-defense", or at least self-reliance (which results in much better defenses overall).

The world is my gym too. Specifically the part of the world that is the community rec center.

If I am going to continue giving the rotters shit and not become a martyr I'm going to need to run and climb. Hence, my fitness is based around running and climbing. I run, at the very least, 10 miles cross-country each week with the tools of my craft on my back. I'm over walls and barbed wire regularly.

For the other stuff, I try to to remember to bend properly when lifting, and a past relationship with a yoga teacher learned me the stretches needed to keep limber. I try not to eat too much shit, though that crap is so easy to swipe I do it for the hell of it. Salt! Eat salt! You need that shit. I'd also say chili, garlic and bitter herbs do wonders.

As for the mind, I try to to keep it in tooth and claw. No guilt. Pure revenge.

Kombucha enema, full urban camo fatigues while commenting on anews and taking selfies, vegan tendies (organic), auto-erotic groin punching, left handed Paw Patrol tattooing, gun selfies for intimidation and online dating


Eat nuts!

Muay thai

rock climbing, distance running, catch wrestling

kale, celery, beets, banana and oats via nutribullet. then lift your 5kg kindle while reading every morning. fit as hell to fight cops another day.

i do HIIT weighted farmer's walks through the decaying city while reciting Baudelaire out loud from memory—me a kaleidoscopic flaneur, cursed with consciousness, getting swole. for anarchy!

gym three times a week - weight training, pull ups, running, etc. - hiking with my partner most weekends - lots of fruit, veggies, nuts and other proteins - and eating even healthier since I started running into GI issues

nothing particularly anarchist about it though I have started listening to audio books at the gym, many with some vague relation to my politics

Hi Anews,
Long time listener, 1st time commenter. While I respect that you "try" to present anarchist news in a fair and balanced way, I've found your wafting nihilism a bit offputting. This isn't a critique, more like a "I'm alone in a small town in China, I listen to a lot of podcasts and I find nihilism and anarchism to be somewhat dichotomous" kinda thing. Anyway, I had an idea while listening to your latest issue: I think your style of anarchy, your style of podcasting might be better served if you simply threw away artifice and began an Anarchist Comedy-cast. I like your show much better when you laugh out loud. Why not make the laughs the whole point? Poke at JZ, the entire Bay area scene, do farcical reenactments of LBC's rejection from the book fair...just do it outright! A sort of SNL for anarchists! I feel that the undertone of your show is inherently comical, so, why not redo the format so everyone can laugh a bit moire. Just a thought.
Hebei, China

HA! Hope this is real XD

white water wafting and when I'm not big wave surfing I run with the bulls. Seriously that's great if you're athletic and can train rigorously but even mild to moderate exercise can improve your quality of life and make you more capable of getting things done.


as a certified tantra master and my exceptional fitness level comes from many, daily, multi-hour-long sessions of vigorous, anarchistic sexual intercourses. highly recommended!

I used to do 5km twice a week but it took a back seat to my callisthenics; I usually do 100 squats so I want to ease back into the running.

Current regime is the following:
5 mins jumping jacks
30 pushups (steadily working to 100, this is currently my max without risking injury)
100 squats
10 Australian pullups (also working to 100, australian pullups are the weak-ass version of regular pullups because I still need to work on this area. Probably partially why I have trouble going over 30 pushups without injury)
10 kneeling fingertip pushups
20 wall assisted handstand pushups
300 jumps on a jumprope
An incredibly basic, short kung fu practice based on stuff I've picked up from - some punches, wulon panda with pu bu, that's about it
Minimal qigong also learned from; some stretching and breathing exercises

I do this about four times a week; and try to fit in some yoga on the other days for flexibility. The nice thing about calisthenics is you can pretty much do it anywhere, so I don't really go to a gym.

As for why? Well I have a desk job and realised I was getting out of shape. I want to expand on the kungfu; not because I expect to become the next bruce lee or something but because I admire it as a way of learning how to master controlling your body, it feels like a natural progression from calisthenics.

Throwing shit around the room and down the mall using my telekinetic mental machine!

You have much to learn grasshopper Gaffen, be patient, there are mysteries of the mind which the Stirnerian discipline has lubricated the mind machine with to wie.d for es beyond mortal comprehension.

*wield forces*

wow, all these comments sound as silly as i thought mine would if i listed my workout

since it hasn’t been mentioned yet: an hour of workout a day is not enough to compensate for a sedentary lifestyle. so find some pastimes that will keep you active as well, like gardening or walking leisurely (a prole strole perhaps?) or dancing and many more

also, some pastimes are good excuses to spend some time with peeps

Yeah, it definitely needs to be part of a larger pattern. Gardening is great!

CHORE. There are so many lists in this TOTW! Lists of credentials, silly wu-fu spirituality, it's as if GOING TO A GYM (remember the question here) is some sort of proving ground for their edgy anti-state bullshit. Oh and btw your fucking smartphone is a computer too.

You all can spend all day playing your mental ju-jitsu, im only happy when i see my own anarchy fulfilled in my life. Now, this may sound awefully pedantic, but I'm officially burning down the church of anarchism right now as the moron who fucking hates all of you.

Fare thee well; cast thy computer into the abyss! Smashy smashy!

yo, many jobs require sitting in front of a computer.
i hear a lot of people are in that situation.
i also heard anarchist don’t exist, so i don’t know what you’re talking about or who you’re talking to.
no edgy anti-state anarcho church goers here.
we’re all irl normies on this url.

We live in a society, maaan

"My whole life is a gym!"

haha, but in all seriousness I just live an active life. I dabble in muay thai, boxing, target practice, and will attend the odd knife-defense or equivalent training session; for the sake of being able to fight. But most of my activities are either practical or for fun: cycling, pick-up sports games, walking, skating, hiking, etc. They keep me healthy (obvi), happy (endorphines), and free -- and have proven practical for outrunning cops and defending myself against fashy bros.

My activity is mostly play, but the hand-eye coordination sure comes in handy when you gotta throw something, too.

is it an anarchist fitness routine simply if one self identifies as an anarchist? my fitness routine has little to do with the anarchist milliue and my health goals arent necessarily anarchist goals. but my friends and I keep each other going and I do imagine the cops are chasing me on the treadmill when I feel like I cant go further, so maybe that is something.

it counts, count it!

It's my basic attitude. I guess the most 'anarchist' thing about my fitness routine is that as it's all calisthenics and running it requires nothing more than the free space to do it in; zero equipment required.

My gym is the bloc. Rolling dumpsters and dragging newspaper boxes gets my legs a good workout. Do the arms by smashing windows. Holding reinforced banner up all day? shots just ike yoga for your arms. People tell to slow down and tighten up, fuck that I need my cardio. Great question this week. Anyways, see you in the streets.

Aww wow dude, hardass tantrum strutting flexing your throwing arms throwing 5kg newspaper boxes around, freakin terrified dude!!

Bro mass mobilizations build mass. When I first started I had to drag newspaper boxes like the previous poster. Now I throw those fuckers like a shot put.

this whole TOTW is pretty fucking ableist

I exercise by spending every day performing revolutionary anarchist revolutionary actions
The revolution is my workout and I'm fit as fuck
And after a long hard day revolutioning, I kick back by reading Bookchin and preparing for more totally non-lifestylist revolutionary activities
Fuck all you posers, like John Zerzan and the nihilists, who have no muscles because they don't revolution

If only more of these nihilists primis would catch on the swolletariate would overthrow the bourgeoisie.

THAT PICTURE! When Muhrika was young and free, saving SE Asia from Maoism, preparing the Middle East for oiĺ production, GETTING FIT OFF THE RESOURCES OF OTHER COUNTRIES!!

And it was still cool to see White Italian dude unite them poor Whites at jogging on his way to beat a Black dude who desecrated the sacred symbols of Muhrica!!!

Then it was kinda weird to notice that Clubber Lang was a Black Panther...

anarchist fitness and exercise program

this made me laugh. is it an anarchist exercise and fitness program if an anarchist does it or is the program inherently anarchist. can we get a totw on anarchist recipes and cooking or anarchist navigation, plz. i've been getting deep into anarchist navigation recently.

my anarchist exercise and fitness program involves going to the grocery store or any store, for that matter, and doing parkour. it's such a workout and it feels like i'm smashing capitalism.

listen to the discussion of the totw on the anews podcast, they more or less share your general sentiment

I like to start my workout with a cold refreshing 40 of OE, before I run after my favorite hot shot stack across the land. In between I workout my arteries feasting on fried chicken and brownies
Sometimes I like to supplement with sausages and cookies. Either way it gets the heart pumping and the blood sugar spiking.

Oh wow dude, look at me, I can benchpress 160kg! Look at my biceps, wow, I can throw nazis through windows, that means I've got a big dick dude! WOW!

You are the compilation of the comments you write, hack.
Even if you don't mean them.
Your mark on this world is the frequency of the sarcastic tone you imbued into the comment you wrote when you read it sub-vocally.
That frequency will be etched in your consciousness like a memetic version of tinnitus.
As your brain decays and inevitably deteriorates with age -that benign attribute we constructed out of the indelible the entropy of the universe- a perverse synesthesia will develop wherein you'll taste the imagined tone and self-satisfied smugness of your intended sarcasm.
You'll smell it, you'll feel it as if you're immersed in it.
A pool of a whiny nasal metallic ring vibrating with ineptly faked enthusiasm.
As your faculties further deteriorate and your bodily processes further approach that consoling fiction know as death, your perception of time will dilate and your stay within your monotone inflection of a life, your whole life reduced to your insidious implicit sarcastic tone, will be longer than infinite, since it will be a distorted perception of a real infinity; an infinity which seems longer than it really is.
As matter and energy is transformed, and lost information is radiated as heat, its flavor will persist in your memory, at the level of string theory, your vibration will be that of your fucking puerile basic ass first day at school of snark attempt at sarcasm, you imbecilic cretinous quantum improbable piece of micro-cosmic scum.

W/E dude.