Are your workouts working out for you?

On the tyranny of the gym and 3 movements to relieve stress that you can do anywhere!

Silicon Valley is blossoming into a Necromancer-esque crypto-rich, chiseled, and super lonely culture, that is attempting to fill its glaring void with a never-ending pursuit of psychedelics, ultra-spiritual healing, and longevity.

Fun times! Aldous Huxley must be chuckling from his grave. “I told you fools about this a long time ago!”.

As a recovering burned-out physician, I found solace in the gym, where I strengthened my body and mind. I then got a clinical data analytics job, rose in the ranks of corporate America, made more money, and received more promotions.

I also felt compelled to build more muscle, enhance my lung capacity, and run more miles. Through my divorce, I became more lonely, and more susceptible to Hubermans, Attias, and Goggins videos reminding me that I am not enough. I also might have sent a few shirtless photos to girlfriends after a workout, definitely owned crypto before…and yes I did work in tech.

I also did psychedelics to fill the void in my lonely soul.

I am one of these people I speak of.

I am a swallower of culture.

*Gulp*

I am Jack’s disavowed yearning for more.

How most bros look like in the gym

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The Myth of Discipline and Progress

As long as I was productive at work, and my body looked like what ‘a healthy male’ was supposed to look like, I felt that my role in society was safe. There is an unspoken lonely road towards achievement that we are all privy to but seldom speak of.

Nowhere is this road more evident than in a gym in 2025.

Radiohead captured that world of “shoulds” in the eery robotic voice that matches the mechanistic melody and lyrics of “Fitter Happier”.

“Fitter, happier, more productive, Com-for-table,
not drinking too much
Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries”
Radiohead

Here is an ad from a popular gym in SF notorious for its provocative marketing.

They’re still in business and seem to be growing, so the chord they struck must be deeply rooted in our Bay Area culture.

The stress we feel from the need to perform is transmuted into our yearning for more, which only widens the gap between us and what we want.

Let me elaborate with a few examples:

• You want a tech job with stock options. You get it. All of a sudden you are surrounded by people that have way more stock options than you. Stress rises. Now you want a promotion. You get it. Now you want to be an investor or start your own company. Etc.

• You want to get stronger. You join a gym. You are now surrounded by hot people that are way more fit and can lift more weights than you can ever imagine. You now want to be more like them. You push yourself further.

• You want to run. You join a friend and learn that they are training for a marathon. Running is not enough anymore, you want to run a marathon too. You push yourself to pain.

When anxiety rises in the short term, we become activated like hungry hamsters squirming for a snack, and if the hamster wheel that we are on keeps us in fight or flight forever, we ultimately become depressed. (More on learned helplessness in a future essay)

I am Jack’s newly acquired wisdom

Something changed when I got laid off in 2019 and decided to go out on a limb and ask myself the right questions:

Who was I - beyond my work persona and bank account?
What does being “healthy” mean to me?
What signals am I getting from my body about exercise?

As I became certified in functional medicine, learned about the different ways one needs movement, and understood the relationship between stress, sleep, and exercise, I started making exercise work for me, rather than having to work for it. It is not another thing on my to-do list. It is something that offers what I need in a way that makes sense to the context of my life.

An Ultra-brief History of Gyms

The gym dates back to ~3000 years ago in Ancient Egypt and Persia. However the word “Gymnasium” was coined by the Greeks. (Fun fact: it means exercising naked, as was frequently the case. How fun!).

It was developed for Olympians, professional competitors, and military personnel.

Regular people did not go to the gym. That is worth noting for later.

“At the peak of Greek civilization, fitness was seen as critical to martial prowess (i.e., fighting), restorative capability (i.e., healing of the body, mind, and soul,) and educational (introduced into the post-secondary education system).”

How gyms have evolved through the ages

Here is a depiction of what the first YMCA (aka “The GrandDaddy of US Gyms) looked like inside. (Can you spot the guy walking on the wall? What about the people doing the strange knee-on-knee dance?)

Apparently, members of the YMCA were all shirtless clones of Lenin

What do Gym Bros, Tech Bros, and Crypto Bros all have in common?

I’ll give you a clue: it’s not a life of calm contentment.

Two months ago, as I settled back in San Rafael, I decided to join a gym for the first time in 5 years to add swimming and weight lifting to my routine.

Boy have things changed.

Three observations struck me as major shifts since I was last in a gym.

1- Flex selfies (I call them flexies) are the norm. Bros now walk towards the mirror, take their shirt off, and snap that flexie. No shame.

2- Everyone has headphones air-pods on. No one is talking and nobody is listening. The gym sounds like a machine eating itself alive.

3- There are signs to remind people to work out rather than doomscroll.

If we compare the three notions behind the original idea of a Gymnasium (Martial Arts, Recover, and Education/Socialization), to how we use the gym today, we can see the sickness in our society.

The comparison to others, the envy we hold in our chest, the low self-esteem we drown in, the distractions of our scattered brains, and the loneliness… can all be noted in any modern-day gym.

While these dynamics used to exist before, one can argue that all of these elements of our collective psychology have risen over the past decade.

High-intensity training (like HIIT) activates your stress machinery

Watching people watch their phones, made me think of how we have taken our addictions to the gym. While some forms of exercise do reduce stress, high-intensity workouts increase stress.

While weight lifting or running are regarded as “good stress”, if you are burned out, exhausted, and trying to just get back on your feet, then I would argue that any stress is bad stress.

When we get our heart pumping hard, this may help our metabolism and heart health, and it may feel good due to endorphins, but it also raises the level of stress we have. It does that via both the hormonal (cortisol) and nervous (sympathetic system) of our stress response.

It is therefore critical to assess why you are exercising, rather than simply going from your high-intensity job to a high-intensity workout without understanding what kind of movement can support you the most.

Couple these with our comparison to others, our inherent feelings of “not being good enough” and you have a cortisol cocktail that may drive you towards more anxiety, less sleep, and potential injury.

No wonder we are resorting to our favorite dopamine hits at the gym and getting lost in our screens as we have all become accustomed to…

So as you choose your next exercise, perhaps first ask yourself:

• How am I doing on Stress these days? What kind of exercise do I need?

• How is my sleep?

• How has my recovery from exercise been? Am I ready for more?

And if you are looking for exercises that are proven to reduce stress…then here is today’s research and actionable insights for you.

Try one of these three research-backed exercises instead, which do not need a gym or any kind of equipment

My research compilation and actionable insights are for paid members. Be the first to get them, as well as special invites to online health workshops and early access to my book once it is out by upgrading your membership.

Today I share 3 exercises and summarize and link six research articles proven to reduce stress rather than jack it up.