Create the environment, empower them to be themselves, watch them thrive inside our walls and beyond them.
“The biggest compliment I’ve ever received was learning that parents have used withholding ‘Zingler Gym’ from their kids as a form of punishment.
There’s nothing more important than creating an environment where kids can learn to train properly and positively associate with it.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I remember hearing it for the first time over a decade ago and didn’t know how to feel.
On one hand, I didn’t know how I felt about penalizing bad behavior/poor choices by REMOVING physical labor, but on the other hand.. what a compliment.
We, at Zingler Strength have somehow been able to curate an environment where kids want to come and labor? Wow.
Over the years I’ve heard this compliment dozens of times and I get it.
A short-term reduction from a place they love going to help them re-center their focus. I hate to see a kid miss a work out, but it’s a notion that I can get behind.
And not only can I get behind it, I can also speak with parents about their children’s room for improvements beyond our 4 walls and add specific, guided mentorship into their curricula at Zingler Strength.
It’s a win-win.
But all of this got me thinking about not only the state of our kids health and wellness, but their health and wellness as they grow up into young adulthood and eventually adulthood.
You know that asshole leading football conditioning?
You know him.
The obese guy in a bucket hat screaming at kids to run endless sprints when he himself hasn’t run sprints in 30 years?
The guy who takes pride in seeing kids yack over the fence because nothing makes him feel better than imposing his will on kids who “aren’t in shape” when it’s part of his responsibility (that he doesn’t have the knowledge, capacity, or discipline to do) to “get them in shape”.
That guy.
He doesn’t know it (he doesn’t know much of anything) but what he’s doing is creating resentment in kids.
Of course, he might be able to force short-term compliance with his wannabe drill sergeant voice, but what he’s really doing is ACTIVLEY tying a negative association with exercise to the impressionable brain of a teen, even pre-teens.
A real tough guy, huh. A battle hardened leader of men!
There is NOTHING more critical than getting your kids around a big picture fitness mentor who will help them positively associate with the very concept that is required for their quality of life, for the REMAINDER of their lives.
