It's fun at first, then it just gets old.  Whether "it" is traditional strength training, the latest fitness fad or cryptic communications, one begins to wonder "what's the point?"  The point should be RESULTS.  If there's no long-term, quantifiable results that come from the activity, other than making yourself feel good for a few minutes of your day, then why do it?  I don't claim to have the answer, but I do know one thing:

Nobody Said it Was Easy.

That's the difference between time-tested training techniques and the latest shake-yo-booty substitute for getting off your ass, picking up heavy things, moving quick and pushing yourself beyond your self-imposed limits.  Difficult and boring versus simple and fun.  It's also the same for speaking directly of facts rather than insinuating based on conjecture and inference.  Facts are boring and sometimes difficult to believe.  Insinuation is titillating and fun.  Here's some de-crap-ifying of the cryptic:

If you hear “sculpt and tone”, that means “easy”.
If you hear “criteria and standards”, that means “hard”.
If you hear “anyone can do it”, that means “easy”.
If you hear “proficiency and excellence”, that means “hard”.
If you hear “DVD experience”, that means “easy”.
If you hear “you need to be coachable”, that means “hard”.
If you hear “perfect solution”, that means “easy”.
If you hear “failure is expected”, that means “hard”.
If you hear “it's fun!”, that means “easy”.
If you hear “it sucks!”, that means “hard”.

True strength and conditioning is not easy.  Nor fun.  The fun part is when you've put in the requisite amount of hard work until you can easily do things you couldn't do before.

So cut the crap.  Strong is strong.  Weak is weak.  Sufferance is sufferance.  Fun is fun.  You're not fooling anyone when you try to substitute something for what it is not.   Strength should be your primary goal for your entire lifetime, unless you are comfortable with the state of being decrepit and reliant on others for your quality of life.  Go have fun doing the easy things...dance like no one's watching for crying out loud.   But don't think you are truly building your strength and conditioning if you are doing what everyone else can or wants.  Do what YOU can.   Find out what you can't.  Test yourself.   Fail.  Think.  Do it over until you get it right.  ONDEG focuses on strength and power...because that's what really matters.  If what really matters is not appealing to you, I hear there are other options in town for your "fitness" training.

Will there still be the occasional fun in our workouts?  Of course...and more fun all the time. Basketball, dodgeball, land navigation, macroclimbing...it's new things we will be trying here at the gym that will be fun, but don't lose sight of the fact that the barbells, beef and broccoli are the best things for your booty.  Unless of course you prefer a booty that's too big for your britches, built upon bags of popcorn and chocolate-caramel gluttony.

Easily offended?  Then don't watch this.  Why, you say?  Because it contains scenes that some might say are “for a mature audience only”.  But, it really isn't any worse than watching a bunch of sweaty women (and the token hot sweaty dude with a Hispanic accent) provocatively prancing around a room and calling it a workout.  Heck, why don't we just leave it up to the folks who claim to have the highest moral standards to determine what is deplorable and what is not.  Maybe someday the sanctimonious megalomaniacs ("elite", perhaps?) amongst us will enlighten us fully...the cryptic code will be broken and we will all understand who is fit (physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, etc.) and what exactly is fitness.

Until then, shut up, grab a barbell and suffer.