Are there any fitness or wellness apps with workout videos featuring trainers who aren’t relentlessly encouraging? The trainers on the app I use, Apple Fitness+, act like I’m a national hero on the order of Harvey Milk just for doing burpees. I find such positivity inauthentic and off-putting.
Just once I’d like for a fitness professional to admit we’re putting ourselves through this torture not because we’re sources of inspiration and exemplars of tenacity but because we want to look presentable on the beach in Provincetown. Instead, trainers are always like, “You got this, superstar! You are the change I want to see in the world! ¡Sí se puede!”
And I just wanna say, Oh, cut the crap, Sherica.
That’s one of the trainers. There’s a cast of two dozen or so they keep hard at work over at the Apple Fitness+ Studio in Los Angeles. They are a racially diverse, multigenerational, intimidatingly in-shape group perpetually sporting colorful Nike-branded gear and bursting with a cloying, preternatural perkiness reminiscent of the child actors on Barney & Friends.
The studio obviously enforces sweatshop-level work quotas because the trainers churn out a buttload of content. Apple probably has them all hooked on Dexedrine.
In order to have new stuff to say, the gang often strains to tie in the exercise regimen with seasonal events, saying ridiculous things like, “Nǐ hǎo, y’all! It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so we’ve put together this bangin’ playlist of country-rock hits to inspire you to put in that hard work, just like the incredible Chinese American immigrants who built the transcontinental railroad way back in the 19th century! Now, lower yourself into a side plank back extension rower wingtip filibuster, superstar!”
I’m exaggerating, but not by much. Frantic uplift is the app’s default setting, with precious few trainers projecting any degree of calm. In fact, for chill vibes I’d say you have precisely two options: Pilates instructor Darryl (who has the added benefit of being hot) and yoga/guided meditation leader Jonelle.
Sure, the rest of the meditation leaders also aim for a tranquil mood, but they’re goopy and smug about it. Like, you just know they end every social interaction by saying “be well” instead of “goodbye.”
You know the type.
When I undertake a meditation, I sit in the armchair in the living room, a seat I have renamed the Meditation Station. The meditations available on the app have a variety of themes, but the program basically boils down to sitting still, closing your eyes (or, if you prefer, “softening your gaze,” as the guides skin-crawlingly put it), and breathing for a few minutes.
The guide always wears a headset mic that amplifies any sibilance so that the speaker sounds like he or she has a lateral lisp. “In thish practish we’ll focush on expreshing thankfulnesh for our shensh of shound. Jush lishen. Shhhhhh, shupershtar . . . ”
I know I’m making the whole thing seem excruciating, but I do sometimes emerge from the exercise—er, practish—feeling soothed and even restored.
At least, I think I do. Meditation turns out to be one of those experiences where I often get distracted by wondering whether anything is actually happening.
I am similarly affected by prayer and marijuana.
Indirect Objects 
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