From Dan’s Bench

The Unwritten Rules of Fitness (and the Strangest Places I’ve Trained)

Recently, a former soap opera actress turned fitness influencer went viral for doing a full-body workout in the aisle of an international flight. We’re talking squat jumps, jogging in place, the whole deal. Mid-cabin, pajamas on, eye mask half-cocked like a gladiator visor.

Naturally, the internet did what the internet does: lit the torches. Commenters hurled insults. Headlines labeled her a nuisance. The collective tone ranged from mild annoyance to how dare she.

And I’ll admit, if I were sitting in 23D trying to sip my soda water in peace, I might’ve raised an eyebrow too. But I also couldn’t help thinking about the sheer absurdity of it all.

I’ve shared cramped rows with people who commandeered the armrests with aggressive forearm sprawl. I’ve endured countless aisle-dwellers with tiny bladders and IBS exacerbated by too many pool-side margaritas. I’ve been sneezed on, leaned on, ignored, talked at, and crop-dusted in silence—only to be told “Sorry” like that somehow neutralized the horror.

None of those people ever made national news.

But Barbara de Regil did for trying to move her body in an unusual place.

That got me thinking: we carry all these unwritten rules about exercise. When it’s allowed. When it’s excessive. When it’s admirable. When it’s a little too much. Many of these judgments require a kind of social trigonometry to solve. Very often, it has less to do with what the person is doing, but more like who is doing what and how and where they’re doing it!

We say movement is medicine. We say we want people to prioritize their health. But only if it fits neatly into socially sanctioned time slots. Only if it happens in a gym, a park, or on a designated mat. Not in the grocery aisle. Not in a waiting room. Not at your desk. And definitely not 35,000 feet above the Atlantic.

Strange Places I’ve Trained (A Partial and Ever-Growing List)

• Behind a gas station mid-road trip (weighted vest lunges between dumpsters)

• Hotel stairwells while the rest of the family sleeps

• Push-ups to failure in the ferry terminal

• Sandbag complexes in a parking lot while my kid naps in the car

• Pistol squats in the dictation room

Some of the more unusual sessions were for fun. Some were driven by a need to feel like myself. Others were pure necessity: tight windows, tight schedules, no excuses. And sure, I got a few stares. But I’ve found that the discomfort of being watched doing something slightly weird usually fades faster than the regret of skipping the thing that grounds you.

What This Is Really About

This isn’t a defense of airplane HIIT. It’s not a takedown of cultural norms. It’s more of a question I’ve been mulling over:

We praise discipline and grit, but only in the right containers. We say we want resilience, but not if it smells like sweat or breaks the rhythm of the collective lull. Somewhere between gym selfies and zumba-in-the-sky, there’s a quieter middle: people who train in weird places, not for attention, but because it matters to them.

And that headline—“Idiot of the Year”—only reinforces something deeper and more troubling:

• We’ve lost the art of confronting others directly with our objections.

• We’ve normalized shaming before seeking understanding.

• We’ve become worse, not better, at respecting each other’s space and intent.

We don’t have to applaud the behavior. But we also don’t have to light people up for moving differently than we do. If anything, maybe we should ask ourselves why effort—done imperfectly—is more offensive than apathy done all the time.

I have a fond memory of bicycle commuting to work early on in my Peace Corps stay in Kenya down Siaya county’s only paved road. One of the residents had seen me pass by a couple times earlier in the month and made it his goal to track me down one day. I couldn’t see him coming but absolutely heard him huffing and puffing in an attempt to catch up. So I slowed down and caught his gaze, and with astonishment looked at me and exclaimed, “you can ride a bike!”

That is to say, he was used to the only white people traveling through his area being passengers in brand-new Land Rovers, usually stamped with CDC logos on the doors. It seems fitting for this discussion because—given cultural difference—he didn’t shy away from acknowledging the dissonant vision of a white man performing a vulnerable athletic act, and also that he didn’t apply any moral value to the experience. It just was.

Workout of the Moment: Mile Repeats

Wifey’s arch nemesis—and not for the faint of heart. Mile repeats are an excellent way to build aerobic capacity while sneaking in repeatable, high-intensity benchmarks. They’re especially clutch if you’re looking to break up the monotony of treadmill sessions (i.e., you’re stuck inside all winter like me).

• Warm-Up

• Main Set

  • Run 1 mile at 70%-80% max HR

  • Walk/jog at ½ speed of your running pace

  • Repeat the above 3-5x

• Cool Down

Streaming

Audiobook: From Dirt to Soil — One man’s journey into regenerative agriculture, by Gabe Brown.

In From Dirt to Soil, regenerative farmer Gabe Brown chronicles his journey from conventional farming practices to a radical, soil-first approach that prioritizes biodiversity, resilience, and long-term sustainability over short-term yield. Through trial, error, and deep observation, Brown shows how embracing nature’s systems—rather than fighting them—can restore land that was once depleted and unproductive.

What stands out isn’t just the agricultural transformation, but the shift in mindset: away from control and toward cooperation with complex, living systems.

It’s the same shift we aim for in coaching.
At Arc Fit, we don’t force performance through rigid protocols—we restore it through awareness, adaptability, and intelligent stress application. Like soil, the body thrives when nurtured over time with the right inputs, diversity, and space to recover. The goal isn’t constant output. It’s long-term resilience.

Spotlight

Every March, NCAA wrestling reminds me why I still believe in sport. Not because of the medals or highlight reels, but because of the stories. Wyatt Hendrickson’s championship run this year over a reigning Olympic Gold medalist felt like watching a man carry the full weight of effort and belief into battle against a legacy larger than himself.

He wasn’t just wrestling his opponent; he was wrestling history, expectation, and the unspoken assumption that some outcomes are preordained. To see him rise in that moment was to witness what sport looks like at its most human: unglamorous, grinding, and impossibly beautiful.

It brought me right back to Shane Griffith’s 2021 run, where he stepped onto the mat in a plain black singlet after Stanford announced they were cutting the wrestling program. No logos, no name, just a quiet refusal to be erased. He went on to win a national title that night.

It wasn’t just for himself, but for every athlete who knows what it feels like to be overlooked, underfunded, and fighting for something bigger. These aren’t just matches. They’re microcosms of everything we admire in people: discipline, sacrifice, resilience, and the deep cooperation between athlete and environment that makes greatness possible. Wrestling doesn’t need the spotlight; it just needs people willing to look closer.