You Don’t Need a Gym. You Need a Fight.
CEP
You’re not being trained, you’re being played.
It’s not because the advice is always wrong. It’s because the framework is:
“Optimized masculinity”
“Testosterone orthodoxy”
“Sacramentalized self-help”
“The ChristianFit industrial complex”
“Faith-flavored narcissism”
I’m not a beast; I’m a baptized man with a vocation.
I saw a comment arguing against ice baths: “Just go fight. Three minutes of real pressure is better than hours of pretending.”
This is the kill shot. Today’s men are obsessing over ice baths, mileage, and optimization but won’t enter a real fight. They simulate suffering but never face consequences. They’ve engineered pain, but not purpose. They can endure cold, but not cost.
I’ve felt the same tension in myself.
I like endurance work. I believe it is the “king sport” because of the discipline it demands, the internal wars it provokes, and the access it provides to like-minded, challenge-driven men.
But I also know this: most endurance guys aren’t David Goggins.
Meanwhile, the men who actually fight—who train in combat—tend to embody something closer to Jocko Willink: blunt, disciplined, and dangerous. They carry a gravity that doesn’t come from counting miles but from facing real risk, real reaction.
And this is where I start to sharpen the blade.
I’m not anti-cold exposure, but I believe in it as mortification, not optimization. The cold isn’t discipline; it’s a blade. But most treat it like a toy. They’re chasing shock, not surrender.
This isn’t the hustle apostles of YouTube, some Catholic fitness influencer’s curated dopamine circuit, or the hybrid strain of productivity gospel now dressed in Catholic language.
Too many Catholic men live in luxury disguised as sacrifice. Their bodies still run the house. They have no frame for discomfort.
That’s what I’m after: exercises that teach men to say to the body, “You are not in charge.” That’s the essence of the Catholic Endurance Protocol: real formation, not fitness hacks, self-improvement, or performance.
Formation. Mortification. Obedience.
But if I don’t state this clearly, the whole CEP risks becoming a novelty—a trend disguised in grit, a “hard thing” that costs nothing and converts no one. That guts the point entirely. We’re not biohackers; we’re husbands and fathers looking to carry our crosses well.
So yes, cold exposure matters. But only when reframed: daily cold exposure (as mortification, not optimization).
Because if you’re not doing it for death-to-self, you’re just doing it for a dopamine spike. That’s not Catholic; that’s content culture.
Same with the gym.
This has been my critique for years: the gym is an engineered environment with artificial stakes. You lift a weighted object in a controlled space and pretend it’s war. We’re not built for resistance; we’re built for gravity.
That means consequence.
Cause and effect. Sweat and equity.
That’s why the gym often feels hollow and ultimately unsustainable. You push to the brink, and yet you’re completely safe. Then, when you finish a shake with your name on it, a steam room with a eucalyptus towel awaits. And that safety is the very thing that sterilizes the struggle.
This is why so many men quit gyms, trainers, and countless programs. They don’t feel tested; they feel choreographed.
And yet I still tell men to train.
Why? Because most men won’t be in real combat. They won’t be in high-stakes situations daily. But they will suffer. They’ll be tempted just as they’ll be called to lead, to protect, and to endure. And if they haven’t practiced pushing past resistance, they will fall.
So yes, the gym is artificial. But if you drag your weakness to the altar, offer it, and burn it, it becomes formation. It becomes a rehearsal for obedience.
Catholic husbands and fathers must learn to simulate pressure and train against ease. That’s what cold, iron, and miles are for. Not to get ripped, but to build the spiritual callus necessary to suffer well.
The truth is universal for you:
You will suffer.
You will be tempted.
You will be attacked.
And you will be held accountable.
That’s why I recommend combat sports, especially for single men. Not because fighting defines manhood, but because fighting reveals it. It’s the clearest feedback loop for fear, hesitation, ego, and aggression. It’s also not realistic for every man. Most of you are married with children, and that vocation comes first. The gym, not the dojo, might be what fits, and that’s suitable if it’s ordered rightly.
The gym is a false battlefield. You’re either preparing to resist temptation, or you’re preparing to fall. If you bring your vows into the room, it stops being a performance. It becomes the pivot of your formation.
If you’re a father, your fight is already happening:
Lust.
Pride.
Sloth.
Anger.
Apathy.
You need strength and endurance to withstand the war you’re already in. If you’re physically depleted, emotionally soft, and spiritually indifferent, what good are you to your wife? To your children? To God?
This is all about capacity. No vanity or aesthetics here. That’s why we train.
The gym, cold showers, and fighting aren’t masculine.
Obedience is masculine.
These tools are only useful if they train your will to submit to Christ’s.
So, no—none of these things define your masculinity, but they can help you express it if they’re baptized in the right order. If not, they’re just noise. Cosplay. Fake wars.
The world needs more fathers, more monks, more men willing to bleed—silently, daily—for something other than self.
You’re not building a body, you’re building an altar. Train until the flesh knows its place: beneath the cross. Train so that when Christ asks for your strength, you’ve already offered your weakness. If your training doesn’t prepare you for martyrdom, then it’s not training but indulgence in disguise.
The world will not reward you for this. We don’t care because Heaven might, and that’s the only scoreboard that counts.