The New York Times just came out with an article about the American fascination with “extreme fitness.”

The article critiques this trend on several grounds:

• People are paying money to mimic hard labor; why not just go work construction?
• The fitness trends of today are usually modeled after a watered-down version of “ultramasculine” groups like Navy Seals.
• In these trends, “fitness” is often achieved at the cost of health. The NYT article that this isn’t fitness at all.

I have a post in the makings about my own opinions on these things, but first, I’d like to hear what you have to say.

Read the article (also linked here)—or don’t—and tell me what you think about the extreme fitness trends (or the critiques of it) in the comments.

Anything goes.