Exercise Pseudoscience Is Goop for Men
Inside the Silicon Valley Health and Performance Summit, featuring compression pants and a Lance Armstrong cameo
I’ve complained before that wellness — especially the Instagram version — is typically marketed as a women’s issue, promoting products aimed at unfair physical expectations. But pseudoscience does not discriminate, and men are not immune to the lure of optimization. The male version, however, is often presented under the guise of performance rather than appearance.
Last month, I went through the looking glass at the Silicon Valley Health and Performance Summit in Menlo Park, California. Much of the content was the same sketchy self-enhancement talk you’d find at, say, the Goop Summit, but it was aimed at elite athletes — another group faced with unreasonable physical expectations who are supposed to be constantly striving for personal improvement.
Instead of willowy women draped in cashmere wraps, the majority-male audience wore khakis stretched tight over muscular glutes and high-performance synthetic sweaters with their team or company logo proudly displayed. I was by far the least in-shape person in the room. The event was hosted by Sparta Science, a sport technology company that uses a special plate to assess people’s movement and balance…
