Ep 365 - The Science Behind Toxic Online Fitness Culture
Iron Culture presented by MASS
The MASS Crew
4.8 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you noticed that real life fitness culture is awesome, but online fitness culture sucks?
Yeah, us too.
In this episode, the Erics discuss why toxic online fitness culture is the way it is, leaning on actual scientific research on which personality types are dictating discourse and driving engagement. The conversation ends with practical tips for strategically cultivating a better experience on social media platforms.
By the way - are you in the market for some fitness gear or apparel? If so, head over to elitefts.com to support our friends and use code "MRR10" for a 10% discount.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
6:58 IRL fitness versus online fitness
17:33 Personality traits and states; types of narcissism
21:51 Traits of influencers
32:00 Traits of frequent posters/users
35:44 How being on social media (transiently) changes personality states
44:45 Skepticism versus cynicism
54:51 Practical tips for strategically cultivating a better experience
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What's up, everybody? |
| 0:05.1 | Welcome back to Iron Culture. |
| 0:07.1 | It is me. |
| 0:08.1 | Eric Trexler here with the Dr. Eric Helms. |
| 0:10.6 | Helms, how are we doing tonight? |
| 0:13.4 | I'm doing so well last time, last couple times. |
| 0:17.1 | We've had Iron Culture episodes. |
| 0:19.2 | You haven't been here. |
| 0:20.7 | You know, there was so much talk about |
| 0:22.5 | me not being around kind of last year, yet pot, kettle, black, what's going on? I'm rolling up with |
| 0:30.4 | with Connor Heffernan and also, you know, the revived stronger man himself, you know, Steve Hall. |
| 0:39.0 | And I just wondered, do I need to send them applications or announce expression of interest |
| 0:44.2 | for an alternative post? |
| 0:45.2 | Because they both have a lot of experience hosting generally and having me on. |
| 0:50.0 | You know, like Connor is technically a bit of a host. |
| 0:54.5 | You know, he's in the forthcoming Iron Culture documentary. |
| 0:58.2 | You are not. |
| 0:59.0 | I just want to know, are you still about that life? |
| 1:03.3 | I am indeed. |
| 1:04.4 | And the fact that they have been on the show gives me a lot of confidence they will not wish to host it. I think usually people |
| 1:12.7 | have a pretty unpleasant experience when it's just one-on-one with Helms. So I feel pretty |
| 1:17.7 | confident, pretty safe with my placement here. As committed as ever to the culture, but as we |
... |
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