This may be hard for you young people out there to believe this, but there was a time in this country when being a truck driver was considered super cool.
You had songs like “Convoy” and “Six Days On The Road” and, I shit you not these are the titles of actual songs, “Space Truckin',” “I’m A Road Hammer” and “Damn The D.O.T.” playing regularly on AM radio.
You had movies like “Smokey And The Bandit,” “White Line Fever,” and personal favorite “Over The Top” - which is the greatest film about a truck driving arm-wrestler caught in a child custody battle ever produced.
CB Radio culture was a thing. Trucker hats were standard fashion (until Ashton Kutcher ruined them - why does that guys sort of ruin everything?!?). You would drive past a semi, pantomime pulling the chain attached to the horn in the hopes that the driver would acknowledge you and blow the horn.
When he did it was as if you won the highway lottery.
But the truth is, being a truck driver is hard. And if you watch any expose about truck drivers on shows like Primetime Live (what, you’re doing something better on Friday night at 10PM?!?) you’ll know that truck drivers incur massive expenses, suffer health problems from lack of sleep and poor food options, have family relationships that must endure constantly being away from home and even have to go so far as to urinate in bottles because they can’t afford the time delay of stopping at a bathroom.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to turn this into a telethon, raising money for the forgotten truck drivers doing God’s work across the highways of America. I will not make you watch Borscht-belt comedians and acrobats who spin plates while I ask you for donations and throw it over to Tony Orlando at the big board to show us how much money we’ve raised so far (wow, these are extremely dated references, even for me. Apologies to anyone under 60 years old who just read that paragraph).
My point here is that anything can be made to be glamorous, trendy and popularized even if it is none of those things in reality.
So what does this have to do with fitness?
Everything.
Because fitness is truck driving now.
You see the highlight reel. The PR lifts. The shirtless finish line selfies. The “before and after” transformations with good lighting and slightly suspicious tans. And you think: That looks awesome. That looks like freedom of the open road.
And don’t get me wrong — there are moments like that. The training montage songs. The “hell yes, I crushed that” days. The friends cheering you on. It’s great.
But most of the time? You’re hauling something heavy uphill with no air conditioning and your quads cramping and your left hip reminding you that you haven’t slept well in six years.
You’re not sprinting down the highway with Johnny Cash blasting out of the car radio. You’re stuck behind a tractor in construction traffic thinking, “Why do I do this again?”
The fitness world sells you on the idea of fitness the same way CB radio culture sold the idea of trucking: rebellious, cool, rugged, powerful. Where everyone has perfectly fitting jeans, a Marlboro dangling from their bottom lip and gold-rimmed Ray Ban mirrored sunglasses on.
But what they don’t show is the daily toll.
The skipped workouts. The mobility drills you never film. The missed lifts. The meal prep you drop on the floor walking it from the microwave to the table (ask me how I know). The plateaus. The doubt. The injuries. The rehab. The effort it takes to keep showing up when no one’s watching.
And just like those truckers, there are moments where you wonder if this is worth it. Where you want to pull to the side of the road, turn off the ignition and just rest.
But here’s the truth — and maybe the whole point:
Real fitness is mostly not cool. It’s mostly not public. It’s mostly not photogenic.
It’s not about the IG virtue signaling. It’s about the route. The discipline. The repetition. The fact that you still got up, got behind the wheel, and kept moving.
Because while the internet’s chasing aesthetics and algorithms, you’re hauling something heavier — your identity, your integrity, your long game.
No one’s got their arm out the window asking you to blow your horn.
But that doesn’t make it any less real.