If Mark Langowski flags you down on the sidewalk, it’s an excellent factor.
The 44-year-old stops New Yorkers who seem particularly match and asks them what they do to remain in form.
Doing so yields nice social media fodder — he has 1.5 million followers on Instagram and several other hundred thousand extra on TikTok and YouTube — and a few shocking solutions.
“A man stated he does 10,000 pushups in a day,” Langowski advised The Submit. “He was extremely ripped, however, like, you may’t actually do anything together with your day should you’re doing 10,000 pushups.”
Langowski, a private coach and health club supervisor, began making the movies simply over a 12 months in the past after rising pissed off with the exercise content material he noticed on-line.
“I used to be sick of the narcissistic melting pot of rubbish that social media had turn out to be, particularly within the health business, the place it was simply consistently, ‘Have a look at me, take a look at me do push ups, take a look at my abs,’” he stated. “And I’d at all times been involved in what different individuals did to remain match.”
Langowski doesn’t seem on digicam in his brief movies, and he makes an effort to function on a regular basis people who find themselves in nice form, not those that work within the health business.
“I attempt to discover the mom-of-three with three youngsters at house. I attempt to discover the Wall Road dad. I attempt to discover the rubbish man, the policeman,” he stated. “I actually attempt to get a spread.”
One in all his first posts to go viral was a chat with a “ripped” UPS man in September 2023.
“I don’t do weights, simply calisthenics, pull-ups, dips, push-ups. And maintain going,” the person, who wore the brown uniform with swagger, stated.
When Langowski requested him what number of pull-ups he might do — a typical query that sometimes ends in somebody demonstrating their talents on scaffolding or a visitors sign — the person stated, “Actual males, they don’t depend.”
Langowski finds most of his topics downtown, usually in Soho and the West Village. It’s not that individuals uptown aren’t match, he stated, however they don’t have a tendency to decorate with it on show.
New Yorkers’ health methods vary.
A 56-year-old hashish vendor with superb higher physique definition credited skateboarding for firming his abs.
A younger girl operating in Central Park stated she ate pizza, donuts and “like[d] her wine.”
A “jacked” 40-year-old man admitted he had been consuming 25 drinks per week and supplemented with black seed oil, sea moss, ashwagandha and chlorophyll.
A 23-year-old finance man outdoors The Trump Constructing claimed he eats “as a lot protein as [he] probably can” — a staggering 280 grams a day.
However, there are some solutions that come up time and again.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re doing, they’re constant,” Langowski stated of his topics’ routines.
Prioritizing energy coaching is one other frequent chorus.
“They’re lifting weights three days [or more] per week,” he stated. And, he famous, “they’re not killing themselves with cardio.”
And, regardless of some outliers, most topics are inclined to have wholesome — however not excellent — diets and drink alcohol solely sparingly.
“The typical person who I interview has between 3 to five drinks per week,” stated Langoswki, who lives in Midtown East.
He does the overwhelming majority of his interviews in New York Metropolis, however he has sometimes taken the present on the highway to the Hamptons, Miami and Los Angeles. He’s discovered that his topics conform to the clichés about the place they reside.
“Folks in LA wished to speak to me eternally. My common interview in LA was 10 minutes,” he stated. And, “individuals had a bit bit extra New Age issues the place they have been like, ‘I consider in grounding. I have to stroll the place my ft contact the pavement for not less than three hours a day.’ Or, ‘I don’t consider in sunscreen. So I stroll round and I take the solar in for six hours a day.‘”
In contrast, his Massive Apple interviews are brief and candy, usually a few minute and a half, two minutes tops.
“We’re not impolite, us New Yorkers,” he stated. “However we received someplace to go.”
