What the Fitness Industry Doesn’t Understand
If you tried to imagine the perfect gym teacher, you’d probably come up with someone a lot like Hampton Liu. He’s a gentle, friendly guy who spends most of his time trying to figure out how to make the basics of exercise more approachable, and he talks frequently about how he never wants anyone to feel shame for their ability or skill level. In other words—and with apologies to good gym teachers, who almost definitely exist—he’s probably the polar opposite of whoever lorded over your middle-school physical-education class. And Liu is a gym teacher of sorts. He has amassed millions of followers across YouTube , Facebook, and TikTok by teaching a remedial PE course for adults from his Arkansas backyard. In many of his videos, he wears a T-shirt and jeans instead of specialized athletic gear, and he uses little or no equipment. The most popular installments take viewers through super-common exercises—squats, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups—with variations tailored to many different capa...