Disciplining the Self, Defending the Nation: Fitness and Everyday Extremism in the Far Right

The far right has gone mainstream. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how far-right actors increasingly engage with everyday cultural practices such as fashion (Miller-Idriss, 2020) and music (Grosholz & Pieri, 2023). Building on this literature, this paper examines physical fitness practices as a key, yet under-examined, site of what has been termed “everyday extremism”. In doing so, it responds to calls to study not only far-right ideologies and organizational structures, but also the “spaces and places of contemporary far-right extremism” (Miller-Idriss, 2020, p. 3). From far-right politicians bench-pressing on Instagram to groups of athletic young men engaging in outdoor combat training, we explore how fitness and body culture are mobilized by contemporary far-right actors. The paper adopts an inductive, qualitative approach. We draw on examples from different national contexts – notably Germany and the Netherlands – and across diverse actor types, from extra-parliamentary youth movements to parliamentary politicians. We combine the investigation of online, multimodal messaging with offline far-right lifeworlds. Empirically, the analysis focuses on the social media profiles of Dutch party politicians and movement-produced reports about German outdoor training camps. These cases are used to theorize far-right body politics and fitness culture. In linking social movement practices with party-political online messaging, the paper highlights the multiple functions of fitness and body culture and demonstrates their significance for understanding the contemporary far right as a heterogeneous and multifaceted phenomenon. Bringing together different lines of scholarship around far-right masculinities (Tebaldi & Burnett, 2025), fitness and body culture (Gottlieb, 2011), and sports (Claus & Behn, 2024), the paper examines how different far-right actors deploy physical fitness practices and representations of muscular (male) bodies in relation to ideological issues such as identity politics and political strategy. We ask (1) how different types of far-right actors engage with fitness practices; (2) which ideological dimensions are mobilised through this engagement; and (3) how the far right references, appropriates, and transforms broader fitness cultures in Western societies (Martschukat, 2021). We argue that far-right fitness practices should not be understood solely as strategies of recruitment, community-building, or preparation for militancy. Rather, fitness and body culture operate as a biopolitical ordering principle through which individual (male) bodies, movements, and a “volk” are strengthened and disciplined (Foucault, 1977). In doing so, the paper theorizes “body fascism” (Gottlieb, 2011) as a central element of contemporary far-right politics and as a crucial site for research aimed at countering far-right extremism. Key Words: Far Right; Everyday; Normalization; Fitness; Gender