Tatts on legs, ciggies in hand, sweat dripping from hair to neck to chest. You’d be mistaken if you thought this was the mosh pit of a punk festival. Instead, you’re at the finish line of a marathon. Among the throes of runners dowsing their tired bodies with water and all-natural electrolytes, a subculture is growing.

They’re athletes in their own right, with bio stats and split times that would amaze even the most dedicated Bryan Johnson disciples. But they stand apart with their beers in one hand, Zyn nicotine pouches in the other. From London to Berlin, Milan to New York, they exist beneath the purview of the Alo-wearing and the optimisation-obsessives. United by their rejection of wellness’ puritanical ideals.

Wellness anarchists, some are calling them. The term was coined this past summer by Tom Garland, a London-based strategist and founder of brand consultancy, edition+partners. In August, he published a cultural analysis in which he identified a cohort that occupies a “distinct middle ground”: people who engage in wellness, but reject the traditional binary of the “hyper-optimised bro code on one side and dystopian athleisure-fantasy-land on the other.” As Garland tells Dazed, this cohort is “ambitious but not obsessive, health-conscious without being joyless.”

Garland first observed this sensibility in British ultra-endurance athlete, William Goodge. During Goodge’s run across Australia, he posted an Instagram of him mid-feat: beer in hand, a cigarette alongside it. The image was provocative: to drink and smoke during an athletic feat is somewhat of an oxymoron. But for Goodge, this decision was natural: a way to “normalise the totally bonkers”. “When you achieve something, in my world at least, you celebrate with a drink,” Goodge tells Dazed. “It [was] a release, a vehicle to take my head out of what I was doing, which was running up to 16 hours a day and averaging 111kms for 35 days.”

Athletes like Goodge represent a shift in what’s aspirational today. “The ultimate flex used to be a graph proving you slept perfectly,” Garland says. “Now, the flex is showing up fresh at 9am after a late night, with no data to explain how you did it. It’s a form of biological arrogance.” This sensibility has long existed at the edges, visible in the feeds of creatives and everyday athletes who reject optimisation as a moral code. Now it’s become increasingly visible, and more openly embraced.

From post-run cigarettes and beers appearing on socials, to brands and products built around this attitude, wellness anarchy is permeating. Challenger running label BANDIT raised $14.2 million in a2023 Series A raise. Search interest in sports-cum-creative magazine Mental Athletic is up 164 per cent year-on-year, per Google Trends data. Nicotine pouches and even psychedelics are increasingly used as pre-workout. Literary Sport, a year-old athleisure label, was described on Throwing Fits in December as “a running brand for people who smoke.” Even Whoop partnered with Goodge on a branded social post asking, “what’s harder on your body: partying or ultra-marathons?”

Part of its appeal can be explained by a growing disillusionment (and exhaustion) with wellness in its current state. While it remains a multi-trillion-dollar industry (globally valued at $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to the Global Wellness Institute), its rigid practices no longer feel aspirational. Early mornings, no drinking, tracking glucose, bed by 9pm. The monastic lifestyle often promoted by the industry has rendered even the most well-intentioned among us anxious,lonely and wondering whether it’s worth it. “Wellness hit a saturation point and became uncool. When mass brands bought into wellness as a lifestyle, they poured so many marketing dollars into the system that the discourse around it became overwhelming. People started realising [much of it is] a marketing ploy,” says Viktoriia Vasileva, cultural researcher and marketing strategist. “Now, it’s [just] swagless nerds who count their macros and West Village girls who make Pilates and Matcha their whole personality.”

Perhaps that’s why these wellness anarchists, with their punk philosophies and defiant attitudes, feel so captivating. They seem to embody a truer, and more forgiving, representation of the human experience, one that gives permission to work, and to play.

Dutch model and athlete Isa-Yasmijn Hinloopen adopted this philosophy following her career as a young gymnast. “I’ve lived a life as an athlete where I performed like five days a week,” she tells me. “I would compete every weekend. I’ve done the forced trainings. I’ve done that life. The journey now is purely for fun. I try to really hold on to that. I’m not ever trying to push myself as hard as I was when I was younger.” She also went through years of pure anarchy. “I was on drugs, like, five out of seven days a week,” she recalls.

Today, her approach to wellness is rooted in travel, creativity and play. “I’m still a free spirit, a party girl, [but] my life is crazy in a different way. Not necessarily the drinking and partying, but being super social and basically being everywhere at the same time.” This approach extends beyond the mechanics of her lifestyle to her personal expression. “I feel like I’ve had an aesthetic, artsy approach to sport from early on. That’s definitely something I’m seeing more of [in the industry] over the last few years.”

Peter John is the London-based designer of Studio Peter John. He’s also the muse of cult athletic label UVU and one of Goodge’s best friends. He’s been running since he was 15; a practice so ingrained in his life, he doesn’t “really even think about it”. He also loves to party.

“I remember I went to race in Berlin one year and we had a dinner with a brand the night before," he says. “[The race] wasn’t that serious; just a half marathon. I ended up going out all night, didn’t sleep, went straight to the race. Rolled through the half marathon, finished, and then with two friends of mine, ended up going straight to Berghain after the race, as well.”

“It’s not something I’d be wanting to do again. But you know, these things happen.” Similar sentiments are acknowledged by everyone I spoke to for this piece. John is the first to admit it’s not easy to sustain. “It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure. If you dance with the devil, you got to pay the price.”

And yet, for all the wild stories (and there are many), the philosophy in practice is less extreme than it first appears. Goodge makes a point to enjoy months of “fun” after his ultra feats. John moves in and out of periods of sobriety. Hinloopen’s ‘work hard, play hard’ lifestyle comes in waves. Ironically, the anarchists’ philosophy rests upon an ethos of balance. A kind of yin and yang of extremes.

Such is its allure. Intense in some ways, deeply human in others. Naturally, the lifestyle raises questions of privilege. “It requires a high baseline of health and usually a certain amount of disposable income,” says Garland. “You need money for race entry and bar tabs, after all.” While the critique is valid, it doesn’t fully account for how the philosophy can function in practice. At its core, it’s oddly democratic. It offers people permission to engage with wellness on their own terms; to go for the run, the yoga class, or simply move their body, without reorganising their entire lives around it. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.