13 Years of Social Media and Fitness

I’ve been a personal trainer for over 13 years and in that time social media has had a massive impact on fitness and the world.

I freely admit that without it I wouldn’t be the trainer I am today. I learned a ton following great trainers from all over the world. Things about posture, building strength and mobility, how to coach, anatomy, how muscles and movement patterns affect other muscles and movement patterns, and a lot more. My programming philosophy came from a simple social media post.

The good, old days.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, but at some point, things started to turn. I guess it was inevitable.

There’s an old proverb that says, “Methods are many, but principles are few. Methods always change. Principles never do.” This means that, at its core, the stuff that worked years ago, still does. It also means that when it comes to preying on people’s insecurities and fears, the stuff that worked years ago, still does.

So, when social media started becoming something for people to monetize, fitness “influencers” started popping up left and right. People whose concern wasn’t about spreading good information. It was about “likes” and “follows.” They focused on things that would get people’s attention as they scrolled, and “Clickbait” was born.

Of course, other versions of “clickbait” have been around since before the days of salesmen going from town to town selling hair tonic out of the back of horse-drawn carriages. They’d plant people in the crowd and get to work convincing men that with a few applications they could regrow a beautiful head of hair. We know it didn’t work. It was too good to be true. But remember, methods change, and now those same types of people are selling today’s version of hair tonic on social media. Playing on the insecurities and fears of their followers.

Predictable, I suppose.

Luckily, you’re too smart to fall for it. You’re not going to lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks and keep it off. There is no “Secret they don’t want you to know.” But you knew that already. And deep down, so did the men who bought that hair tonic. But what if it does work? That thought just nags at you, doesn’t it? It nags at me, too.

There are things I want, and boy wouldn’t it be great if I could get them, like now? What if their secret method really does is the thing? What if I miss out on the real good stuff?

But we know that if it sounds too good to be true then… you can fill in the rest. We know that people buy on emotion and then use logic to justify the purchase. That means you—and I hate to admit it—me, too. But now that we’ve admitted it, maybe we can stop falling for it.