
Fitness influencers are full of shit - paulpauper
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/instagram-fitness-influencers-scams
======
noego
I have a hard time following what the author is trying to say exactly. As far
as I can tell, he seems to be making 2 interwoven points, which have nothing
to do with the clickbait title.

1\. There are "fitness influencers" on instagram who are trying to build a
career out of this

Ok. There are also software bloggers who are using their blogs to build up
their tech careers. And startups who are using their blogs for marketing/PR
purposes. I wouldn't go around accusing Robert Martin of being "full of shit"
just because he wants to build a career out of the things he writes about.

2\. There are some "fitness influencers" who haven't earned the credentials
needed to be taken seriously

Sure, but that's the whole premise of social-networking platforms as opposed
to traditional media. It seems a stretch to accuse everyone of being full of
shit just because they chose to build their brand using social-media. What's
next: _" Everyone on the internet is full of shit"_? _" Everyone on Hacker
News is full of shit"_? _" Everyone writing articles on random sites like
MelMagazine is full of shit"_?

Personally, this whole article reeks of clickbait and faux-outrage.

~~~
tashoecraft
I feel like it would be more comparable to someone posting how x
technology/framework/language will cure all your problems whilst the poster
has never tried it, nor used it, potentially doesn't even understand it and is
being paid to talk about it.

~~~
rasz
and keeps posting about working big FANG projects.

------
55555
Almost everyone you've ever seen in an advertisement trying to sell you a
legal bodybuilding supplement was on steroids. With its ubiquity, Instagram is
making these unrealistic expectations even more mainstream. Just as the beauty
standard for women is unrealistic, men practically have to use steroids for
anyone to believe they go to the gym. These unrealistic expectations lead to
unhappiness and body dysphoria. Compare Eugen Sandow, or anyone else who
singularly focused on gaining muscle mass prior to the discovery/invention of
anabolic/androgenic steroids, to random gym bros in your IG feed.

~~~
pdpi
An example I’ve used a few times — go watch female MMA matches. Hell, go with
straw weight, where the competitors are tiny. Every time they twist and bend
you can just see the sort of folds that will convince women they’re too fat.

Compare the bodies of body builders (who are trying to bulk up as much as they
possibly can) with those of athletes who actually need to _use_ the muscles —
anything from gymnasts to team sports players to strong man competitions. Look
at people who achieve insane feats like Alex Honnold. Those are not gym bunny
bodies, because they simply can’t afford to have useless bulk

~~~
SegFaultx64
Re: Alex Honnold

Climbers in general have a really lanky build. They are basically carrying
their bodyweight up long walls so being bulky is definitely a disadvantage.
That's not to say that some climbers aren't extremely muscular. But, for
example, Adam Ondra is probably one of the strongest climbers ever and he
doesn't look absurdly muscular.

~~~
johnchristopher
Re: Adam Ondra

[https://scottamyx.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/Silence-9c....](https://scottamyx.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/Silence-9c.jpg)

This picture shows incredible muscle definition.

I know he's not flexing but Tommy Caldwell has an incredible build as well
[https://earthtripper.com/sites/default/files/styles/responsi...](https://earthtripper.com/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_wide/public/Fingertips-1.jpg?itok=mQ0F43Be).

------
_nothing
I'll admit I'd really bought into the idea of Instagram as the solution to
Facebook, as a place where everything was sunshine and rainbows and everyone
could just appreciate art and beauty without the negativity of, well,
controversial opinions. I could follow beautiful people doing beautiful things
in beautiful places. I could watch and admire. It seemed, dare I say, a
healthy escape.

> “You want me to say I’m influencing all these people,” he says. “But I’m the
> one who is really influenced by this. The way I act online is shaped by
> monetary incentives. If a post does well, expect to see more posts like
> that. If copying and pasting motivational quotes from Dale Carnegie drives
> engagement, I will share them all day long. I don’t care.

My opinion is different nowadays. Instagram is surely a place where exists a
lot of true beauty and expression, but it's also a place full of people
largely driven by societal and monetary reward, to an extent that I've come to
consider unhealthy. We are being influenced, and we are influencing.

And we like that-- my social brain wants to know what society considers
beautiful, it enjoys training itself on what society considers beautiful, it
wants to be affirmed in the beauty of its own body. Instagram gave me exactly
what I wanted. But (and I don't mean to criticize anyone here at all,
considering I was and still am subject to the same pressures and influences) I
don't think what I thought I wanted was healthy. I want to be happy. A
constant stream of corgi videos and bikini photos and travel porn gives me
little ups, but it also shapes my brain in ways I think could be damaging.

~~~
esalman
If someone wants to find beauty they should work for a charity. There are
people suffering everyday everywhere. When you help someone in need, and the
happiness you both experience in the process, it is more true and beautiful
than anything else. That is what's lacking from those corgi videos and bikini
photos.

~~~
_nothing
I guess I was thinking more of aesthetic beauty. Truly there are deeper and
more lasting forms of beauty to be enjoyed in the world. But our brains are
drawn persistently to images, and I don't necessarily find anything wrong with
that. I just think that the overload of stimuli from social media especially
Instagram can be damaging to the scope of enjoyment we could get from the real
thing in real life, which would arguably be more fulfilling.

------
leetrout
I have started being just as concerned about really popular "developer
advocates" on Social Media.

They find a tool or toy they like and mention how great it is (perhaps from
their own company) and the mass of followers retweet and push it.

In the age of social media it's the perfect marketing strategy but the signal
to noise ratio is low in my feed and I'm skeptical of anything I see on
Twitter where I'm much more accepting of the _same content_ on here.

~~~
gvand
And don't forget those that do the same thing on youtube and have a huge
following made of beginners.

~~~
cr0sh
> And don't forget those that do the same thing on youtube

Yeah...I'm starting to develop an unhealthy obsession with bits of junk
electronics, office trash, and hot glue guns...

/s

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brightball
Doesn't this apply to pretty much all social media "influencers" anyway?

~~~
leetrout
Yes.

~~~
varelse
Except for the one true fitness influencer...

[https://www.youtube.com/user/BroScienceLife/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/BroScienceLife/videos)

Which pretty much says everything about fitness influencers, no?

~~~
ericcholis
Thank you for reminding me of this gem.

------
throwayEngineer
My wife is a doctor of Physical Therapy, and I've learned incredible amounts
about the human body.

Not, how to get stronger faster, but more specifically which biological
processes is the body capable of?

When I read people who suggest yoga , massage, chiro, weird exercises, etc...
I just wonder- Why?

There is enough information on the internet to learn there are only a few ways
to change muscles. Massage, manipulations, and stretching have their own
merit, but without (hypertrophy) strengthening, is temporary.

Strengthening is one of the few things that is lasting.

I genuinely feel bad for people who think yoga is going to make their sitting
back pain go away. The yoga infulencers and chiros will tell you whatever you
want to hear.

Edit: lots of confusion about yoga and Physical therapy. A physical therapist
doesn't teach you a workout. They use each tool to solve a body problem. Yoga
is general exercise and stretching. Yoga might make you stronger, but it's not
likely they are targeting the weak muscles directly, but rather giving you a
workout routine.

~~~
ahelwer
Yoga makes you strong as hell, though? Have you ever done yoga or do you think
it's just stretching? It's basically a set of advanced bodyweight exercises.

~~~
throwayEngineer
Just to clarify, yoga in this context refers to ONLY the stretching.

If your instructor is having you do low rep, weighted exercises, it does
hypertrophy and would improve that muscle.

Yoga is a generic term.

~~~
mikestew
_yoga in this context refers to ONLY the stretching._

Then you should have just said "stretching".

 _Yoga is a generic term._

So is "strength training", but it's not so generic that I get to just make
shit up.

~~~
throwayEngineer
No strength training is specifically hypertrophy where your body creates new
cells.

You are more like doing endurance training which make cells for ADP/ATP.

And you likely aren't doing it like a perscription where they target the
weaknesses. Rather general.

In the context of the original post, it is clear why I mentioned yoga in that
list.

------
devnullbyte
I have actually had a good experience with CBD. I am an awful sleeper, made
worse by being a long distance runner (which results in too much cortisol
building up). Something was going to go wrong, as the lack of sleep and heavy
training load was going to result in me burning out. I acquired some CBD and
found it relaxed me noticeably and gave me the sort of deep sleep I have not
had since my twenties. Just taking 4-5 drops before bed, means I feel like I
could have a nice lay in if I wanted to, whereas before I would get out of bed
tired feeling like I never had enough, but no way was I getting any more.

~~~
moate
One major problem with most of the CBD craze going on is that many products
put enough CBD into a product to say "contains CBD" but not anywhere near the
dosage required to actually have an impact/effect on most people.

------
overcode
There are people in the industry who

\- know what they are talking about

\- have presence on social media

It's just that their numbers are incredibly low relative to the bullshitters
and they don't label themselves as influencers.

------
throwayEngineer
A separate note, you decide if you are willing to sell out your audience.

I don't want to.

I make lots of money at my job, my studies and advice are a way for me to help
people.

Selling snake oil is only going to push people away.

------
ngngngng
Why is nutrition and fitness so divisive? My most controversial comment on HN
was bringing up that nearly everyone's metabolism is the same. Everyone wants
to think that obesity is caused by having a slower metabolism. It's not.

Every single "buff" person shown in this article, is on steroids. People have
a really hard time accepting this, they really want to believe that if you
work hard enough, you can do what they do.

------
gvand
Sure, but there is not much to do here, those who follow these clearly
steroids/photoshop/BS-fuelled influencers are not the target audience of
people that produce real fitness/bodybuilding/calisthenics content.

I'll stay with AthleanX, Jeff Nippard, Fitness FAQ, Calisthenic Movement and
many others... to each his own.

------
callumprentice
Whilst I agree and most of these people are just awful, there are some
diamonds in the rough. I'm trying to improve my rowing and found this guy:
Eric Murray. He's won multiple Olympic and world championship medals in rowing
for New Zealand and just gets on with it.

His Instagram feed is good
([https://www.instagram.com/kiwipair_eric/](https://www.instagram.com/kiwipair_eric/))
but his YouTube channel
([https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLTbJObSiRTHW18AIntfTJw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLTbJObSiRTHW18AIntfTJw))
is amazing - packed full of him tips, techniques and example workouts that
I've been finding really helpful.

------
miobrien
These guys are legit: [https://moveu.com/](https://moveu.com/)

[https://www.instagram.com/moveu_official/](https://www.instagram.com/moveu_official/)

------
lalos
At least they are 'required' by law to state that a post is an ad. So a step
on the right direction.

------
qbaqbaqba
All influencers are.

------
tw1010
Everyone who makes universal statements are full of shit.

~~~
bproctor
"Everyone"

~~~
tw1010
Including me, yes.

------
peterwwillis
Does anyone not realize this? Like, is there a reason to write this article?

~~~
jcomis
Um, YES. A large majority of people see high follow counts and equate it to
truth and authority.

~~~
slenk
Those people will learn soon enough...

