When just getting started in the world of fitness, you’re likely to turn to online sources of information about the industry. On platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok you are likely to find all kinds of gym influencers, video guides and workout trends which can be overwhelming if you’re new to the fitness world.

These sources are great for sparking your interest and exploring the area of fitness that most intrigues you, but it can also be riddled with inaccurate or unhelpful content.

In today’s article we’ll be exploring the role of fitness social media and how it factors into your fitness journey; both when you just get started and as you develop towards your fitness goals.

Let’s begin!

What is fitness social media?

For those brand new to working out and fitness, fitness social media is the name we give to online content creators who produce regular videos about fitness for free consumption on social media.

When we refer to social media, we are talking (primarily) about websites such as:

• Instagram

• Facebook

• YouTube

• TikTok

• Snapchat (to a lesser extent)

• Twitter (to a lesser extent)

While this isn’t an all encompassing list of social media platforms, these are the ones that are most commonly used in the world of fitness.

Do I need social media?

Need is a very strong word. Do you absolutely need social media for your fitness journey? No. Is it a good idea to have social media? Yes! Here’s why:

• Social media can give you exposure to new exercises or challenges to try during your fitness journey. A good example of this are the different workout trends that emerge on social media for gym goers to try.

• Being active on your social media platform of choice and engaging with the fitness community can help you make new friends with similar fitness goals and interests.

• If you choose to create content on social media, it can provide you with a ‘progress’ tracker of sorts. For example, you could post (either publicly or privately) your progress in your first session. Months and years from now when you need a spur of motivation you can look back at how far you’ve come.

• A tailored social media feed can provide you with consistent content that will motivate you and inspire you on your fitness journey.

How Do I Tailor My Social Feed For Fitness?

Tailoring your social feed isn’t as simple as it may first seem. Tailoring your social media feed will depend upon if you already have a social media account or not and the platform that you choose. Before we delve into tailoring your feed, we’ll need to briefly talk about how social media works.

First things first, for those brand new to social media, we’ll define a few things:

• A social media feed is the list of video content or written content that you scroll through every time you use a social media app.

• Tailoring a social media feed is an action that a person takes to influence what videos they see in their feed. The aim of this is to get videos of a similar style or genre that’s personalised to your wants and needs.

In addition, social media platforms run on an algorithm that determines what you enjoy watching by what videos you like, share, comment on and have the most watch time on. This is an automatic process that determines what you see next. Social media feeds were designed this way to provide you with the content you want to see with ease.

Personalising Your Social Feed For Fitness

If you’re already on social media, then you’ll first want to make a separate account for your social fitness needs. This will help you tailor a fresh feed exclusively for your fitness wants and needs. With your new account you’ll now have a few options depending on the platform you are using. However, most platforms will ask you to select a few topics or areas of interest to generate your first feed.

For this, regardless of platform, you’ll want to choose fitness related interests such as:

• Gym

• Fitness

• Workout

• Health

• Wellbeing

The topics will be slightly different on every platform, so choose what you think reflects your fitness journey most accurately. After you’ve started scrolling is the most important part! Every piece of fitness related content you think will be useful to you and your journey, interact with that video or post. Again, this various with platform, but an interaction could be:

• Giving the video or post a like, a heart, or a thumbs up.

• Leaving a comment on the video about what you liked, disliked, or how the video helped you, or if you have any questions.

• Sharing the video to your story or personal feed.

• Saving the content to a playlist or gallery for later use.

What if I don’t have any social media accounts?

If you are new to social media and don’t have any accounts yet, and you want an account for your fitness journey, you can consider:

• YouTube

• TikTok

• Instagram

These three platforms tend to be the best for high-quality, informative videos about the fitness world. If you’re new and need an account, create one, and then follow the same process explained above to tailor your feed.

What Should I Look For?

This is a question you’ll need to answer for yourself, as nobody can tell you what you want or what your goals are. You should align your social media feed depending on your fitness needs, which could be:

• Training to improve your cardio endurance

• Wanting to build muscle

• Looking to better your functional strength or muscular endurance

• Wanting to improve flexibility and mobility

• Training to improve your joint strength and flexibility

Among a host of other fitness related goals you may have. If you are not sure what gym influencers to follow, you can always ask a friend or fellow gym goer who they follow or if they have found any good accounts on social media.

The Downside of Social Media for Fitness

While social media can be a great tool for improving your fitness, it can also be detrimental if used incorrectly. As social media is public, anyone can make an account about anything where they can say or claim things that aren’t true.

When you find a new gym influencer you want to watch or workout trends you would like to try, always be vigilant about the impact it could have. For gym influencers you may want to consider:

• Is the person providing the information a reputable source? 

• Who is this person? 

• Do they have any formal qualifications? 

• Are they trying to sell a product to make profit?

• Are they trying to sell their services?

• Do they have any sponsorships that may impact what they recommend in their video or post?

Vetting who you watch is important to ensure you are accessing high-quality, well researched videos that will help you on your fitness journey, not hinder you. The same logic can be applied to workout trends:

• Is the trend safe to try?

• Is the trend safe for you to try?

• Will the trend help you develop towards your fitness goal?

Taking the time to stop and ask a few questions before believing the video content or posts you consume can go a long way to curating a very useful social feed.

Be Social With Village Gym

Did you know that Village Gym has state-of-the-art workout equipment in all of our gyms up and down the nation? We are also huge supporters of the online fitness communities that create and post meaningful, high-quality fitness content - some of which is produced inside Village Gyms!

Get social and start your fitness journey with Village Gym Advance - the best way to work towards your fitness goals. Find your local Village Gym today!