Making the Twitter fitness community work for you
I get lots of value from fitness Twitter – it’s been an invaluable resource to motivate me to the strongest I’ve ever been.
Not only have I learnt new ideas and concepts, it’s helped me join the dots – my knowledge of the gym has been built from magazines, watching videos, or tips from friends, I’ve never understood what a lot of the things I did actually were called!
I enjoy the practice of working out, but always been terrible teaching my experience as I don’t necessarily understand why something works, it just always worked for me.
Twitter helped my fitness education, so now when I get friends/family/work colleagues asking questions I can explain what I’m doing ‘right‘ to make small improvements to their workout.
Generally, fitness Twitter is encouraging and supportive. But there is always that element, who will always find ways to turn fitness into elitism.
Recently I couldn’t help calling out a post in this manner…
I can’t imagine anything more boring than staring at a motivational quote for 45 minutes, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here – performing movement is better than no movement.
So if someone chooses to pay £40 a month just to hit the treadmill four times a week – this is still better than sitting on your arse on the couch performing Dorito curls!
I’m quite defensive of this as the likes of the treadmill and the machines weights were the gateway drug which got me hooked on exercise in the first place!
I’m sure many of you have similar experiences!
Do they look good to you test…
Twitter in its nature is information overload, where most messages don’t stay with the reader – which is why posting often and repeating the same message repackaged is a popular approach.
For fitness Twitter I apply a filter, as without it I would be bombarded with contrasting opinions on the deal workout approach… to manage this you need to know your gym goals.
If you are new to working out then what you want is simplicity, even lifts like the squat and bench press I wouldn’t say was an ideal start for someone without an athletic background.
As with all social media, it’s about fronting, especially for fitness it’s about who is the toughest, hardest, strongest, biggest… anything to not appear like a normie.
“Performing movement is better than no movement”
Complex lifts have their place, I have been flirting which implementing some more ‘exotic’ lifts into my routine to spice things up and push my athletic ability, but shaming Janet and Derek because they don’t leave the cardio area is not constructive.
For them joining the gym was a brave leap into a new world and the treadmill works as that steady dependable (if slightly boring) friend.
And remember… using a treadmill is easy, blasting out olympic lifts isn’t
The best advice I can give anyone approaching fitness Twitter is to apply my ‘Do they look good to you? test’
Basically ask yourself the following questions:
“Does X person have a body shape I aspire to?”
“Does X person tweet about having similar workout goals to myself?”
“Does X person tweet about workouts that interest and inspire me?”
If the answer is ‘Yes‘, then these are good people to learn from.
An invaluable tool
Back when I first picked up a weight I relied on copies of my brothers Men’s Health magazine, it was never great for preaching consistency (they had magazines to sell every month) and always sold the (unrealistic) dream “Get beach body ready in six weeks.”
The Internet (and social media) take a more realistic approach.
Social media is invaluable for getting fitter and stronger – it can motivate, help you source a personal trainer specific to your goals, help you learn and push you to your limits.
As a community I’d rather work to inspire confidence to get people off the treadmill, create a passion for fitness and develop positive habits to last a lifetime – not turn up my nose up because someone doesn’t know any better.
We all started somewhere, let’s help them!
Hope you enjoyed this post? How do you find Twitter and social media for improving your fitness? Any accounts I should lookup?
Perfect Manifesto 