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Andy Vasquez

Wesley Beard

ENGL 113A

10/24/2022 Social Media’s Impact on Gym Culture

The gym community is one of the most positive communities out there as most of the

people who go to the gym would love to talk to you about their experiences with the gym. It is

good to find out how to have proper form when starting out at the gym so you have better results

and lower the risk of injury. Learning which supplements are good for your body and which can

actually support your growth can be useful to know. Big social media influencers motivate others

to push themselves to be the better version of themselves. Social Media has given people the

belief that working out is a much more pressuring thing to do, when in actuality it has really

helped people getting started with it by having correct form, different uses of supplements, and

influencers motivating you to do better.

Having the right form when doing certain exercises proves to give better results to your

body. Whether it's using your own body weight, machines, or free weights, you should first focus

on getting down the right form so you lower the risk of causing injury to your body. Knowing

what to do to get bigger in exercise can be done with free weights or your own body weight.

“organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and National Strength and

Conditioning Association suggesting that free weight RT using heavy loads produces

significantly greater muscle growth and strength”(Martino). You can easily go to the gym and

pick up a 20 pound dumbbell or go on a machine to workout, and notice some progress through

time. If you take the time to find out the proper form of doing exercises you will come to find
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that using the right form of exercise will reduce the chances of you injuring yourself, and will

show you better results in growth of your body.

Using supplements to help increase growth and speed up the growth of your body is

something most people won’t know how to use properly when starting off. Certain supplements

that are big in the gym community are Trenbolone Pills (Steroids), Creatine Monohydrate,

caffeine, and protein. Each of these big supplements have proven to give great results in both

growth and physical activity. Although some supplements can be controversial depending on its

usage. People will need to understand that supplements will not carry you to your goal but only

help you little by little to achieve that goal. “protein and creatine provide only marginal

additional gains in muscle mass with resistance training”(Richardson), with that being said it is

believed by some beginners that intaking a good amount of creatine or an excessive amount of

protein will make you reach your goal. When you really need to balance it out by putting in the

work in your resistance training to see it really take effect.

Having someone or something push you to better yourself is vital in human growth. You

can easily start off going to the gym by either finding a way to use your free time, going with

friends, or admiration of social media influencers. The sudden surge of people starting to

workout is believed to begin during the COVID-19 lockdown, as many people were forced to

stay home with not much to do. With that being said people took that opportunity to keep

themselves busy by working out at home.”These steps start from the choice of the fitness

professional to a proper workout periodization and conduction, passing through anamnesis and

evaluation, as social media gym classes are not free from potential musculoskeletal

injuries”(Cugusi) It was great that people began working out at home and as everything began to

open they are already used to working out their bodies and have a general idea of what they need
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to work on. Social media influencers have the ability to “play an important role in body image

concerns in young men, as the drive of young men for a bigger, more muscular body is becoming

more prevalent”(Hilkens). They help give young men and women an ideal body that they want,

and some influencers are able to provide the routine they took that might work for anyone who is

interested.

With gym culture, there is no doubt that people have set standards of how one should

look and behave surrounding anything gym related. Everyone has their own expectations of how

certain things are done, such as how certain workouts are supposed to be done, and what they

believe works better than the other. There is a right way for every workout, but a different

preference in every person. “Within exercise science, there has been for some time a common

misconception that heavy load free weights are required to stimulate such muscular growth and

strength”(Martino).Everyone is entitled to their own preferences of workouts and should

appreciate the small tips people can offer, but those who take offense to people who want to help

correct their form to lower the risk of injury are the worst. With this misconception that the

bigger you are the better, it causes people to get needy and try to speed the process as quickly as

possible for the recognition. Instead of putting in the hard work like others they will turn to the

use of steroids. This “instant” generation wants results quickly, the admiration of others shows a

wanting to be like someone either by what they represent or what they gain or by dominating

through symbolic violence(Richardson). With an excessive use of steroids it may cause its user

to have a stroke or heart attack, which is not worth taking just for the approval of others. Social

media influencers can also be put to blame as they set a sort of beauty standard for both men and

women, with some influencers using steroids to get to where they are now. Due to this reason we
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see social media typically depicts illustrations of ‘perfect’ bodies, referring to muscular and

toned bodies(Hilkens).

Gym culture has also increased the pressure surrounding judgment and stereotypes

causing people to not want to attend public gyms. “Within exercise science, there has been for

some time a common misconception that heavy load free weights are required to stimulate such

muscular growth and strength (Martino).” People who overload their bodies with high weights

think that is a good way of building up muscle but it really damages your body and hurts the

healing process for you to actually build muscles. Social media has caused a spread of

misinformation with the use of supplements, there is a growing body of evidence showing that

body image concerns and other negative health outcomes, such as eating disorders, and misuse of

steroids is causing health concerns(Hilkens). Social media influencers can also be put to blame

as viewers are striving for these perfectly depicted bodies, but don’t realize that it can have

undesirable health implications regarding body image and eating disorders(Hilkens). People will

allow themselves to blindly follow someone simply because they appear to be a better person

than they are and will not try to step out of line to think for themselves.

The gym community is a welcoming place for the majority of people, but you can also

misuse information given to you if you let your greed take over yourself. Knowing how to do the

right forms and having the right behavior can take you a long way into your gym journey.

Knowing what to eat and which supplements prove to be beneficial and help speed up the

process of your body building. Learning from social media influencers can help motivate you to

do better and learn parts of the gym you never knew existed. It all depends on your outlook on

your journey to improve yourself. The only real people who choose to insult you are the ones
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who have been at the gym the longest and see no progress with themselves. So try and decrease

that negativity and be more supportive to yourself and others while your at it.