Who do you follow?

I've been a personal trainer for almost 8 years and I've learned a lot, some through education, and most through experience. Saying that though, I can admit that I really don't know all that much. I know how to get someone stronger. I know the necessary steps one needs to lose weight and change their body composition. I even know how to build a pair glute muscles that you could bounce a quarter off of. And yet, I can honestly tell you that I don't know shit and have loads to learn. That's fine. I understand that like in any industry, in order to succeed you need to leave your ego at the door and learn from those that came before you and among your peers. You may not agree with all the things you learn but you should have the capacity to keep an open mind.

What troubles me is the boom of social media and its effect on the fitness industry. It seems that these days all you need to do is put the word "fit" somewhere in your instagram handle and you're suddenly a coach or expert.Don't get me wrong there are plenty of people on social media with "fit" or "fitness" in their name that deserve it. I follow a lot of them but it gets thrown around so much, its lost its power. Now, if you're an experienced lifter with some years under your belt, you'll most likely be able to tell the difference between a real coach and an "instacoach". The problem is that the general public can't. all they see is this guy with a shredded six pack doing arm curls in the squat rack. They see the girl doing turned sideways single leg press or straddling the abductor machine backwards. It'll be 3 posts of them working out with light ass weights doing a 30 exercise circuit then 10 gratuitous booty poses or the guy flexing as the only person with his shirt off in the gym. these people are NOT coaches. They are personalities you may look up to because they have great physiques. The sad truth is a lot of those physique are due to them either winning the genetic lottery or exogenous enhancements or both. This is not to say they don't work hard or that using peds is wrong. I have no problem with that but be honest about it. I have respect for the few guys out there that actually tell it like it is. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough of them and on the female side there are absolutely none as as far as I know. on top of these "INSTACOACHES" lying to their followers, they are fooling them into buys crappy one size fits all nutrition and training programs which don't actually really help them.

A real coach is someone who will share their knowledge and know how freely. Of course they are in this industry to make some modicum of money but that's not the sole reason. They are in it because they have a passion for it. They actually "coach" their clients on the ins and outs of training. They don't just tell their clients to do something without an explanation. They actually understand why their client is doing what they are doing. There is "trainer" on instagram and youtube by the name of Vince sant aka vshred. He has about 500k subscribers on Youtube and 215k on instagram. He is the epitome of an "Instacoach". I've watched quite a few of his videos and he actually doesn't seem to know what he is talking about. he is basically an actor, reading from a script. a mind you that looks extremely close to that of an actual coach, a one Jeff Cavaliere, creater of Athlean-X.Now , i'm not going to go into this story but suffice to say, most of vshreds videos are word for word remakes of old Athlean-X videos. There are number of other guys way more adept at calling this guy out so I will leave some links to those videos under here. My point is that guys and girls like Vshreds are making a killing posing as legitimate trainers or coaches and they are far from it.

So, what does a real coach look like? Well, there are quite a few real coaches out there. Phil Learny , Tony Gentilcore, Stefi Cohen, Bret Contreras,Lee Boyce, Christian Thibaudeau and Charles Staley to just name a few. Do these people have a huge following? most, probably not, but each of them have more knowledge in their pinky toe than 90% of the people with "fit" in their name. I know that everything today is about instant gratification and how it looks but there is something to be said about doing things right. At the end of the day, you choose who you follow. Make the right choice.