The gym community has lost the plot. Online fitness culture in recent years has ballooned out to massive proportions, and with that has come a colossal influx of coaches and influencers — way more than any blossoming gym-goer could possibly need to listen to. The business of looking ripped enough to sell you a program or supplement so that you, the average person, can look just as good as them has become a brutal, cutthroat industry that can be impossible to navigate.

Fitness can be overwhelming to get into, especially within the weightlifting/strength training sphere. While I do think there are good content creators like Jeff Nippard, whose science-based approach strives to give the viewer as much factual information as possible — I find that a vast majority of other creators can be largely unhelpful, especially when you are new to the strength training world.

For every influencer trying to teach you something, there are 10 more steroid-abusing meatheads trying to convince you that you can look exactly like them if you just “lock in” and replicate their workouts, or more likely, buy their methods. I myself follow several creators, including the aforementioned Jeff Nippard, Noel Deyzel, Steve Kraft and many more, and the largest common denominator I found is that every single one is attempting to sell some form of improvement.

It becomes especially scary when you realize just how important branding is to these influencers. People like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have spent decades trying to convince people that you just need to apply his signature phrase: to be the “hardest worker in the room.” to be successful. But the fitness industry almost unanimously agrees that he is being quite deceptive by not disclosing his use of steroids — which, as a man in his 50s, well past his physical prime — is very likely to be a key reason he stays huge all year-round for his movies.

Now, is the message “be the hardest worker in the room” damaging to gym prospects? No, not at all — and that’s where I believe this industry becomes so muddy. A lot of influencers will push plans, cookbooks or supplements that DO work to a point, but unfortunately, a course or diet that works for one person may not work for you. The most important lesson I have learned in my journey is that you have to use trial and error to find what you need. Buying a pre-made plan can not only hurt your growth, but can also be highly discouraging.

But how bad can the industry really be? According to a global survey by YouGov, 40% of American social media users find this type of content helpful, so clearly it is valuable. The problem with these stats is that they do not consider the newbies at all.

For them, the sheer volume of conflicting advice often sows confusion, and this insightful content only becomes helpful after you are somewhat experienced. For new lifters, hearing about eight different “optimal” exercise variants can be extremely overwhelming and damaging to one’s potential in the gym.
So what should people looking to get into fitness do? The most important thing for you to do is to start simple. You don’t need to worry about perfection at first, the efficiency and knowledge will come with repetition. As someone who started lifting as a first-year with no experience, I created a basic plan built on limited knowledge and consistently worked to improve. Now, three years later, I understand my routine, experiment and refine my technique and switch things up when I notice patterns that aren’t working. I didn’t take much from social media, and neither should you.

Now, with all of that said, it is important to note the impossibility of avoiding gym media. There is a lot of genuinely helpful content out there, but figuring out how to distinguish what is useful may take some time. For now, you can focus on a few basic components:

Firstly, get a plan and stick to it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need something so that you can start building up your consistency and knowledge. It will not be perfect by any means, but this plan exists to be tweaked repeatedly. Find exercises from basic Google searches, and focus on good form and progressive overload. These are two universally valuable qualities that will help you really improve your workouts. Do some research, take your time, improve at your own speed and set realistic goals.

At the end of the day, who cares what anyone else looks like? The only person you should ever compare yourself to is yesterday’s you. Take pride in your improvement and enjoy the journey.