The algorithm is relentless: if you watch a training video, Instagram will quickly fill up with similar videos with super-effective routines validated through thousands of likes and comments. It wasn’t like that at the beginning, when neither the algorithm was so smart nor there were so many profiles aimed at achieving a healthy life. One of the pioneers was that of Verónica Costa, known as Vikika. On his Instagram profile he has more than 1 million followers, but it is through his account Virtual training where it offers training programs and routines.
“At the beginning I liked to share my routines, my recipes… People thought this was incredible because there was not much awareness about nutrition, nor was it common to see women training in a weight room,” she says now. The pandemic was a turning point in this sense and also the brutal takeoff of her online training platform: “Many people realized how important training is also on a mental level, and I am glad to have been part of it. There were hundreds of thousands of us training together every day,” explains Vikika.
Pilar Cámara started training at home seriously during the pandemic. She would get up very early to take advantage of her daughter’s sleep, take the weights out of a drawer and start exercising in front of the television. And this, which began out of necessity, has since helped her to be able to combine her exercise routines with parenting and her work as a freelancer. “There are youtubers They make it very easy: they offer you exercise tables and accompany you from the other side of the screen. In addition, it represents significant savings,” explains Cámara.
The same thing happened to Aída Sanz, mother of two children aged 5 and 8, who has since followed several Instagram accounts to train at home. The goal for her is none other than to feel good physically and psychologically; and this, she says, is not only achieved by paying attention to her diet, but also thanks to those training moments that would be impossible without this resource; both due to the family logistics framework, and not knowing very well what exercises to do. “If these profiles did not exist, I would not have known how to start doing sports. And I could not afford a personal trainer either. In addition, it has helped me to gradually gain more confidence and see the type of exercises that I like the most.”
Cristina Gómez is a communications manager at a Madrid town hall. She is 45 years old and has two children aged 11 and 14. In 2018, she started taking advantage of her children’s extracurricular activities to train at a gym near the school, but the pandemic forced her to train at home. She tried different platforms until she found Vikika’s platform where, she says, she found the workouts that motivated her the most. And, since then, she has been there: at 7:30 p.m. the door to her room closes and she dedicates the 45 minutes that, she says, help her maintain her physical and mental health. “The trick is that when I get home from work I put on my tights and trainers straight away, and I get on with the afternoon tasks until it’s time to train. That way I’m ready, and the truth is that this method works almost every day.” For her, the platform has become a fundamental element to “maintain motivation and internalise the importance of strength training.”
Remember Paula Butragueño The situation was very different 11 years ago: she was the only one of her friends who exercised. “In a marriage, the man’s time for sport was very established, but not so much for the woman! He had his football matches, tennis matches… but she didn’t make time for these types of activities,” she says. From her Instagram profile, where she has 125,000 followers, she offers practical tools, live sessions and advice to take care of body and mind, as well as sharing her lifestyle with her community. The platform is hers Inspira-fitwhere you can find programs and resources to “achieve well-being.”
Janire Escalante is 27 years old and uses her training programs. She is a doctor and has always loved sports, but when she moved to another city, she left the activities she did in groups and started running and training on her own through Instagram profiles. “Looking for accounts to follow, I found Paula Butragueño. She has been a great source of inspiration for me: she is a fighter who tirelessly pursues her dreams, takes care of her loved ones as well as herself, is generous and has the ability to radiate good energy and leave a positive mark.”
This is where Paula Butragueño puts a but. Although she values the union between women towards better and greater care as positive, she believes that today “it has gotten a little out of hand: women want to be the perfect mother, the worker or businesswoman of the year, the best friend… But no, we can’t do everything. I see many women with sleep problems, anxiety or depression. Today it is more important than ever to focus on mental health care: knowing how to stop, having spaces for contemplation, demanding less of oneself and loving oneself more.”
Where do we place the boundaries between health and expectations of having a perfect body? Maria Jose Camachoa graduate in Physical Education and a doctor in Education who researches the relationship between technologies and health promotion from a critical perspective, the messages of the influencers of the fitness They rely on the overlap between aesthetics and health: “The pressure for female beauty has been strengthened under the paradigm of health, promoting an aesthetic that exhorts women to discipline their body and mind to be thin and toned, but ‘for their own good’ and as a new form of female empowerment. This leaves little room for body diversity and challenges all women to seek continuous improvement.”
If you want, you really can?
Terms such as resilience, motivation, self-improvement and strength accompany many of the videos with training routines that we find on social media. The idea that is often conveyed is that, if you want, you too can manage to transform not only your body but also your mind. But this is not always the case. “This message of ‘if you want, you can’ is very controversial and must be understood with nuances,” explains Camacho, for whom the reality is that “not all people can achieve what they set out to do, because the limitations and possibilities are not the same for all people.”
He gives as an example that there is a well-established relationship between obesity and socioeconomic level: a person with few economic resources will have less chance of getting improve their body than someone with more economic resources (which allows them to pay for a gym, eat healthier, consume fitness-focused products or undergo cosmetic surgery). Therefore, this individual power depends on broader structural and social conditions.
Share this idea Lorena Cosa sports psychologist, believes that the “if you want, you can” narrative creates frustration and self-criticism when results don’t match expectations, but that the constant bombardment of images of “perfect” bodies and seemingly ideal lives can lead to harmful comparisons, anxiety and depression. She adds that often the advice and routines shared are not based on science or are not adapted to the individual needs of all followers. “Without proper professional guidance, this can lead to injuries or the adoption of unhealthy habits,” she says.
Motivation and body self-esteem
For María José Camacho, who is also a member of the Institute for Feminist Research at the Complutense University of Madrid, it is not about judging whether what women do influencers It is not a question of whether it is good or bad, but rather of understanding the complexity of the phenomenon. “These profiles can be beneficial, by motivating physical activity, but they also present risks, especially if one does not understand how social networks operate and the promises of physical and life change that support their business,” says this specialist.
Vikika is aware of this and admits that these accounts are often not aware of the impact they have on other people, especially young people with less critical capacity. “It is important to educate our children with the idea that social networks are not real life. I would also like to reach more and more women with the clear message of the importance of having good habits and maintaining a strength routine for our health, above aesthetics.”
Maria Jose Camacho believes that the messages of the influencers of the fitness They have a great impact because those who transmit them present themselves as close, as “best friends or older sisters who help you achieve your goals”, mixing authenticity with a proximity to perfection. And that, she adds, happens more in the case of girls and women, because for them there is less social pressure around the body. The challenge, for the expert, is there: in questioning our references about health, exercise, aspirations for success and the perception of our bodies. And this, she says, goes through pedagogy, as they investigate in the project UCM Digital Health and Education“In addition to schools, other educational spaces should be created so that people feel good about their own bodies and learn to take care of them, accept them, and value them without focusing on appearance,” she concludes.
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