We are living in a world full of health and fitness fanatics, and nowhere is this more obvious than on Instagram. No amount of scrolling can shield you from it. If it’s not fitness fads, transformation videos, meal preps, and workout plans, then it’s the gym boasts and gloats from both professional and wannabe professionals.
There’s no denying Instagram is a great place to document a fitness journey, gain inspiration and share tips. But the dark side of “socials” endorses showing off. This led the personal training buffs at nuyoo.co, a customizable fitness and nutrition service, to conduct a survey of 2,368 gym-goers to discover what people think the most annoying health and fitness hashtags used by gym show-offs are. Some of the top entries may surprise you.
From an initial list of 100 health and fitness Instagram hashtag variations, survey participants selected the following 15 as the most annoying:
- #GymLife
- #Gains
- #GirlsWhoLift
- #BeastMode
- #NoExcuses
- #GymRat
- #FlexFriday
- #DoYouEvenLift
- #NewYearNewMe
- #GymBunny
- #SheSquatsBro
- #GetSwole
- #BootyGains
- #ShreddedLife
- #ShredNation
From this list the worst offenders, with the highest percentage scores, were joint winners #Gains and #NewYearNewMe, both with 15 percent. Other high scorers included #BeastMode at 12 percent, and #GymBunny #SheSquatsBro, and #BootyGains all at 9 percent.
Further to the survey, while 36 percent of gym-goers believe people document their workouts on social media to make themselves feel proactive and better about fitness, 48 percent of respondents feel people post their gym habits online solely to show off and would judge those who do it. Interestingly enough, when asked "how does someone posting about fitness on socials make you feel," those taking part in the survey shared mixed feelings. While 30 percent answered ‘inspired’ and 6 percent answered ‘proud’, others admitted it made them feel ‘jealous’ (12 percent), ‘anxious’ (15 percent) and ‘depressed’ at 36 percent.
Do these stats surprise you? Will you keep posting your gym-selfies? Let us know! We're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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