245 | Embracing Authenticity: Breaking Free from Social Media Trends in the Fitness Industry

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Have you ever felt like an imposter in your own industry? After years of trying to fit into the mold of social media trends, I’ve finally decided to break free and embrace authenticity in my content creation. This episode of Tea with Tina is all about the struggle between following the crowd and staying true to oneself. I share my personal journey of navigating the fitness industry and my shift towards a more genuine approach. From candid client conversations to spontaneous insights that hit me while driving, I’m experimenting with blending trendy topics with my own unique perspective, even if it’s not the most popular approach.

Get ready to redefine your perspective on authenticity as I take you through how this mindset shift plays out in real life and fitness. I recount a recent experience from my fitness class where we infused creativity with moves like wood choppers with a ball and a fitness-based sledgehammer. It's about finding the sweet spot between careful planning and spontaneous action. Grab your favorite drink, settle into your coziest spot, and join me as we embark on this journey of showing up authentically in every aspect of life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast
, where we talk all thingshealth, fitness, lifestyle and
maybe a little bit of tea getsspilled.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
We chat all about this in a super casual
environment, so grab yourbeverage of choice, sit back,
relax and enjoy back, relax andenjoy.
Hello friends, and welcome backto another episode of the Tea
with Tina podcast.
Today I have a little bit of amini rant for you and I promise

(00:35):
what I'm talking about is goingto relate to your fitness
journey and how you could showup and probably your life in
some way.
You may have experienced whatI'm experiencing with a
different situation right.
So a theme that I've noticedover my life, particularly with
the fitness industry.
I've been in the fitnessindustry for quite a while, I'd

(00:56):
say.
I officially started workingout consistently when I was 16,
17.
I'm 29 now.
I became certified as apersonal trainer when I was 21.
So it's been eight years thatI've been certified and working
with clients, and something thatI've noticed is that there's
definitely a divide in space,and I think that that goes for

(01:19):
maybe any industry and anythingin general.
But particularly with socialmedia, I've noticed that what is
popular and what gets a lot ofattention is not stuff that I
align with or the way my brainworks.
You know, I feel like a lot ofthe stuff.

(01:40):
You know, anytime I try tocreate the content that they say
works well and will bringpeople to your business and draw
eyes, it just it always feelsinauthentic, it feels fake and
it doesn't feel like me.
And maybe that popular stuffdoes resonate with certain
people, but it's just, it justnever feels like me.

(02:00):
And that's actually why one ofthe reasons that I took a little
break from posting and creatingcontent because I feel like I
got kind of burned out on itbecause I was creating stuff
that didn't didn't feelauthentic.
And the same thing came withpodcasts.
Anytime I've tried to script apodcast episode and like pick a
topic to talk about it, it neverworks.

(02:23):
It feels like such a strain totry to create something I much
would rather share from what I'mexperiencing in my everyday
life.
I love looking out for thoselittle tidbits and challenging
myself.
That's actually where thispodcast episode came from.
So that's what I'm going toexperiment with.
Moving forward is trying to takewhether a client said something

(02:49):
, I saw something on tv.
You listen to a podcast, you'redriving and you think of
something.
Like it could be any scenarioif I think of a concept that's
interesting to share and buildupon that idea.
Um, that I get and and, and Ikind of want the same to be with
social media.
I know it'd be much more timeefficient to uh probably plan

(03:10):
out and and and plan ahead,because it is very time
consuming to try to come up withideas, film, edit, uh, post
stuff.
I know that sounds reallytedious to some of you because I
know, like social media and andjust uh people who post on
there a lot, it gets a bad rep.
But you know, for marketingperspective and educating
perspective, you know it can bechallenging on top of trying to

(03:36):
run your actual business.
So I'm gonna play around.
I want to build my momentumback up and just start posting
things that feel good to me andare mean.
It may not be the most popular,trendiest thing, that's going
to get a ton of likes, but it'sgoing to feel good to me to post
it.
And that's just the directionI'm leaning into and I think

(03:56):
there is going to be an elementof planning.
You know that will come with it.
I'm trying to kind of mesh thetwo together.
I think there's going to be anelement of pulling in trendy
topics but putting my own twiston it.
But I think to get the ballrolling I'm just going to start
with what feels good and that iswhere the tie-in leads into
fitness.

(04:16):
I actually created a post today.
I did my fitness class, asalways, I did a total body class
and I do the class with them.
It's always a great workout.
We had a great time and I useda couple, you know, unique moves
.
I felt really good.
You know, I did wood chopperswith a ball and then we used a
sledgehammer, which is newer,not a real sledgehammer, a

(04:38):
fitness-based sledgehammer.
The end of it's a little bitdifferent.
It's kind of more like a ball,so you don't hurt anything, and
it's a little leather body bagthat I think they use for like
boxing maybe or like karate, butwe used it to, uh, you know,
the sledgehammer to hit the bodyand uh, I just was thinking
about how it's more of a uniqueway of movement and uh, you know

(05:03):
, if you're feeling I feel likea lot of us get bored or maybe
we get in funks, um, you know,and we come into the fitness
space.
I know again talking about howthe fitness space is divided.
I'll tell you, it's like wehave the science bros who are
like well, you have to do thisperiodized program and it has to
be squat, bench, deadlift, andyou have to do the same thing

(05:28):
every day for the rest of yourlife, because that's how you
progress and if you do anythingdifferent, you're never going to
make progress.
And then we have the other endof the spectrum.
That is like a ton of crazydifferent stuff all of the time.
You know, maybe the fitnessYouTubers they're like doing lat
, raise, lunge, kickback, squat,dead bug, uh, deadlift in one

(05:50):
move, right.
So we, we have the both ends ofthe spectrum and, as always, I
kind of like to mesh both.
I always like to keep a key.
I've talked about this in myother videos, like about group
fitness and things.
If you want to learn more aboutthat, um, but I like to keep a
base of.
Hey, you know, like mostmovements are going to have some
element of like the five basicslike push, pull, squat, hinge

(06:14):
and carry and some would arguethat that carry like a farmer's
carry.
You can include core in there,like a plank or a rotation, you
of all of those, I think forsomebody who's a total newbie,
like making sure the basics areright, or if you have a weakness
and maybe your form's not great, yes, go to the basics, but if

(06:35):
you have pretty good movementand you're confident in your
movement, you know there'snothing wrong with doing a
YouTube video.
You know, I just made a post andI shared on the podcast the
other day, that consistencycomes before getting picky.
So you know, if doing randomworkouts every day is what you
need to do to get consistent andthen you go, okay, so now let

(06:58):
me do a little bit more of astructured program, then so be
it right.
I think if we try to start outlike too perfect and try to do
everything right, we can getbored, we can get confused, get
discouraged and then we just endup not showing up at all.
I always say that you couldhave the most perfect workout in
the world, but if you neverfollow through with it, you're
literally never going to getresults.
So you know, that's why I thinkdoing movement that is

(07:28):
enjoyable just like, for me,posting stuff that is enjoyable
is important.
And again, things come in waves,things come and go.
Obviously, not everything isset in stone.
There may be times that youkind of need to just put your
head down and be a little bitmore disciplined and sit through
the suck.
But like again, if you'refeeling like me, I was just
feeling very uninspired withsocial media.
It felt like a chore.
Um, like, literally, if I hadto think of an idea, my mind was

(07:51):
completely blank, noinspiration whatsoever.
I was like, okay, we need to goback to fun.
And if you feel that way too,it's like every day you try to
go to the gym, or every day youtell yourself you're going to
wake up and work out.
And it's been weeks, it's beenmonths, you're skipping it,
you're avoiding it.
The idea of thinking aboutworking out disgusts you.
Like.
Maybe you need to go back tofun, right, fun, so do movement

(08:13):
that brings you joy.
Again, there's no right orwrong movement.
There's so many ways to move,even outside of the gym.
You know, we have our machines,we have our barbells, we have
our dumbbells.
But can you bike, can you swim,can you play a sport?
Can you do functional movement?
Can you walk and hike?
Um, you know yard work,different things like that.

(08:37):
Go watch rocky four, is it four?
Rocky four, three or four, Idon't remember the one with the
russian guy and he goes intolike the middle of the nowhere
and it's snowy and rocky's liketraining with like logs and and
all this crazy stuff.
You can do it with nothing, youknow, um, so you know, move in
a way that feels good.

(08:57):
Dancing there's so many wayscleaning, gardening so many
options to move and I think we,like discredit ourselves and we
think, oh, if it doesn't fitinto this little box then it's
wrong and I definitely wasthinking that way with social
media oh well, if it doesn't fitinto the pretty box of
everything that's viral and letme tell you you may not notice

(09:18):
as a consumer, but I will say meas a fitness professional the
space it's very repetitive, it'skind of annoying.
I'm sure that happens witheverything, like entertainment
as well.
But you know, someone sees onepost that goes viral, then
everybody copies it exactly andjust you know it's their face

(09:40):
now.
But it's like it gets old and Ijust I don't like that vibe.
I'd rather show up in my wayand just let my creativity shine
through, because I've noticedthat even when I scroll for
entertainment, there's a lot ofum, you know unique, fun things
that come up and they're notnecessarily like following the
social media rules.
Where it's, you know, abeautiful background and you

(10:01):
have perfect lighting on you andeverything's scripted.
Sometimes it's just a phone andsomebody chatting to the camera
, but but the message that theyhave is valuable, right?
So it's not all the glitz andglamour, right?
I even bought like light setupsand a background and everything
to try to make this perfect,and I never even used it.
I think I'll use the lights inthe future because I do like the

(10:22):
lights, but I was just like,really, this is so stupid.
So, yeah, I had all that goingon, but yeah, again, same thing
relates to your movement, yoga,mobility, lots of ways to move.
Don't discredit just showing upand doing it right.
So if you're feeling bored,stuck, uninspired, maybe just

(10:44):
start with whatever brings you alittle bit of joy, get the reps
in and get the consistency.
Then you can worry about beinga little bit more zoned in.
All right, so that is mymessage for you today.
I hope you enjoyed and I willchat with you soon.
Bye.