Social media challenging your abs?
Social media trends on Facebook and Twitter have created a sense of community online through popular pages and hashtags. Many of these trends have supported healthier living and fitness through the public’s joint goals and visible progress.
On Twitter, there are general hashtags, like #fitness and #health, that often contain countless posts from across the globe. Twitter’s more popular hashtag trends go a step further by being more focused, like #transformationtuesday, one of the most popular hashtags to date. For #transformationtuesday, people put up before and after photos that show how their physical fitness and weight has improved over time. Facebook has gone through similar fitness-oriented trends in its statuses and pages.
One major social media health craze is the 30-Day Ab Challenge that began on June 1. Posted by Montana resident Robyn Mendenhall Gardner, the challenge’s Facebook event page has gained 850,000 followers in less than a week. The page currently has 2.6 million participants who are now partaking in Gardner’s month long trial.
Although the challenge has gained a significant following, the 30-Day Ab Challenge was not intended for such popularity. Gardner, age 40, created the page so family and friends could participate in the challenge with her and serve as a source of motivation.
“It’s not really my own,” Gardner told Philly.com of the challenge. “I’d tried this challenge myself, but I quickly lost interest. So I decided to invite some friends and family members to keep me motivated.”
The challenge includes a month-worth of planking, sit-ups, crunches and leg raises. Each day necessitates a certain amount of time the participant should spend performing each activity and how many exercises should be performed.
“What I’d like to happen (and what will happen will probably be very different) would be for everyone to post their comments of completion, or post pics or a video of parts of their workout or the whole workout,” Gardner wrote on the Facebook page. The intention of utilizing the Facebook wall for interactive purposes is to “keep everyone motivated and to also try and hold everyone accountable,” she wrote.
The 30-Day Ab Challenge is one of many Internet trends that focuses on improving people’s health and fitness. Facebook and Twitter as Internet platforms provide the public with access to a greater community, with which the public can share their accomplishments, failures and fitness goals. As Gardner hoped, the 30-Day Ab Challenge page is now filled with participants’ statuses, pictures and polls of their ongoing progress.
Yet, not everyone is in favor of the social media fitness fad. According to Elite Daily, some believe popular Twitter and Facebook fitness accounts have developed a “cult-like following” that has resulted in the over-sized egos of social media “celebrities” and guilt trips for those pursuing different lifestyles.
Regardless, several fitness brands have acknowledged the popularity and growing size of health-oriented social media, and have created social media pages and challenges of their own. Some brands that are positively utilizing these Internet platforms to support fitness and promote their organizations are Crossfit, with 1.3 million Facebook followers and an active Instagram following, and Nike Training Club, with 1.8 million Facebook followers and a smartphone fitness app for women. Both brands, according to Simply Measured, use their content on social media platforms to foster community and further motivate their viewers.
Have you taken part in any social media fitness trends? Let us know about your experience on our Twitter @BirdsNestOrg and on our Facebook page.