Social media particularly Facebook and Instagram have become a popular platform for posting photos of everyday activities, special occasions, and funny moments among their members. Fitness-related photos are becoming increasingly popular postings alongside the usual images, an increase that can be attributed to the heightened awareness about the benefits of physical fitness.
Risks and Rewards
But should you even post your pre- and post-workout photos, even your actual training session, on your social media accounts? Keep in mind that, like all things on the Internet, there are risks and rewards for putting yourself out there, so to speak, including inviting criticisms and encouraging others, respectively.
Of the risks, the most common are the uncalled for criticisms including body shaming that can adversely affect your mental health. You should be mentally prepared for these risks because of the presence of trolls, haters, and mean individuals, among others. You have to always remember, too, that the risks are far outweighed by the rewards of posting your fitness photos online.
When done in the right manner, your fitness photos can provide the following benefits:
- Get support. When you post fitness selfies, your family and friends, even strangers who appreciate the hard work that comes into physical fitness, can express their moral support for your fitness goals. You will feel more motivated to stick to your routine with the encouragement and suggestions coming your way.
- Monitor your progress. Photos speak a thousand words – and it is all too true with your progress in weight loss or building muscle. With photos, you will have a visual timeline of your progress instead of just relying on numbers from the scales and measuring tape. Your motivation levels will increase when you start seeing observable results in your body, too.
- Add a dose of fun to your workouts. Sometimes, physical fitness can be serious activity especially when numbers, such as reps and sets, BMIs and body fat, and weights, come into the picture. With fitness selfies, you can overcome the serious side and appreciate the funny side.
- Encourage others. Physical fitness can be challenging, too, as you can attest for yourself. Every encouragement from others will go a long a way toward keeping your motivation levels up – and you can do the same thing for others, too. Your fitness selfie, especially when you use the before-and-after effect, can motivate others to get on their own fitness programs.
Indeed, don’t hesitate to post your fitness selfies! You have the choice of posting your pre- or post-workout selfies during your workout session at a Title Boxing Club gym. You can also ask a fellow gym-goer to snap a photo while you are in action, which can then be posted to your social media account at a later time.
The bottom line: Your social media fitness selfies can be the evidence of your hard work in achieving optimum physical fitness. You have to be conscious, however, about the impact of your fitness selfies on others, such as avoidance of body shaming in your captions against others who have different body shapes and sizes than yours.
Dos and Don’ts
You can maximize the benefits of posting your fitness selfies on social media by keeping these tips in mind. Common sense also comes into play in your decision to post or not to post your fitness photos on your social media accounts.
- Keep it simple. Let your changing body take center stage by posing in front of a solid-colored wall or amidst exercise equipment. Even the slightest hint of photo editing, such as placing stickers, can detract away from the center of attention as well as make the veracity of your progress become doubtful.
- Avoid cropping your head out of the photo. Since you are showing off your progress in physical fitness, it only makes sense to show your happy face. Many people fall into “The Headless Transformation” effect that they fail to encourage others by putting a face to the body.
- Avoid extreme close-ups of body parts, such as your abdomen alone. While your followers and friends already know that the body part being featured is yours, you will want to show your face, too. Besides, the beauty of one part of your body can be better appreciated in relation to its other parts.
- Show some skin but keep it classy. You can be in your gym wear or in your bikini but you should avoid adopting too-sexy poses – unless, of course, that was your intention in the first place. But if you want to show off the results of your hard work, you are well-advised to adopt poses that emphasize your improved physique.
- Be consistent in your before-and-after photos. Do the same pose, in the same clothes, and in the same place for your before and after photos, thus, showing your true progress.
And when you have shown your new physique to the world, you can be proud of yourself. You should then prepare yourself for the next challenge – sustain your results!