As the owners of Workout Anytime Tucson, the first Tucson franchise of the national 24/7 fitness chain, Jason and Melissa Lobaugh have grown accustomed to having local fitness influencers in their space. Generally, they’re the ones you see hoisting their cellphones while they pump iron and talking in a loud, animated voice on the treadmill to unseen followers on Instagram or TikTok.
“Basically, our rule is common sense,” said Jason. “If these fitness influencers want to come in and set up their tripods and everything, we just ask that they’re mindful of other members, and we’re careful to monitor what they’re doing. It can be good free marketing. If you get a fitness influencer in that is popular and does a good job, then that can help your business.”
However, it occasionally gets a little out of hand.
“I got a call at home one afternoon and our employee said that this one influencer we were aware of just brought an entire film crew into the gym and started filming,” Jason said — no heads-up, no asking for permission, just lights, camera, action. “So, I marched myself down there and said, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ We had to ask him to leave.”
For the Lobaughs, it was more than just a breach of etiquette. The whole setup violated rules about their branding, waivers, everything. The incident highlighted the growing tension between certified fitness professionals and a new generation of social media fitness stars — some of whom boast large followings and impressive physiques, yet lack formal training.
“You do have to be very careful treading that line,” said Melissa. “It’s a double-edged sword. Fitness influencers can give you good publicity, but a lot of them don’t necessarily have the background to offer training. So there’s potential for litigation, if people get hurt following their advice and your gym’s associated with them.”
The Lobaughs said they pride themselves on building a culture of camaraderie, personal growth and, most of all, safety. “When we hire a trainer, they have to have the proper certifications,” Melissa said. “Certified trainers are going to offer greater results, less chance of injury and more personalized instruction than someone that you just saw on Instagram.”
However, increasingly, the traditional model is being disrupted by influencers whose qualifications are often limited to great abs and a ring light, yet whose audience reach can surpass even that of the most successful gyms.
And the social media-driven fitness boom shows no signs of slowing. According to the American College of Sports Medicine’s 2025 trend report, influencer-led workouts now rank among the top 12 global fitness trends. The appeal is easy to understand: flashy, short-form videos showcasing workouts, meal plans and before-and-after transformations offer an accessible, often free way for viewers to get motivated. Quick tips here, perfect bodies there.
But experts say there’s a dangerous downside to people essentially putting their health in the hands of entertainers.
“You see a lot of these bodybuilders who look good and then start making content, trying to attract clients by showing them how they build so much muscle,” said Pedro Magalhaes, fitness coordinator for Campus Recreation at the University of Arizona. “But they don’t know how to train others to get the results they want, so their followers often aren’t meeting their personal fitness goals and sometimes get hurt.”
Magalhaes trains UArizona students to become certified fitness professionals through programs recognized by industry bodies like the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). He’s seen the fallout of social media trends firsthand, with people coming in with injuries from trying TikTok challenges or one-size-fits-all routines.
“They think they’re replicating what worked for someone else,” he said. “But they don’t realize those workouts weren’t made for them.”
Of course, not every influencer is a liability. In fact, some do it right — by respecting the spaces they use, acknowledging the limits of their knowledge and working to build credibility both online and off.
Take Karely Gomez. She’s 22, an NASM-certified personal trainer in Tucson. She has built her entire training and juice business primarily through TikTok and Instagram. Presently, she works at Starbucks, often pulling late hours, while planning to go full-time with her businesses.
But she stresses that she’s doing the influencer thing responsibly. Before shooting in any gym or business, she makes sure she has permission — sometimes even an invitation.
“Recently, I partnered up with this local private gym called 520 Muay Thai,” she said. “They wanted to add more diversity to the fitness programs they were offering, so the owner saw some of the stuff I was doing and reached out to me, saying, ‘Hey, I have this space, and or you can do your group training here.’ It was the biggest blessing.”
There’s no law requiring personal trainers to be certified, but most gyms require some form of certification to work there. In the world of fitness influencers, the guidelines are much looser.
“Initially, I just tried to follow what other fitness influencers were doing as my guidelines,” Gomez said. “Like, if they’re able to post that, I should be able to post this. But I’ve learned to be more cautious. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. Now I’m always checking, is what I’m posting effective? Is it going to help others in the community?”
That kind of caution is what professionals like Allie Leonard hope to see more of in the digital age. Leonard works as a sport programs coordinator for campus recreation at The University of Arizona, where she teaches certification courses, and she also runs her own boutique training business in Tucson.
She credits influencers with introducing more people to physical fitness, but notes that often social media followers are just looking for a quick fix.
“You have people come to you who might be just starting their fitness journey, and that’s always an exciting thing,” Leonard said. “But a lot of the times they come in with this misinformation — like, ‘I saw this on TikTok and this this person got in shape by just doing this.’ And I have to say, ‘No they they’re trying to sell you a program or a supplement. There’s so much more that goes into it. But unfortunately, people don’t like to hear about how hard fitness can be.”
Leonard has her own Instagram page, where she combines fun clips with brief lessons based on proven results. “It’s so easy to find wrong information out there that I think it needs to be just as easy to find the correct information,” she explained.
Magalhaes has one, too, where he mostly charts his progress as a runner. “At this point, if you’re not using social media, I think you’re gonna fall behind very quickly,” he said. “But stay inside your scope of practice. As trainers, we have a certain scope. We don’t go outside of it, especially with nutrition. I think that’s where we see a lot of damage being done.”
“I think fitness influencers are trying to sell a look, rather than a healthy lifestyle,” added Leonard. “It shouldn’t be so much about aesthetics. It should be about, am I eating right? Do I feel good? Do I have less fatigue? Do I sleep well at night? All of those different things that make up being a healthy individual.”
The problem, said the Lobaughs, is that quality training often gets drowned out in the noisy world of fitness content.
“We encourage our trainers to build their own brand and, you know, have a good relationship with their clients,” Jason said. “And of course, most of that stuff has to be vetted. If they’re working for us, most of what they’re putting out has to be vetted through us before they can post it. But yes, we do encourage them to build their own brand.”
“We actually have a social media content creator and a brand ambassador,” added Melissa. “One great benefit of that is if you like and follow our gyms, you’re able to kind of see the trainer that you’re getting. Not all trainers are for all people.”
Nicole Thompson, senior fitness and nutrition specialist with ACE, sees both opportunity and risk in the influencer-led shift.
“What I’d tell a young fitness influencer is, your passion for fitness is a huge asset — and we appreciate it — so hold onto that,” she began. “But pairing it with an accredited certification, like the ACE Personal Trainer Certification, can take your credibility and impact to another level. Getting certified means, you’ll actually know how to design safe, effective programs tailored to individual needs. It also sets you apart in a crowded space where anyone can call themselves a ‘coach.’”
In the end, Thompson says, the public needs to learn how to distinguish sound fitness advice from “posts that look credible but are built on shaky science — or no science at all.”
“Be curious, not just impressed,” she advised. “If someone is offering medical or nutrition advice, look for relevant licenses, like RD or MD. And be wary of anyone who promises rapid transformations, demonizes entire food groups, or ties your worth to your weight. A good rule of thumb: Real experts don’t need gimmicks.”
This article appears in Jul 24-31, 2025.