The Algorithm is Ruining Fitness

This edition of Thrive Protocol covers how the need to crank out constant content does more harm than good, and how you can tune out the garbage and stay focused on your fitness goals

The algorithm.

This ambiguous threatening entity is often used by people to complain.

They complain that the reason their views are down or that they can’t gain any traction online is because of the algorithm. 

They may not be wrong; whether your content is seen on social media comes down to whether it is pushed out to people via social media algorithms.

But the more significant issue is how trying to gain the favor of the algorithm influences human behavior.

The drive to cater to the algorithm by creating consistent scroll-stopping content has caused serious problems for the fitness industry:

• Realistic and natural progress has been replaced by people who lie about using performance-enhancing drugs.

• Sustainable nutrition plans have been replaced by extreme diets and binge eating on camera.

• Tried and true exercise regimens have been replaced by ridiculous and stupid ones.

• Real weights have been replaced with fake ones 

This push toward scroll-stopping posts creates unrealistic expectations and sets a high bar for those looking to get in shape.

The truth is what works best for improving your fitness isn’t brand new or particularly sexy.

There are several ways that the need for influencers to post increasingly frequent and sensationalist content is damaging your perception of fitness.

Fake Nattys

A “fake natty” lies about taking PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs).

There are two levels of fake natty: level one is those who don’t explicitly say they’re natural but aren’t transparent about their enhancement.

The morality here is debatable: you could argue that it is the duty of someone taking PEDs to be honest about how they achieve their results. But at least they’re not explicitly lying.

I fall into the camp of thinking that this is still lying, especially when enhanced transformations are publicly celebrated and endorsed (check out this article by Daniel Hopper on the transformation of Chris Hemsworth’s stunt double for Thor )

Level two fake natty’s double down on the lie — they insist they are natural in the face of evidence to the contrary. 

There is no moral ambiguity here — level two fake nattys are despicable.

I’m not in the business of calling out fake nattys, but some do this well. 

Canadian bodybuilder Coach Greg Doucette does a great job of exposing the BS — he has a unique perspective because he spent years competing as a natural bodybuilder before transitioning to using PEDs (Coach Greg is one of the few who is transparent about PEDs).

How Common is Steroid Use?

A 2006 study estimated that 15–30% of standard gym goers use some form of steroid.

That is a wild statistic! And this is from 2006; it is much easier to acquire PEDs online 16 years later.

Chances are that super jacked dude at your gym is not natural. The same goes for anyone who shows up at the top of your fitness feed on Instagram (or anyone sponsored by Gym Shark aside from Will Tennyson).

This problem is only getting worse. As more people take drugs to achieve an incredible physique, the more necessary taking drugs becomes to keep up with social media standards.

A natural lifter can’t turn heads on social media platforms saturated with enhanced lifters (many of whom still claim to be natural).

Why is this a Problem?

It’s Lethal

Arnold Schwarzenegger has called bodybuilding the most dangerous sport in the world: there are too many stories of bodybuilders dropping dead from organ issues.

As the pressure to use steroids to keep up with the standards of social media increases, we’ll hear about more cases of young men dying from steroid abuse.

It makes regular people feel like sh*t

You’ve been showing up to the gym and putting in a good effort — you’re making progress and feeling great about it.

But then you hop online and see 18-year-olds who look like Thor.

You see 21-year-olds deadlifting 700+ pounds, and meanwhile, you’re struggling to pull three plates.

The reality is that your progress is much more realistic for a typical person not taking drugs. Still, you don’t realize this: You compare yourself to these people who may or may not be blatantly lying about steroid use, and it’s impossible not to feel inadequate.

The desire to rank in the newsfeed puts pressure on young people to take performance-enhancing drugs. Many of them are not transparent about this, or they lie straight up about it.

To feel good about your progress as a natural, you need to be aware of this. If you compare yourself to what you see from the algorithm, you might give up in despair.

Binge Eating On Camera

Matt Does Fitness is one of the most popular fitness accounts on YouTube.

If you check it out and scroll back a few years, his videos focus primarily on what you might expect from the name of the channel: fitness. 

He makes content on example workouts, tips on programming and training, etc.

But as you scroll through the years, you’ll notice a change: the content starts to shift toward food.

And I’m not talking about videos sharing low-calorie recipes and nutrition tips — these videos include 10, 15, 20, and, yes, 25,000-calorie food challenges.

For context, 25,000 calories are significantly more than an active man would eat in an entire week.

It’s not just Matt Does Fitness who has traded helpful fitness content for gratuitous eating; this trend is common among fitness influences. Food videos rank incredibly well — people on the internet love to watch others eat.

But is this a problem? What’s the harm in a few fun cheat days if people enjoy it?

It spreads a message that is unrealistic for most people.

People are desperate to believe they can lose weight while still eating all the food they love. They want to believe that there are hacks and tricks to achieve this.

So they get inspired by their favorite influences who can scarf down ten days worth of calories in a single day and think, “so and so can do it, so why not me?”

There are several reasons why you can’t (or shouldn’t)

Time

A full-time YouTuber probably doesn’t have the same demands on their time as you do. Many bodybuilders who eat cheat meals do hours of cardio daily on top of 2–3 hour workouts. 

Do you have time to exercise for 5 hours per day?

It’s not sexy to talk about these tradeoffs, so they conveniently get left out of the cheat day videos. We only see the eating part, not all the other components that go into managing this volume of food and maintaining a lean physique.

It is often disordered eating.

Nobody gets out of adhering to energy balance. 

If a 120-pound woman films a video of her stuffing down over 10,000 calories (and she’s thin), she is balancing this energy somehow. 

Firstly, she may be straight-up faking. This is a possibility, and accusations of fake bingers exist in addition to fake nattys.

If she truly eats the food, however, she is probably starving herself the rest of the time.

With the rise of gratuitous eating ranking so well on social media, more and more fitness influences will adopt the trend. They’ll endorse disordered eating habits that are impossible to maintain healthily to appease the algorithm.

Ridiculous Exercises

Who wants to see the bench press, squat, or deadlift anymore? Booooring.

Those exercises aren’t going to get views on TikTok!

This is the mindset behind the increase of absurd exercises that are beginning to take over Instagram and TikTok.

The truth of what works lacks novelty and sexiness. The truth is that the same tried and true compound movements used for decades are still the best way to get results in the gym.

• Bench Press

• Back Squat

• Deadlifts

• Weighted Dips + Chinups

• Military Press

You could write a great program with literally just those six movements.

But these are old news now, aren’t they? So now we get dudes doing obscure exercises to be different and stand out in the newsfeed.

Fitness YouTuber Scott Herman breaks this down perfectly in this video.

Beware of BS on Instagram and TikTok fitness. The truth is that the best way to progress is to stick to a basic program with the same exercises (so that you build skill with them) and a balanced diet. The extreme stuff exists to appease the algorithm, not to help you.

Fake Weights

It’s not enough to lie about the PEDs that fuel epic lifts in the gym.

Influencers also have to use fake weights to stand out in the newsfeed.

Fake weights exist to help people practice techniques for lifts while including the physical size of the plates on the barbell. They have a purpose — but that’s not what they’re used for now.

Even THE most popular fitness YouTuber (Jeff Cavaliere of Athlean X) was called out for using fake weights.

He is far from the only one; fake weights are as common as fake nattys. This fantastic video and article on Exercise Review Site breaks down the use of fake weights on social media.

The drive to create content consistently that can turn heads in the fitness industry is causing influencers to:

• Abuse steroids

• Endorse binge eating over sustainable nutrition

• Advocate for silly exercises

• Lie about lifts with fake weights

Why does this matter to you?

If you’re new to fitness, this can create a completely unrealistic vision of what you can achieve. It can mislead you about what’s possible and ideal for training, nutrition, and performance.

Here’s what you can do:

Adjust your expectations for what you can achieve naturally.

This doesn’t mean giving up and settling; it means understanding how common steroid use is among trainers, fitness influencers, and people at the local gym.

Don’t believe that it’s healthy or normal to eat over 10,000 calories in a single day.

Stick to programs and exercises that have stood the test of time, you don’t have to be doing a bunch of weird shit to make progress.

Come up with a list of reliable fitness creators who you can trust.

Some of my favorites are:

• Jeff Nippard

• Layne Norton

• Andy Galpin

• Mike Matthews

• Peter Attia

• Alpha Destiny

• Scott Herman

How many ways can you advocate for a balanced diet and a simple program with tried and true exercises? 

The options are limited.

And yet the algorithm demands consistent, fresh, scroll-stopping content.

Thus the bullshit of the fitness industry is created.

Be on the lookout for this garbage. Have realistic expectations and a list of fitness content creators you can trust.

Don’t let your fitness journey be affected by sensationalist content motivated by the algorithm.