The world of fitness influencers is filled with weird right wing gymbros who can only seem to promote the mindset of a tumor (that is, constant and unending growth).
Growth, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing to aspire when working out. You want to become stronger, fitter, healthier to some degree. However, I sort of miss balanced takes when looking for online fitness figures.
In The Netherlands we have Joel Beukers as the leading fitfluencer. He’s known for his dramatic screaming into the camera and selling his own pre workout and protein shakes (filled with insane amounts of cafeine). Lately he’s becoming a more AliExpress version of Andrew Tate it seems and things are starting to get to his head. Some time ago he made a vid about ‘starting from the bottom’ despite growing up in the ultra rich Gooi area of the country. He also drives around in Gold lambo’s and stuff.
Anyway, my own goals have shifted from becoming a literal hulk with an eating disorder to maintaining a more balanced lifestyle while also working on my strength, cardio and agility. But I can’t seem to find any good online figures to check out for tips. So far the only ones I keep watching are Joe Delaney for routines and Andrew Bernard for (vega) food tips.
So, what people do you guys follow?
I focus on strength training and have a couple decades of wear and tear on my body from doing it that I have to deal with, so here’s my list:
Alexander Bromley - My current favorite youtuber, entertaining and really informative. Occasionally repeats the some reactionary bs that Greg Nuckols puts out but overall is awesome. He also has at least one video pushing back on the science focused influencers which is worth a watch.
Meg Squats - Nice source of knowledge and workout routines.
The Bioneer - Already mentioned but he has some unorthodox takes and includes things like mental training that’s usually left out of training.
Brian Alsruhe - His channel got weird during covid because he was dealing with very severe health problems following his stints in counterterrorism with the US military (multiple parasitic infections that made him throw up 50 times a day - karma?) but he has some of the best lifting tutorials that I’ve found and it looks like he’s making interesting videos again now.
Renaissance Periodization - Fun analysis of celebrity training and a ton of workout information.
Juggernaut - Another good training source, particularly with Olympic lifting.
Zack Telander - Good Olympic lifting tutorials and a lot of videos of him calling people out.
Squat University - Good resource for dealing with pain and injuries. The reason why I now wear wide toe-box shoes and have toe spreaders.
Athlean X - Another good source for dealing with injuries. Also a great source for workout plans for “mirror” muscles like abs and biceps, though I’d never take his advice for gaining strength (exhale all your air before initiating a squat???)
Alan Thrall - One of the originals in strength training on youtube, he’s still making great content but seems to swing from one ideology to the next a bit much. But he has a great rise/fall video of an OG youtuber here: Elliot