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Social media fitness trends: Men twice as likely to post images of them working out

Social media fitness trends: Men twice as likely to post images of them working out

Men Dominate Fitness Selfies, While Women Focus on Workouts, Finds UK Study.


A new study looking at the top social media fitness trends in the UK has uncovered that men are twice as likely to upload posts of themselves working out than women, while less than two fifths of posts about fitness are taken in the gym.

The research was conducted by the team behind sports and fitness equipment specialists www.sweatband.com, in which more than 1,500 Instagram posts were analysed.

For the study, the team looked at the top 500 posts of the three biggest fitness hashtags in the UK: #UKfitfam, #UKfitness, and #UKFit.

Looking at the location of the top social media fitness posts in the UK, it was found that less than two fifths (37%) were actually taken in the gym, with the remaining 63% in the home, outside, or elsewhere.

Investigating further, it was found that the majority of posts taken from within the gym were selfies, accounting for 56% of relevant uploads, while the remaining 44% pertained to workouts.

Of the videos and images of workouts, the study found that nearly twice as many of these types of posts were uploaded by men, with 62% compared to 38% by women.

Only 5% of the top social media fitness posts in the UK contained images or videos of food, there were slightly more posts by women (52%) compared to men (44%).

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the top fitness posts in the UK involved fitfluencers in their workout gear (76%).

Commenting on the findings of the study, Ruth Stone, consultant PT at www.sweatband.com, said:

“So much of the fitness content consumed by the public is from social media, so we thought it would be interesting to drill down into what these posts actually look like. It’s important to remember that not everyone that posts workouts or images on social media are professionally trained, and there could be a risk of injury in following advice from someone that is unqualified.”