With over a billion Facebook users, more than 9,000 Tweets posted per second and an average of 55 million photos uploaded via Instagram everyday, it’s hard to escape the weird and wonderful world of the ever growing social networking sites. Hours can be wasted scrolling through the hundreds of friends status updates and latest celebrity tweets, with the majority of what we read we most likely will not even remember in the next few minutes. However, choose to ‘follow’ and ‘Like’ a few of the right pages, and you may just discover a new and instant inspirational tool to get you up and active.
By social networking – fitness style – you can discover things like nutrition and exercise tracking, personal blogs, goal-setting, group exercise classes, and photo and video sharing of physical activities. Sites including these could be truly useful tools for individuals interested in diet, fitness and health, or who are looking to lose some weight or changing their physique. By taking advantage of what social networking has to offer, the fitness minded now have some new tools to help track their progress, such as Nike + and other fitness apps, meet new people, and probably and most importantly, help you stay motivated (try out @LifeTools or @themusicrunner).
Scientific studies show that tech-savvy types are using social media for real fitness gains. Research by activity tracker, Fitbit, found that Facebook is one of the top motivators when it comes to getting the nation in shape, encouraging 64% of users to crave exercise after reading a Facebook friend’s sporty boast. Furthermore, Scientists of South California University revealed that weight-loss fans lost an average of 0.05% of body weight for every 10 tweets they read and/or posted on Twitter, dropping more pounds than those who weren’t on the social site.
To get yourself on ‘The Social Net-Workout’ bandwagon, a popular community to join on Twitter is the hashtag phenomenom #fitfam, a worldwide group of exercise enthusiasts who post more than 2,000 motivating tweets a day containing inspirational quotes and images, along with ‘tweeps’ keeping log of their fitness regimes and work-outs. Also, by logging into Twitter on a Friday and filling up the search bar with #fitnessfriday you will find your screen scattered with exercise tips. For those on Facebook – which is probably most you of – according to the site, there are over 54 million Facebook pages of which many are exercise-based. Some of the top most used include The Nike Training Club, PTonthenet and the Mens and Women’s Health and Fitness page. Facebook also links with popular exercise apps such as Runkeeper, Endomondo Sports tracker and Nike+. These apps are great for motivation, showing how your performance has progressed, and making you feel responsible and proud to share your workout results.
So, next time you find yourself lazing about with your phone in your hand or sat at your laptop, use these popular devices to kick start your routine and get you buzzing for your workout. Remember – ‘run the day, don’t let the day run you’ and ‘the higher you climb, the further you can see’, don’t stop now, this is just the beginning!
Top 5 Motivational Twitter Accounts to get you started…
1. @BeFitMotivation – to motivate and inspire and healthy active lifestyle.
2. @Sports_HQ – Sports Quotes & Fitness Motivation.
3. @LV_Sports – Athlete Motivation from the best Sports People.
4. @MuscleFitness – Your ultimate source for training, nutrition, & motivation.
5. @0 – Success and Truth, motivational quotes and images.
Enjoy!
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