Fitness Influencer Advice: Experience vs. Confidence in Online Coaching

I see fitness influencers share advice online every single day, and while some of it is helpful, a lot of it is taken out of context or delivered with way too much certainty. The truth is that misinformation spreads fast, especially in an industry where people are constantly entering and exiting. I want to talk about why that happens, how it affects who you choose to listen to, and how to better filter the advice you’re taking in.

People have no idea just how much turnover there actually is in the. Around 80 percent of personal trainers who get certified end up leaving the industry within their first year. That’s not a small number!!! That’s a massive annual turnover rate, and it plays a much bigger role than people realize when it comes to who they choose to listen to and trust with their health.

To be clear, this isn’t me saying that new trainers are bad or that they shouldn’t be given a chance. We all start somewhere, and new coaches can be passionate, knowledgeable, and genuinely excited to help people. The part that concerns me is how quickly someone can get certified or gain a following online and immediately start speaking in absolutes, as if they have it all figured out already.

And if I’m being honest, I was that coach too. As soon as I became NASM certified, I felt like my eyes had been opened and like I knew as much as someone who'd been training for years. I was excited, motivated, and eager to share everything I had just learned. I absolutely spouted my ass off with the new knowledge like I had discovered something else no one knew. At the time, I didn’t realize how normal that phase actually is, especially in an industry like fitness and nutrition where learning even the basics can feel life changing.

News flash to old me....I didn't know jack. I had just barely dipped the tiny tip of my pinky toe into the fitness waters.

I had been fooled by the Dunning Kruger effect. It’s a psychological concept that explains how people with limited experience often overestimate how much they know, while people with more experience become more aware of how much there still is to learn. When you’re new, everything feels simple and clear. As you stay in it longer, things get more complex, more nuanced, and a lot less black and white.

There is absolutely no way a personal trainer can know everything within their first few years of coaching. I don’t care how many certifications they have, how many podcasts they listen to, or how much content they consume online. Unless someone has the time and ability to spend every second of every day learning and even then, that knowledge still has to be tested in the real world with real clients. Real understanding comes from coaching actual humans with different bodies, injuries, stress levels, schedules, hormones, and relationships with food. That only happens by staying in the game long enough to see patterns, mistakes, successes, and everything in between.

This is also where influencers come into the picture, and this is not me saying all influencers are bad. There are some incredibly knowledgeable people online who share great information. The issue is that social media rewards confidence, simplicity, and certainty instead of nuance. Someone can learn one new concept, have it work well for them or a small group of people, and suddenly it’s being shared as the answer for everyone. When you combine that with algorithms pushing the loudest and most extreme takes, misinformation spreads fast.

Another layer to this that people don’t always consider is money. Personal training on its own is not the most lucrative job, especially when you’re just starting out. Because of that, a lot of trainers feel pressure to sell something, whether that’s supplements, programs, detoxes, challenges, or products they’re affiliated with. That doesn’t automatically make them dishonest, but it does create a situation where things can get over hyped and over priced very quickly. It’s much easier to sell a product as a must have than it is to explain that most progress actually comes from boring, consistent basics. Because that doesn't create excitement and make fast money.

A lot of the products being pushed online are not magic. They’re often marketed as shortcuts or missing pieces, when in reality most people don’t need nearly as much as they’re being told.

Supplements, special tools, or trendy programs can absolutely have a place, but they’re rarely the thing holding someone back. Honest coaching sometimes means saying you don’t need to buy anything new right now, and that’s not always the most profitable message to share.

A lot of what you see online sounds very convincing because it’s delivered with confidence and packaged neatly into rules like:

Do this.

Never do that.

Eat this.

Avoid this forever.

Train this way or you’re wasting your time.

And the thing is, fitness and nutrition doesn't actually work that way and nothing about the human body is black and white, even though social media loves to make it seem like it is.

This is why I encourage people to slow down when consuming fitness and nutrition content online. When you hear someone confidently spelling out advice, especially advice that sounds rigid, extreme, or tied to selling something, take it with a grain of salt. Do a little digging into who you’re getting your information from. Ask questions like:

How long have they been coaching real people, not just posting content?

Do they work with a variety of individuals or only people who look and live like them?

Are they willing to say it depends, or do they always have a product that conveniently solves the problem?

I used to be the coach who thought she knew everything. I really believed I had it all figured out the moment I was told I passed my proctored NASM test. Now, over five and a half years into coaching in person and online and helping over 150+ people, mostly women, I can honestly say I know so much more than I did back then, and at the same time, I feel more aware than ever of how much I still don’t know. That’s not insecurity. That’s experience.

There’s something powerful about a coach who is willing to be wrong, who is open to learning, and who is constantly adapting based on new information and real world experience. The coaches who stay in this industry year after year are the ones who understand that learning never stops and that real progress comes from curiosity, not certainty.

Those are usually the people worth listening to.

xo,

Coach Maggie