Instagram has become hugely popular for fitness-related content. Needless to say, hundreds of fitness influencers from all walks of life have developed huge followings from the growing Instagram fitness community.
It’s no secret that many of these personal trainers, bodybuilders, and models other fitness influencers often promote their own workout plans on Instagram. In fact, it seems like every other major fitness account offers either a membership plan, a meal prep guide or a weekly workout plan.
However, if you are interested in the workout program of one particular fitness guru, you may be on the fence about whether or not it’s actually worth buying.
In this post, you can discover the five questions you should ask yourself about the program to figure out if it’s worth the money.
5 questions you should ask before buying a workout program
Before we get into these questions, you might be wondering how I might know how to figure out if any program is worth buying.
Although I haven’t tried dozens and dozens of Instagram workout programs (nor do I want to), I have had the pleasure of reviewing five workout programs by some of the most popular Instagram fitness influencers.
Some programs have been fantastic and I have gotten a ton of value from them. Others… not so much. Regardless, after reviewing these programs and following the influencers that made them, I now have a pretty good understanding of how to figure out which influencers are worth buying programs from.
What are the fitness influencer’s qualifications?
Before you go ahead and buy a program from a fitness influencer, you should have a pretty good understanding of what that person’s background looks like.
After all, there are hundreds of fitness influencers that look great but don’t have certifications or formal education in fitness and nutrition. As a result, they might not be qualified to be giving advice that can drastically affect the health of their followers.
That being said, it’s worth seeing if they have some basic qualifications.
For instance, if you are considering buying a program from a personal trainer you might want to ask yourself, “Is this person actually a certified personal trainer? What type of certification do they have? What does that certification mean?”.
If the person claims that he or she is a personal trainer or fitness coach, yet isn’t certified, that should be a red flag and you should probably question the validity of that person’s advice.
Often times you can just do a quick google search of the person you are interested in to check up on their credentials.
Does the fitness influencer provide quality advice in their posts?
When you scroll through the fitness guru’s Instagram feed, its good to really take a critical look at what their content looks like.
Often times if an influencer provides good quality content that you can learn something from, this is often a good indication that any paid programs of theirs will be good quality as well.
For instance, if an influencer regularly posts videos of their workouts and in the caption explains the exercises in the video and provides a thorough explanation of the techniques involved, I would say this is good quality content you can learn from. In turn, you can probably guess that the quality of their paid programs is good as well.
On the other hand, if you look through their Instagram feed and most of their posts are made to be more entertaining than informational, its tough to say if their paid programs will be good quality. Their programs might be very generic, not very thorough, and simply not very helpful.
That’s not to say that every fitness influencer that doesn’t provide good actionable advice in their posts is selling a mediocre program per se. It simply means that it’s just harder to tell if the advice in their program will be good quality since they don’t provide quality advice for you to see for free.
Are they perfectly clear about what you actually will get in the program?
If the details regarding the program aren’t very thorough or if the details are sort of vague, this should be a red flag.
For instance, on the offer page, its usually not a good sign if the details regarding the program look like this:
“Jimmy Smith’s fitness Ebook
- Personalized workout plans
- Customized nutrition plans
- Designed to get you in the best shape of your life!
Buy now for 49.95!”
If you see an offer look like, it’s tough to know specifically what you will receive because the offer is vague and there are very few details.
This offer begs the questions:
Are the workout plans and nutrition for bulking up or cutting? How exactly are the workout plans personalized? Are there videos demonstrating the exercises? What does the format look like? How many workout plans are there? Are there recipes that come with the nutrition plans? How long is the ebook?
These are the type of questions you should naturally be asking.
On the other hand, it’s a much better sign if the offer looks something like this:
“Johnny Brown’s 12-week bulking guide Ebook
- 12 weeks of workout for building muscle (5 workouts per week for chest, back, legs, shoulders, arms)
- Video demos provided for each exercise included in the workouts
- Commentary on the proper technique for each set in the workouts
- Bulking nutrition plan with daily calorie/macro intake based on gender, bodyweight, and age
- Recipes for recommended recipes included
Buy now for 49.95”
Notice how much more thorough this offer is in comparison? You have a MUCH better idea of what you are getting into when the program is explained in this level of detail.
Is the price of the program high relative to what the program is worth?
Without seeing the program yourself before you buy it, it can be difficult to really tell if it’s worth the money or not. However, you can sometimes tell if a program is overpriced based on what the fitness influencer might be offering.
For instance, if an account is offering a week’s worth of workouts for 30 dollars, you might want to hold on to your money. In my opinion, a week’s worth of workouts is not worth 30 bucks considering that there are literally thousands of weekly workouts you can find online for free.
I would recommend you just think critically about the value of what the fitness influencer is offering before you purchase the program.
What do others have to say about the program and the fitness guru?
It’s always a good idea to do a quick Google search of the fitness guru and the program you are interested in before you buy.
You should try to do a bit of digging to see if the fitness guru you’re interested in is respected for the content that he or she puts out. Although its important to take everything people say in online forums or blog posts with a grain of salt, you might come to find that many people may think that the fitness influencer’s advice isn’t trustworthy for whatever reason. Furthermore, after doing a bit of research on the program he or she is promoting, you might find reviews that claim that the program just isn’t worth the money for whatever reason.
If you find many negative comments about either the fitness guru or the program, obviously this should be a huge red flag and certainly a reason not to purchase that program.
