9 Exercise Pros on Instagram Who Prove Fitness Looks Different on Everyone

With Hampton Liu’s guidance on calisthenics, you don’t need exercise equipment, an expensive gym membership, or even a current workout routine. Traditional calisthenics exercises work large muscle groups using mostly a person’s own body weight, with minimal equipment, but Liu’s approach uses a combination of yoga, martial arts, and gymnastics, too. He regularly posts at-home workouts that you can modify to match your fitness level. His philosophy is that fitness is a journey, and his posts promote fitness at all levels — whether you’re wondering “What if I can’t do a push-up?” or “What should I do if I’m not seeing the results I want?”

Jessie Diaz-Herrera is the New York City–based dance teacher and fitness enthusiast behind Curves With Moves, which offers virtual body-positive dance classes and in-person plus-size wellness events. She’s not afraid to call out toxic workout culture buzzwords (like “fat-burning” or “beach body”), and instead focuses on ways to feel good about your fitness practice, whether it’s by practicing affirmations or embracing your “jiggle.”

Miles Borrero is a transmasculine Latinx yoga instructor certified by the Yoga Alliance whose work creates a safe space for transmasc and nonbinary folks to practice yoga. He teaches a Beyond Binary class dedicated to celebrating members of the queer, trans, and nonbinary communities, and sometimes shares clips from his classes to his feed. (Borrero also hosts annual yoga retreats in Colombia if you want some off-the-’gram fitness inspiration.)

Come for the pole dancing workout tips, stay for Roz Mays’s hilarious takes on life. This National Academy of Sports Medicine–certified personal trainer is as real as they come. She posts highlights from her workouts, reminders that everybody is shaped differently, and tips for elevating your exercise routine. She even teaches workshops on how to make the fitness industry more inclusive to LGBTQ+ athletes, plus-size athletes, athletes with disabilities, and those working through body dysmorphia and fitness anxiety. Catch one of her in-person pole dance fitness classes if you live near New York City, or reach out to her for a personal training session over Zoom.

James Sutliff is a personal trainer and disability coach based in Leicester, England. He lives with dystonia, a condition in which muscles contract involuntarily and cause repetitive or twisting movements in one or several parts of the body, per the Mayo Clinic. But Sutliff’s account doesn’t just give visibility to an often invisible disease; he regularly posts videos of himself working with clients of all different abilities, showing that ableism has no place in the fitness community.

Dianne Bondy is a Yoga Alliance–certified yoga instructor. She’s also the founder of Yoga for Everyone, a yoga class streaming service that aims to empower anyone, regardless of their shape, size, or ability level, to adopt a yoga practice they feel good about. Bondy is also a public speaker who talks about how, as a woman of color living in a larger body, she’s trying to change an industry dominated by people who are young, thin, flexible, white, and able-bodied, according to her website.

Follow her to add some positivity to your feed, whether she’s talking about her journey to a healthier body image, taking a moment of mindfulness while doing Pilates, or sharing thought-provoking quotes about her practice.

Cadence Dubus is a Brooklyn-based Pilates instructor who teaches strength and mobility for all bodies. She regularly posts demonstrations of quick, simple, at-home movements to help with everything from knee pain to morning muscle stiffness to stress. She doesn’t focus on what your body looks like; she focuses on how your body feels. The website for her Pilates studio, Brooklyn Strength, states “The impetus is always to make you skinny. I want to make you strong.”