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Sam Sulek became the face of the fitness industry in only a few month, in this video I undercover some of the repecutions his influence had over his audience.
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If you have been in the fitness community in the last month, you probably have heard of Sam Sulek
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With his millions of followers across different platforms, Sam became more than just a fitness influencer
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He became a phenomenon. One of the biggest ingredient of his success is his difference with other popular faces in the niche
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And while a new spark in the community is great, it usually comes along with its bad side
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But what makes him so different? Our story begins in 2002 in Ohio
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Sam had a pretty common childhood and wasn't first into lifting but rather diving
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which he started at the age of 8. And even then, he already portrayed really great genetics when it comes to bodybuilding
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After school, he apparently started an engineering degree in mechanics. And he was also working as a road painter
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At the age of 19 years old, he switched his focus to weightlifting, which he fell in love with and made an incredible transformation in only 2 years
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He is now sitting at 240 pounds at the height of 5'11"
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which is absolutely astonishing in such a short amount of time. He became famous by posting videos of his training
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talking to the camera with no editing and pretty long videos. And you would think that such content wouldn't work on YouTube
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but quite the opposite happened. He mainly started blowing up on TikTok, which transferred to YouTube pretty quickly
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He was making millions of views per video, creating a strong fanbase in the process
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His audience is mostly made of young teenagers, which explains his influence over his fans
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As I said, his videos don't contain any editing, news or information
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So his content only revolves about something else, which is his personality
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He portrays a very relaxed and laid-down personality, which contrasts a lot with other big faces in the fitness industry
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This difference in energy would create a breath of fresh air to the audience, which explains his sudden explosion on social media
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Due to the nature of his content, the viewer really feels like Sam is talking to them
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creating an emotional connection with his persona, which explains the returning viewers after he blew up
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That is also, in my opinion, why I think Sam Sulek has a lot of parasocial interaction
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which is the term describing the fact that viewers thinking they're a friend
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or close to the person they're watching regularly. Having your content specifically about your personality comes with good and bad sides
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As I said, on the bright side, your fanbase will watch your content regardless of its nature
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which gives a lot of freedom to the content creator. But the tradeback is that people will love or hate you for what you are
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And it's much more difficult to manage your influence and take the critics
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when it's only about you and not what you are posting. His body transformation is absolutely incredible
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but even if it doesn't take away the effort he put in to achieve such results
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it is undeniable that his transformation wasn't achieved naturally. He doesn't really talk about the subject
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probably because he doesn't want to badly influence his young audience. But even so, the fact is that he still promotes steroids to a certain extent
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You just need to look at his comment section. The comments on his TikTok aren't much better either
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which pretty much every single comment talked about Tren in different cycles
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On Reddit, and even in real life, some people heavily consider taking steroids
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even being really young. Time to look. Why? I like the physique, I like the shoulders
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Would you ever take steroids? Probably. I wanna get big. Oh, you would? I wanna get big, yeah. Do you wanna look like Sam? And that's why? Yes
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You would? Yes. Would you take steroids? Or do you have any plans of going to the dark side
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MK677 and Rad 140, they're maybe on the agenda. On that same video, Jesse has the chance to interview some surfers
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and he asks what his life motto is. I'm curious, what is your motto for your fans
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Like, something that you could leave with them. Would you mind taking a guess on what that could be? It's only two words
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I don't know, it's either do your cardio... That's more than two. It's get big
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Get big. If you could consolidate everything down to two words, it's just get big. I mean, let's be real
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Is that your life motto? I probably could. This message can easily be interpreted to his young audience by
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I need to get big no matter the cost, even if it means taking steroids
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The fact is that he doesn't want to feel good or be healthy, but rather look good
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which is a philosophy that he preached to his audience. You can even compare it to anorexia in young girls
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who adapt terrible bad habits in the objective of losing weight. The problem is that Sam can't really say something else to his audience
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because he is himself on the objective to get big as possible without considering his health
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I think this is heavily related to self-confidence and insecurities, but more on that later
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Also, part of his audience tend to focus their life only about building muscle
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and therefore neglecting other areas in life. But this is a problem that existed long before Sam Sulek
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Sam Sulek also democratized the use of steroids. You see, most informed people about steroids in the fitness industry
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are telling people for years that it isn't worth it taking PD except if you have a nearly perfect diet and training
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you have a few years of lifting behind you, you are getting near your natural potential
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and you have serious objective of competing in bodybuilding. But Sam Sulek is quite the opposite of that
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So as a result, his large audience will get the idea that it is okay to take steroids sooner than they actually should
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and for the wrong reasons. But why is his diet and training not optimal
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Well, based on the video of Jeff Nippard on the subject, who is a fitness influencer who knows way more than I do
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about optimal training, muscle hypertrophy and strength, his training could be improved on 3 things
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which are his form, his training plan and split. I put a link to the video in the description if you want to watch it after
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and have the full details, but if not I will resume it for you. His form could be better to optimize muscle growth
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It doesn't need to be extremely strict, but improving it a bit could help him build more muscle
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Secondly, he doesn't have a structure plan. He plans his session in his car before going to the gym
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which makes it a lot harder to track his progress and use progressive overloads
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And finally, he uses the bro split, which doesn't have the best reportation for each muscle group
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Also, in his way to get bigger, he adapted his diet to fit his macronutrients
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but not in the way you would think. He claims that as long as the food fits his macro
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it doesn't matter which food he eats, which seems right on the paper, but the reality is far different
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You see, even if two foods have the same amount of calories and macronutrients
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it doesn't mean that your body will react it the same way. And that for mainly two reasons
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First, the volume. If you consume a low-calorie to volume food, your stomach would be full in much less calories
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than if you ate the opposite like fast food. Which means that for the same amount of calorie for a day
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the healthier version of the diet will make you feel full, but the unhealthy version will probably make you hungry
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just because your stomach is half-empty. Secondly, outside from the volume, the type of food you eat greatly influence your energy level throughout the day
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It is no secret that most people feel bloated and tired after a fast food
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which can be the case for healthier foods. And his diet combined with steroids is probably one of the biggest reason for his acne
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which is something that is visible, but we can't know how bad he actually feels inside his body
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Honestly, I don't really watch Sam's videos, but from what I've seen, he really seems like a genuine cool guy
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which is why people like him. And I'm not criticizing him as a person at all
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He made a lot of people start going to the gym, which is great and I'm all for it
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The problem, like many, is that they have other consequences to his fame
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But that's the thing, because he shows himself to the fullest, some of his audience see only the positive in everything he's doing
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And I don't think Sam can do a lot about it. For example, if he want to tell his audience that they shouldn't take steroids
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except if they have a nearly perfect training and diet, and they want to compete in bodybuilding
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he should be in that case too, but he's not. You cannot tell people not to do something while you're doing the complete opposite
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I also think he wants to get as big as possible because he's a bit insecure
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When you think about it, he started going to the gym consistently not a long time ago
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And maybe he will realize later that getting big isn't the only purpose you should have in life
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And when and if he will get to that point, he might regret all the unhealthy choices he made along the way
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to achieve something that isn't as important to him anymore. Keep in mind that the guy is only 21
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and it's impossible to him to have the fitness maturity than other older fitness influencers have
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Who have been in fitness for years now. But can you really blame a young guy that just shares what he likes
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