Kayla Itsines: Bikini Body Training Co.

Author's Review: Kayla Itsines & The Bikini Body Guides

Kayla entered the health coaching field with little credibility compared to other professionals with formal educations, but by accumulating an adoring community of followers on social media, she was able to mimic the experts and give people the impression that she was one too, until she became successful enough in selling her nutrition and fitness guides and promoting the results people have seen from her programs that she could be recognized as a true health icon (by enough people to be get "verified" on all of her social media accounts). By following the examples that other experts in the health-coaching field have set and publishing e-books that are detailed yet simple and easy to follow, marketing herself and her business through social media, and advertising program users' testimonials, her cute and fun approach to health and fitness quickly became popular as more and more people clicked "Download the Guides."

A huge part of what has made Kayla so successful in her health-coaching career and what makes her stand out from other experts in the field is her heavy emphasis on social media and her employment of Instagram in particular to make health and fitness attractive--being so young, she knows how to use certain digital outlets to target specific audiences, and many of her program's users are young girls in their teens and twenties who look at Kayla's selfies on Instagram and think "I want to look like her."

There are some limitations to her health-coaching approach, however. For one thing, program users have to be extremely self-motivated to be able to stick to the guides and see results from them. Also, the guides are the same for everyone who downloads them--there's not as much personalization in this program. There's also no two-way communication between the trainer and the program user, so there's just not a whole lot of support available for people trying to accomplish their health goals through these guides. However, it's still very early in Itsines's career, and it will be interesting to see how, now that she's reached the level of being considered by most as being equivalent to other experts in the field, she continues to develop her business and make use of other digital health and fitness platforms in the future.

Program Summary

Who is Kayla Itsines?

Kayla is a 24-year-old personal trainer from Australia who developed her own 12-week training program including fitness and nutrition guides. She did not attend a four-year university to pursue a formal nutrition or fitness-related degree--instead she attended the Australian Institute of Fitness Personal Training to become certified as a personal trainer.

What is the "Bikini Body Workout"?

The Bikini Body workout is a 12-week health coaching program developed by Kayla that helps clients to achieve a "bikini body" by emphasizing clean eating and exercises that target the arms, abs, and inner thighs.

How did she use digital spaces to make a name for herself and her business?

Social Media Presence

Although Itsines has now built a presence on multiple social media websites including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, she gained the majority of her loyal followers via her personal Instagram account, which she uses to post pictures of motivational quotes, healthy meals and snacks, transformation pictures, and selfies--lots and lots of selfies.

Kayla fully embraced the selfie trend that started a couple years back by regularly posting pictures of her own "bikini body" and incorporating all kinds of fitness tags so that they would come up in a variety of fitness-related searches on the social media app, and she soon became famous for her killer abs and overall body-tone. Her instagram feed certainly shows that she practices what she preaches and that she knows what she's talking about when she gives health and fitness advice--and people trust pictures!

If they didn't believe her methods worked from the results that are evident in her own appearance, they would have to believe the incredible before and after bikini body workout guides transformation pictures submitted by program users, which she posts daily. People started asking "What does she do to look like that? What does a normal day of eating and exercising look like for Kayla Itsines?" and guess what? She already had detailed answers to those questions ready for them in her Bikini Body Guides.

The Guides

Kayla's guides are offered in the form of e-books that can be easily dowloaded to your computer or e-reader and even printed so that you can take pages of the guide with you to the gym. They are very detailed--the Bikini Body Workout Guide includes step-by-step instructions with pictures of Kayla demonstrating each exercise with correct form, and the H.E.L.P. Bikini Body Nutrition Guide contains meal plans and other nutrition material to teach readers about different food groups, foods to avoid, balancing meals, etc..

Check out Kayla's full website at http://www.kaylaitsines.com