Becoming a fitness educator has never been easier. If you have a camera and an above-average physique, you can post fitness advice on social media, claiming to understand what you’re talking about. But in reality, many of these influencers and educators don’t know enough to properly teach people how to build muscle.

To help you discern those who are well-versed, these are some Instagram educators to follow for reliable muscle-building advice. Continue reading to learn about all of them.

1. Sean Nalewanj

Sean Nalewanj's instagram profile

Sean Nalewanj is an online personal trainer and YouTuber who has been going to the gym since high school. Having trained for decades, Sean has a wealth of experience in hypertrophy training. He uses the knowledge he gathered over the years to debunk popular fitness myths and put out useful hypertrophy and fat loss content.

As a content creator, Sean utilizes satire to comment on popular fitness tropes. Sometimes, his videos are positive reinforcements of valuable fitness information. And other times, he reacts to misleading information aiming to debunk it. Whichever approach he chooses, we think you’ll find Sean Nalewanj’s Instagram account valuable if you want to put on some muscle.

2. Melissa Alcantara

Melissa Alcantara's Instagram profile

Melissa Alcantara is a celebrity fitness trainer and bodybuilder who’s popular for being Kim Kardashian’s trainer. On her Instagram account, with more than one million followers, Melissa puts out tutorials on performing various exercises.

With a clientele of both males and females, she approaches fitness from an all-encompassing point of view: training all the different muscle groups with intensity and doing heart-healthy cardio exercises at home and in the gym to maintain leanness.

The 38-year-old aims to inspire people who think it’s too late to start working out, as she shares stories about starting when she was 29. Melissa takes pride in naturally achieving her impressive physique and teaches her followers that they can look the same if they put in the work.

3. Ben Yanes

Ben Yanes's Instagram profile

Joints, ligaments, and tendons are meant to move in certain ways; many gym goers do not understand this. Enter Ben Yanes, an educator that teaches hypertrophy training with a focus on biomechanics. Following him means learning to load your joints for optimal muscle growth and selecting better exercises for different muscle groups.

Ben Yanes emphasizes exercises that enable you to train the targeted muscle to failure while keeping the joints safe. Even though some of his opinions are controversial, his nuggets are science-based, so you can hardly go wrong implementing them. And sometimes, he uses memes to explain his points further, helping his followers to understand better.

Always verify online health and fitness claims with reputable, independent sources, such as scientific research and health agencies.

4. Dr. Hazel Wallace

Dr. Hazel Wallace's Instagram profile

Dr. Hazel Wallace is a medical doctor and nutritionist who makes wellness content for women. As a health and fitness professional, she understands what it’s like for women to juggle athletic performance, wellness, and work productivity. So, she tries to help other women do this.

As an educator, Dr. Wallace discusses not only hypertrophy training but also issues peculiar to women, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and birth control. She is also an avid runner with miles under her belt, so you should follow her if you need an online source for running plans or advice.

5. Jeff Nippard

Jeff Nippard's Instagram profile

Jeff Nippard is a seasoned fitness educator with years of experience making YouTube videos on various fitness and bodybuilding trends. Through the years of providing value, Jeff has amassed a following of close to one million people on Instagram and even more subscribers on YouTube, where he still uploads educational videos.

Following Jeff Nippard means learning to perform exercises that may seem complex and structuring workouts to save time in the gym. He is well-known for being a science enthusiast who bases his assertions on published scientific studies. So, he’s a great choice for anyone looking to build muscle the right way.

6. Shona Vertue

Shona Vertue's Instagram profile

Shona Vertue focuses on helping people build strength and muscle while staying flexible. She puts out content that teaches the right way to perform muscle-building and mobility exercises. Also knowledgeable about yoga, she infuses it into her videos from time to time.

One special thing about Shona’s Instagram is that she also posts lifestyle content. She discusses concepts like self-love, romance, productivity, motivation, companionship, and attachment. Following Shona Vertue would be a great way to boost your flagging workout motivation.

7. JPG Coaching

JPG Coaching's Instagram profile

JP Gallardo, an online fitness trainer, has content touching everything bodybuilding, but he mostly discusses exercise setup and selection. He often posts videos explaining various exercises for training one muscle group or presenting the most optimal way to perform an exercise.

Additionally, JP Gallardo addresses popular complaints about certain exercises and explains how to work around them for the best results. He also corrects exercise execution and posing mistakes, pointing out better ways to display your physique. And sometimes, he drops tricks on taking your sets closer to failure and getting the most out of them.

8. Nishha_Curves

Nishha Curves's Instagram profile

Nishha is a fitness trainer and online coach focusing on helping busy women feel confident. A mum of two herself, she shows other women how to achieve the physique they want regardless of time or equipment constraints. So, she posts videos teaching how to perform certain exercises without equipment and get the most out of home workouts.

Additionally, Nishha uploads content about her lifestyle and nutrition updates, using personal experience to educate her followers.

9. Paul Carter

Paul Carter's Instagram profile

Paul Carter is one of the most popular science-based hypertrophy educators. His content is mostly about exercise setup and selection, explaining the best exercises to grow different muscle groups. Sometimes, he debunks popular fitness myths and misconceptions, backing up his assertions with scientific studies.

10. Littletfitness

Littletfitness's Instagram profile

This account is owned and run by a woman named Taylor who is passionate about fitness. Her content is a fusion of different fitness aspects, including weightlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics, and mobility. Taylor teaches people how to be strong by showing them how she performs impressive feats and structures her workouts.

While littletfitness touches many fitness areas, calisthenics takes predominance. Taylor not only shows how calisthenics can be a great alternative to weight training but also how it can complement weight training. She performs calisthenics-based exercises and then uses weights and other instruments to instigate progressive overload as she gets stronger.

11. Mike Dolce

Mike Dolce's Instagram profile

Mike Dolce’s account is called “thedolcediet.” As you can probably already tell, he talks about nutrition a lot. Mr. Dolce worked with MMA and UFC athletes for years until 2015, when he had his first daughter. Today, he focuses on teaching his followers and in-person and online clients how to be strong and lean simultaneously.

Mike Dolce does this by prescribing nutrient-dense meals and discussing the best fat-loss cardio options. He also talks about science-based food facts and practical ways to plan your meals to result in sustainable muscle gains and fat loss.

12. Madison Hoover

Madison Hoover's Instagram profile

On her Instagram account, “madswagfit,” Madison Hoover mostly teaches exercise selection. She has fewer videos than some of the other influencers on this list, but there is a wealth of knowledge on basic exercises that could benefit beginner gym goers. Following Madison Hoover means learning to set up exercises in ways that create the best resistance and stimuli for the muscle.

13. Ryan Jewers

Ryan Jewer's Instagram profile

Ryan Jewers is an online fitness coach and certified fitness trainer that puts out valuable content on exercise setup and selection. His priority is to show his followers how to make gains, so he discusses the most optimal muscle-building exercises and the best ways to perform them.

Occasionally, he talks about the right nutrition strategies for gaining muscle: how a bulk, a cut, or alcohol consumption affects your gains. Ryan Jewers also critiques workouts and drops ratings, highlighting these workouts’ pros and cons for hypertrophy.

Take Your Fitness Journey to the Next Level

Follow these Instagram educators and see firsthand the difference between them and many fitness influencers. The special thing about these educators is they not only prescribe workouts but also show you how to execute them properly. Even more, the best educators give detailed scientific and biomechanical explanations for their advice.

Accountability is another reason you should follow these creators. The people listed above are honest about what they have had to sacrifice or ingest to attain their physique. That is not the case for many other educators and influencers.