Celebrity trainer says Instagram fitness stars could be putting people in danger

Instagram is changing the fitness world. 

Social media gives normal people an outlet to post their exercise routines, healthy meals, and weight loss. 

Many personal trainers have built empires out of their fitness followings - from Hannah Bronfman to Kayla Itsines, the latter of which has built an "Army" thanks to highly shareable transformation photos.

But a top celebrity trainer warned Business Insider that there could be a possible hidden danger of social media fitness: that people are blindly working out without real-life guidance or safety warnings. 

"That's my only problem on social media - most of the trainers are personalities," star trainer Anna Kaiser, who runs the boutique fitness brand AKT  inMotion, has trained top celebrities like Kelly Ripa and Sofia Vergara, appeared on ABC's "My Diet is Better Than yours," and runs a streaming membership for those who can't access her studio. "They're not educated in fitness, and you don't actually get to interact with any of the people. They're just going off of pictures and videos, and ... could end up hurting yourself for years with injuries that will affect you for years down the road." 

When Business Insider spoke to BeachBody on Demand CEO Carl Daikeler in April, he stressed how social media is good for the industry.

"However, the rise of Instagram ... and now, Facebook, and now seeing people like you are fitting it into their day and they're putting in the effort and they're enjoying their life and doing things they never thought they could do," Daikeler said.  

"I would just warn people against following a personality or someone who looks great in a bikini and really seek out someone who knows what they're doing, and that's the general feeling in the fitness community today," Kaiser said. 

She concedes there are some perks to social media, but that people should be wary. 

"Social media is getting more people interested in fitness, but it's also not fitness," she said. "It's frustrating to see how important a social media following is in the world of fitness and business because people who have bikini shots and, you know, sexy pictures of themselves have a lot more followers on social media than someone who's trying to really do it well and maintain integrity."