This story is part of Latinx in Fitness, a series of articles highlighting the unique experiences of Latinx trainers, athletes, and gym owners within the fitness community from their own perspectives. Read the rest of the stories here.

King G, better know as The Fit King on Instagram, didn’t plan on becoming Instagram famous.

In fact, he hesitated creating a social media presence, due to his concerns about being overly-sexualized by his audience. A Texas elementary school teacher by day, his passion for education and his desire to inspire others drove him to start creating content.

A proud Panamanian-American, he knew all too well the lack of fitness and nutrition information within his, and other, Latin American cultures. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he pushed himself to learn Spanish after years of being stigmatized as a ‘no sabo’, or ‘I don’t know’ kid—a term used to describe a person that doesn’t speak fluent Spanish within a specific cultural background. He soon began creating content in Spanish to provide native speakers greater access to health and fitness information.

What started as simple videos to spread positivity quickly blew up into hundreds of thousands of followers, an online coaching business, a clothing line, and of course, education.

“I’m going to be sexualized in whatever I do. But if you [come to my page], and get the message and listen, then great,” he says.

We sat down with King to discuss his journey to influencing, the importance of combating misinformation, and his hopes for the future.

I GOT INTO fitness as a kid. It’s always been a good outlet for me. I loved that it was always you versus you. Your challenge against yourself, your discipline, your will to get better and be better than you were yesterday. And every goal is really for yourself.

With content creation, my friends always told me, “You need to post videos. You need to do content, bro, you have the look. You got the muscles, got the tattoos, the hair. You got everything everybody wants.” And I was always skeptical because of being sexualized. I have a lot of information on my page, but a lot gets lost in translation because everybody’s just too focused on how [I] look.

A long time ago I went to California, and met a whole bunch of entrepreneurs out there. I actually met another no sabo person who pushed me to start posting. When I started, it wasn’t even about fitness. It was about trying to motivate people, to help people be better individuals for themselves. Scroll back and you’ll see that I always made sure I kept my clothes on, didn’t wear matching fits. I didn’t really care what I looked like on camera.

I’m Afro-Latino. Growing up, it was either [you’re] Black, or you’re not. I think in the States especially, race and ethnicity have everybody in a chokehold. People cannot differentiate between race and ethnicity. They’re not the same thing. It’s the color of your skin versus your culture.

I’m Panamanian, and growing up I knew enough Spanish to get by, but I was always too Black for the Hispanic kids and too Hispanic for the Black kids. So I never really fit in. Even going to visit my family in Panama, I couldn’t speak to them if they didn’t speak English. I always tried to learn. I had Duolingo back in like 2010. In school, I always had people giving me a hard time, saying, “you’re no sabo, you sound horrible.” Obviously I’m gonna sound horrible, and that does not help. It kills your confidence. And when your confidence goes away, you’re never going to try to practice either.

Then Covid-19 hit, and I had literally nothing else to do. I really dedicated time to it. I started listening to music videos, reading lyrics, watching interviews. Eventually I started making videos in Spanish, and people would watch them and be like, “are you native? Did you learn English second?” That was huge for me.

I started making videos to help other no sabo kids too, just giving tips and tricks on how I learned. You can be no sabo in Italian, French, whatever. Any language that you want to learn, you can apply all of the things that I’ve said in those videos, and you can make it work for yourself.

I can reach more people knowing Spanish. And there’s so many myths and misconceptions [regarding fitness] in the Latin community. Information regarding protein powder, creatine, nutrition in general, and how much to exercise—there’s so much misinformation out there because of lack of resources. I have a solid Panamanian following. That’s another big reason I do what I do—no one knows about Panamanians. I’m so prideful, because we’re this unknown treasure. For most people in my life, I’m the first Panamanian that they’ve ever met. My work helps put us on the map a bit more. And now, knowing both languages, I can help curve those myths.

Growing up in the States, getting into fitness was easier for me because I had more resources. Your environment does matter. And if your environment [doesn’t teach you] about fitness and food, it gets pushed to the side. So as minorities, there’s a lot we just don’t know and falls to misinformation. There’s more interest in health and fitness here than in places like Panama. You’re not too focused on counting macros or exercise, you’re not too focused on getting good sleep. You’re just trying to eat to survive and get by in your day to day. So it’s a little harder in other cultures to pop out and make it big [in the fitness industry]. It’s possible, you just have to work.

Things are getting better, though. More information is coming out. People are starting to change, starting to get more active. There’s more influence in Latin culture—like Lucy Moreno, she’s Salvadorian, and Jazmin Margalef, she’s Uruguayan. We all talk a lot about the community. We find each other. But yeah, you see somebody being successful, and more people are like “maybe I should try this.”

I just hope my content helps people. That’s really what I want. To inform people, make people laugh. Hopefully you laugh, learn something, and you feel inspired to go inspire others. I’m not here for the likes. I’m not here for the pseudo support. I genuinely just want to help, because there’s a lot of negativity in the world already. In the past, I was a negative person, doing all the wrong things. Then once I found the gym again, I was like, “well, this is what I was missing.”

Hopefully, [my content] gives somebody that extra push that they may need—in the gym, in learning a language, anything.

Want to read more first-person perspectives on overcoming obstacles, breaking barriers, and finding success from Latinx fitness pros? Click the link below to read all of the stories.

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