Disclaimer: This article isn’t meant to diss anything these fitness celebrities do. It is just an acknowledgment of them allegedly using fake weights.

4 Instagram Fitness Celebrities Accused of Lifting Fake Weights (You’ll be surprised by the 3rd)

The advent of Instagram has resulted in the rise of many fitness internet celebrities. The creators of today have a huge exposure to their target audience thanks to social media and video streaming platforms.

While the internet has given the users (read, consumers) a lot of options, it has also shrunk their attention span. The internet fitness celebrities are always on the lookout to do something extraordinary to create ‘shareable’ content.

This need to impress and awe their audience sometimes leads them to take shortcuts like using fake weights. While the fitness celebrities might sometimes get away with using fake weights, they more often than not get called out by the trolls.

Internet Fitness Celebrities Using Fake Weights

Bradly Castleberry

Bradly Castleberry has faced ridicule for allegedly using fake weights in his Instagram videos. Before videos of Bradly aka “The Manimal” came up, there were a lot of allegations about fitness celebrities using fake weights.

The alleged fake weights in Bradly’s videos turned many of his fans into trolls. In this article, we’re going to list out the allegations as they came out and let you be the judge. Nick Miller of Nick’s Strength and Power YouTube channel claims Castleberry uses Fake weights to boost his follower count on Instagram.

Castleberry has 743K followers on Instagram and a casual stroll through his feed will tell you he is genuinely strong. Here is the video which stirred up the internet and accused The Manimal of using fake weights.

Kali Muscle

Kali Muscle has an inspirational story. He is an ex-con turned bodybuilder who is a motivation for thousands of people including his 765K followers on Instagram. He started working out when he was in prison and has since completely transformed his physique.

Kali Muscle faced some heat when he was accused of bench pressing fake weights. What tipped off his followers was the fact that he didn’t even struggle while bench pressing 410lb and 545lbs.

Rich Piana

Rich Piana was no stranger to controversy. He had been accused multiple times of lifting fake weights but was himself never spotted using them. In a video, Bostin Loyd, once a friend of Rich’s exposes him of using fake weights.

Although Rich is not seen lifting the fake weights himself, he is seen spotting a girl squatting fake weights. Loyd accuses Piana of filming with fake weights. Bostin also rants about Joey Swoll in the same video and about his fake ‘good boy’ image.

Gracyanne Barbosa

Barbosa is a Brazilian beauty who routinely shares pictures from her workouts and photoshoots on the gram. Gracyanne’s killer looks and physique have earned her close to 7 million followers on Instagram.

In some of her videos, Barbosa (weighing 130lbs) is seen lifting huge weights using a spotter. What tipped off the scale for her was the fact that she squatted 495lbs (about 224kgs) for ten reps without breaking into a sweat or wearing a weightlifting belt, knee sleeves or weightlifting shoes.

To put this into context, a Chinese powerlifter Wei-Ling Chen, in 2016 set a new world record by squatting 210kg – for one rep.

Who else do you think uses fake weights in their workouts?

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