The sounds of weights dropping, metal creaking and grunts reverberate across the gym. The bar inches closer, another rep down. With the adrenaline racing, each set gets harder than the next, but he’s always determined to finish it out in stride. 

With over 4.5k followers on Instagram, senior Jonathan Villanueva has started a successful fitness account, called @jonathan.v.fit on the social media platform, which is based on his passion for going to the gym, motivating others and mental health. 

“I feel like for most teenagers, we have a lot of stress and you can’t always deal with it, but going to the gym relieves a lot of stress because of the intensity,” Villanueva said. “I just forget about everything and I’m purely focusing on what’s happening there. It’s high intensity and I’m sweating, so I can’t think straight. I’m just enjoying the moment, which helps me relieve stress for a couple hours and forget about normal life, which I really enjoy.”

Villanueva’s account focuses on self-help and motivation. With his videos mainly covering topics including loneliness and building self-confidence through going to the gym, according to Villanueva, he has already seen the impact his videos have made on others in a positive way.

“One of the things I really like about the account is that I get a lot of messages on a daily basis,” Villanueva said. “[It’s] mainly just guys sending before and after photos, or just saying that I’m doing a great job, or just thanking me for what I’m doing. So, I really enjoy seeing those comments and it really motivates me to keep working for it. I feel like the best thing right now that I’m getting off of this is all the messages that people are telling me how the videos are helping them more. It’s giving them motivation to keep going.”

Through his years at high school, going to the gym and working on videos helped him get through these tumultuous times, claiming it helped him with his own self-image and the social stigma that often surrounds high school.

“School definitely has its ups and downs,” Villanueva said. “But, since I’ve found the thing that I enjoy doing a lot, it helps me escape normal life and just focus on one thing. I used to care a lot about what people think, even when it came to recording, it was very awkward to just pull up a camera in a public gym. But now, I don’t care about other people’s opinions about me. Because I know that what I’m doing is not wrong, so that’s definitely helped me stress less about things including what people think.”

With his time in the Practicum Health Science class, Villanueva plans on working in the medical field after high school attending ACC studying nursing, but that doesn’t mean he’s racking up the weights just yet. He is planning on balancing both his account and school.

“I definitely want to continue doing it,” Villanueva said. “I’m going to try to figure out a way to balance the account and school, and then hopefully, it’ll keep growing. maybe [try to] get some other sponsorships that I’d be interested in just as a side hustle that I can eventually earn some like profit off of.”

His ambitions don’t end there. Villanueva also plans on starting a clothing line on his own called “Stoic Apparel.” While still in the early stages, Villanueva is creating various designs with a specific theme that all ties back to his message.

“Well, it all kind of still connects to the social media sense,” Villanueva said “Stoic has a specific definition, which means that you go through hardships and struggles without complaining or displaying negative emotion, which I think is a big part I can kind of relate to, and especially a lot  of people in the gym [can relate]. I’m trying to make gym apparel with the same motivation and themes that I show in my videos.”