Standing on the gym floor, senior Sebastian Huynh breathes a sigh of relief as he finishes his final set of bicep curls. For the past six years, Huynh has consistently dedicated time every day to building his dream body.

Huynh wasn’t always into fitness. After feeling unconfident about his looks during the start of the pandemic, he made an internal decision to change himself physically, which has carried on to the present day. 

“I grew up a rather overweight kid, so I thought this would be a perfect time to just get into the gym, get into fitness, figure things out, and just learn more about my body,” Huynh said. “[I wanted to] understand how to get fit and how to feel better about how I look. I just saw very fit people throughout social media and in person that I wanted to become a better version of myself.”

His journey towards a better body didn’t start out easy, though. Huynh constantly found himself adjusting his routine to fit his body’s needs.

“Starting out overweight is a little more difficult, at least in my opinion because you have to go through the process of both losing weight and putting on muscle,” Huynh said. “So that was my main obstacle. But another obstacle I found was that online social media does not give very accurate information unless you actively seek it out. So unless you cross review and understand what you’re reading, it’s really hard to validate whether something is true or not.”

After lots of research and experimenting with different exercises, Huynh learned that becoming fit wasn’t all about training. He quickly realized that a balanced diet helps significantly with muscle growth. 

“The first thing I learned about nutrition is that being intentional matters,” Huynh said. “A lot of times, people eat without thinking about what they’re eating and why they’re eating it. So when you look at nutrition as a whole, you want to be intentional. You want to do things and eat things for a reason. Don’t be too crazy about it, but just know what you’re putting in your body.”

As he gained more experience over the years, Huynh began teaching his friends about the gym and quickly realized that it could be more than just a passion. This led to the creation of his social media page, ‘TrainedbySeb’.

“People would text me and be like, ‘Hey, Sebastian, how do I do this?’ And I’m happy to help because it’s something I’m passionate about,” Huynh said. “I noticed more and more that when I helped [others], they yielded great results. So I thought: if I could have a greater reach of people to spread this information to and be a better influence on the community, why not try to put myself more out there and just be a positive contributor to the world?”

Still learning about content creation, Huynh is currently experimenting with short-form videos that are both captivating and informative.

“I don’t find my classes to be the most engaging,” Huynh said. “The thing about social media is if you don’t engage someone within the first five seconds, they’re gone. So that’s something I want to improve personally. I want to be able to get information to people in an interesting manner that’s enjoyable to watch. I need to balance both information with creativity, with entertainment, with high quality, everything as a whole.”

To Huynh, growth as a creator isn’t immediate. It is all about learning more about the algorithm, refining his videos, and building confidence in front of the camera.

“Right now, I’m just researching. I look at analytics. I see how other people create content, and I continue to research fitness,” Huynh said. “I just want to make sure that my content is the best I can make it and that it’s improving over time. I’m practicing talking to a camera, you’d be amazed how hard it is to talk to your camera.”

Supported by his close friends, Huynh stays confident in his ability to create content that priortizes helping others improve. This intentional approach is what ultimately helps set his work apart.

“What I like about Sebastian’s fitness content is that it feels genuinely focused on helping people improve, not just getting attention or pushing himself as a brand,” senior Anthany Han said. “His advice is practical and easy to apply, and it’s usually explained in a way that actually makes sense instead of being overly complicated. From my own experience, working with him has genuinely helped. I’ve learned a lot about how to train properly and whenever I’m unsure about something, he’s someone I can ask and actually get a clear detailed answer.”

Despite his dedication to his health and inspiring others, it wasn’t all success. Throughout his journey, Huynh sometimes faced extreme demotivation that caused him to skip the gym, losing progress. 

“My junior year was a rough patch just because there were stressors on my life,” Huynh said. “I was demotivated. I was tired, and I was very complacent where I was. But, alongside those struggles, you have to find your reason for doing it. Why did I go into fitness? Because I wanted to improve myself. Why did I want to improve myself? Because I want to be the best version that I put out into the world. So, if I decided to stay out of the gym, I would have missed all these opportunities to put myself out there, provide content to the world, and be an influence.”

Beyond building an online presence, Huynh strives to promote fitness as a way to build long-term discipline that can be applied to other areas of one’s life.

“I think going to the gym builds great habits for the average person, especially with how much instant gratification we get on a day-to-day basis,” Huynh said. “What lifting does is it gives you that slow gratification of working towards something that’s bigger than yourself. You don’t get results immediately, but you’ll get it eventually if you keep doing it. So it teaches consistency. It teaches patience. And it teaches the ability to be critical about what you’re doing, so that you can get the best results out of what you do.”

Huynh states that going to the gym has already taught him lessons that will stay with him for a lifetime and encourages everyone to start their fitness journey.

“I’d say my main thing is: Be kind to yourself,” Huynh said. “Along your journey, you’re going to compare yourself. But, you’re comparing your day one to someone that’s on their day thousand. Understand that you are working towards something, and you’ll get there eventually, but it takes time.”