Mississauga trainer goes viral after showcasing hard-to-do fitness move on social media

By

Published December 15, 2019 at 6:33 pm

melissacappeletticover

A personal trainer and athletic therapist from Mississauga is enjoying some unexpected fame after sharing a video of a hard-to-do fitness move on social media site TikTok. 

A few days ago, Melissa Cappelletti shared a video on social media of her doing a move called the shrimp squat, a deceptively hard-to-master move that involves someone moving from a kneeling to standing position while keeping one leg bent at the knee. 

You can see the move below:

Cappelletti told insauga.com that she was shocked by the response.

“It happened pretty quickly. I posted it on Friday or Saturday night and the next day when I was at work, and I checked it and it had 30,000 views. I checked a few hours later and it was at 60,000 and it was at a million at the end of the day on Sunday,” she says. 

The CBC got in touch with her on Tuesday morning and sent a reporter out to do a fun segment in which she (the reporter) tried to recreate the move on television. 

“It was so fun,” Cappelletti says. 

Cappelletti, a former athlete who played volleyball in college before tearing her ACL, now works as a personal trainer, athletic trainer and strength and conditioning specialist who specializes in youth athletes. 

While Cappelletti has certainly succeeded in turning the shrimp squat into a fitness challenge, she says she’s not the first person to master the move.

“I did not invent it, it’s an advanced bodyweight exercise,” she says, adding that she often shares moves demonstrated by other fitness aficionados on social media. 

“I’m inspired by other people I see on Instagram. No one expects [this move] to be as challenging as it is.” 

Cappelletti says she was actually told that putting her workout videos on TikTok could make them go viral. 

“Because so many people were recreating it on TikTok, that made it go Viral. TikTok is huge, my friend had bee bugging me to get the app and said if I made a fitness challenge, it would go viral. I was on the app for a week, posted that and it took off,” she says, laughing. 

Cappelletti also says she’s surprised that the shrimp squat went viral when she’s posted more challenging workouts–and a few “fails.” 

“I do some acro-yoga, so a video I put on had me in the bridge position and I had someone climb on my hips to do a pose and he fell, so I thought that would go viral if anything, but it did not.” 

Cappelletti says the popularity of her video has prompted more people to reach out to her. 

“I can’t even really keep up with the influx of messages. They’re not all messages from people who want personal training, a lot of people are inspired and they think it’s cool.” 

Cappelletti says she’ll continue to post moves for followers to try in the future. 

“I definitely will continue to post. I’ve been so busy and I’ve had little time to film, but there’s definitely more coming once things calm down a bit.”

insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising