When Amanda got home from the gym, she got a text: "You need to look at the Instagram story".

A woman in the US is not happy after she learned she was being filmed working out at the gym without her knowledge, with the footage uploaded to social media alongside suggestive emojis and comments.

Amanda Turlington worked as a lead membership administrator for Blue Ridge Crossfit gym in North Carolina. She also used the gym to help her achieve her own health and fitness goals.

But Amanda, along with several others, has since quit her position after learning that the gym’s owner, Tom Tomlo, was sharing inappropriate videos of her and other gym-goers online.

Speaking to WLOS News 13, Amanda said she had given permission for her workouts to be filmed and was promised they would be of a “positive” and “empowering” nature. She didn’t discover what had been happening until a friend text her and told her to “look at the [gym’s] Instagram story”.

What Amanda saw was a picture of her own behind, up in the air, accompanied by peach and smiley face emojis. Several other women were also featured on the video.

"I was like, 'What is this?'" Amanda told WLOS News 13.

"I was upside down, I had no idea what he was doing. I didn't know in that exact moment that he was filming, and I didn't give him permission explicitly to post a video of my butt in the air."

Amanda was upset that a normal trip to the gym had been turned into something suggestive and sexual by her trainer and boss.

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"I don't come to the gym to be sexualised," she said.

"I don't come to the gym to have my body on display. We come to the gym to work out and to be surrounded by people we care about and they care about our success."

The images were also made public by another gym member, who posted them on the gym's Facebook page with the caption "this is not okay".

Members were quick to comment on the inappropriateness of the images.

"Your clients trust you to help them... Instead, you treat them like pieces of meat," one person wrote.

"The owner... [has] no respect to women," another shared.

Tomlo responded by revoking the person's membership and sharing an expletive-laden post on Facebook.

"It has been brought to my attention that some people chose to get butt hurt today and make a public post in this group... You must have lost your f***ing mind if you think this is a platform or community for you to create some bullsh*t like that," he wrote.

"That sh*t doesn't fly here."

He has since apologised for the video, saying the images had been taken out of context.

"I can't control the way this is being portrayed, and I'm regretful for it," he told WLOS News 13.

"I feel horrible that people would feel that I would look at a woman that way and do something that would be purposefully demeaning of her."

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