Fitness trends have been the subject of studies of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal® (FIT) for the last 15 years. They have circulated an electronic survey to thousands of professionals around the world to determine health and fitness trends.
While survey was designed to confirm or to introduce new trends that will have a perceived positive impact on the industry according to the international respondents, I am sure that such information is also important for people who are looking for new alternatives of being healthy and stay active.
Here are the survey results.
Top 20 Worldwide Fitness Trends for 2021
It’s obvious, that the big changes within the health fitness industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the new trend that uses digital streaming technology to deliver group, individual, or instructional exercise programs online. Online training is available 24/7 and can be a live class (live streaming workouts) or prerecorded.
The second place took the wearable technology that includes fitness trackers, smart watches, heart rate monitors, and GPS tracking devices. These devices can be used as a step counter and can track heart rate, body temperature, calories, sitting time, sleep time, and much more. New innovations include blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and electrocardiogram.
I guess nowadays almost everybody has a watch that helps to measure everyday activity and calories intake. Such devices became one of the most popular choices for a gift. Therefore, it is quite understandable why this position is in second place in popularity.
I also want to draw my attention to a few more positions in this list. As a personal fitness trainer, I noticed that there really is a trend that people who are over 50 and 60 years old come to my classes more and more often.
I am very happy about this. After all, this means that people are living longer, working longer, and remaining healthy and active well into their retirement from work.
And the last but not least among the fitness trends is health/wellness coaching. In fact, it’s the main approach of my work now. Health/wellness coaching uses a one-on-one (and at times small group) approach with the coach providing support, goal setting, guidance, and encouragement. The health/wellness coach focuses on the client’s values, needs, vision, and short- and long-term goals using behavior change intervention strategies.
Based on my experience and market analysis, I also have my own vision of fitness trends this year:
1) The Body&Mind fitness approach is becoming more popular. Due to the constant stress present in life, as well as an increase in the time spent sitting at home at computers, TV shows, phones and in the car, more and more people want not just to “tighten up” and get rid of possible discomfort in the back, neck, lower back, but also to relax psychologically, reduce stress levels and become more confident, calmer and more focused. But all this can be achieved with the help of a competent mindful fitness approach. Within the framework of which I carry out my working practice.
2) A “smart” holistic approach to fitness. An increasing number of people understand the importance of working on the feet, pelvis, chest, because everything is connected with everything in our body. The phrases “step pattern” or “fascia” are more used and understandable.
3) Express workouts and office warm-ups. Short (15-30 minutes), effective and interesting. The distance between life and exercises are getting smaller. We stop dividing the day into work and physical activity. We understand that sitting all day, and only going to the gym in the evening, is not so effective. We introduce exercises into the work process: walking during lunch, working meetings outdoors – all this makes us more conscious and active.
Well, friends, are you trending? I definitely am! And the fact that you are here with me means only one thing: WE WILL GROW AND DEVELOP TOGETHER.
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