2021 wasn’t a typical year. The recent pandemic caused significant changes to all aspects of our everyday life such as work, leisure, and yes, fitness. Those seismic changes meant fresh trends and fashions emerged out of the situation we are now used to calling the new normal.

Many people saw changes in their workouts, be it by using a fitness web platform or trying a new type of exercise that is more indoor-friendly. Others even created their very own at-home gyms full of yoga mats, dumbbells, and even elliptic machines. The same applies to fitness professionals, as they had to adjust the way they train or embrace new skills such are remote coaching, to stay relevant.

With gyms now finally open, many people are actually considering how to incorporate those newfound skills into their new normality. Will they be training outdoors? Will they be visiting the gym again? Will the new pandemic-fueled trends continue to shape the way we perceive fitness? In this article, we take a look at the biggest 2021 fitness trends and how they will continue to influence the industry in the future.

Remote Personal Training

Personal training was a huge trend in the pre-pandemic fitness and wellness landscape. The current pandemic forced many businesses to offer the same service in a one-to-one remote setting through specialized fitness platforms. As we speak, virtual coaching remains a top industry trend, with most gyms and training centers offering virtual coaching in multiple areas of fitness and wellness.

Fitness Tech

Wearable technology, smart wear, and fitness tech continue to play a big role in shaping the future of the fitness industry. Greatly popular during lockdowns, innovating designs and fitness applications allowed consumers to monitor and share health data to better measure their overall performance. Smart wear such as diPulse’s SMARTSKIN or SMARTBELT allowed fitness professionals to maintain the high intensity of their workouts without the need for added weights, thereby minimizing joint loading and enabling muscle recovery at their own pace, in their own homes. In the future, AI coaches and fitness innovations that make use of augmented and virtual reality are promising to totally change the way we understand fitness and wellness.

Target Group Oriented Training

Everyone is different and has special fitness needs and requirements. Differentiated training was an emerging trend even before the pandemic, with boutique specialized fitness studios offering tailor-made solutions to a variety of groups such as seniors, Covid-risk customers, or menopausal women. Those groups combine the effectiveness of personalized training with the motivation out of belonging to a fitness class that shares the same experiences. This type of fitness platform is expected to be huge in 2022.

Holistic Training

The recent pandemic has made people revaluate mental health, further fueling the belief that physical training needs to be combined with mental relaxation. Pilates, Yoga, and psychological training have been big in the pre-pandemic fitness landscape but the quest for a more holistic approach to exercising is at the forefront of the fitness industry. The concept is to highlight the balance between psychological and physiological offerings of workouts and use fitness to alleviate everyday stress and fears while obtaining a healthy body and mind connection. 

It has been two years since Covid-19 changed the game for fitness and wellbeing, and in that time we have witnessed a paradigm shift towards more holistic health, health tech and new creativity in delivering what the keen fitness enthusiast wants. We are entering exciting times and at diPulse, we are all keen to see where this fitness journey will take us. Watch this space!