10 Trends for Fitness Startups in 2021
Is the fitness industry degrading due to the COVID situation? Not at all! Home workout and sports apps became highly popular due to lockdowns and social distancing.
In 2021, many services are available online thanks to a superb Internet connection. Hybrid classes, intensive training, active aging programs, advanced technologies, and DNA testing. You can put these trends into work by organizing online training and coaching for your clients.
The fitness industry trends 2020–2021 can give you a cue on customers’ preferences so that you could revise your classes and programs.
Some of these trends are consistent in their top positions, others only gaining their value now. Let’s check what trends your gym supports and what can be implemented.
1. WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY & SPORTS APPS
Wearable technologies are an ultimate leader in Fitness Trends, unchanged its position since 2016 according to ACSM’s Worldwide Survey of fitness trends. To be true, it exchanged positions with HIIT only once in 2018.
We put wearable technologies in line with sports apps due to their complementarity. While wearable technologies track biological measurements, fitness applications help to launch it with workout results and provide combined analytics on both training progress and wellness. So wearable technologies, sports apps and smart fitness equipment are top technology trends in the fitness industry.
!Tip: Use these technologies as a motivational tool for group training. Create a board of successes and put the names of group members in order to their performance indicators on it. Such a simple thing will make them work harder.
2. HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING
HIIT is a top-charter in health and fitness industry trends since 2014. Intense workout on cardio and strength facilities alternating with short periods of rest enables them to exchange higher training intensity for precious time. Training results become visible after quite a short period of time. This adds motivation to continue the workout. HIIT has different variations: strength workout, cardio training, and circuit exercises can be split into different programs or combined in one. That’s what busy people living an active life really appreciate.
3. GROUP TRAINING
This trend also keeps a strong position in the top 3. Since 2018 gym-goers are forming a strong tendency to gather into communities. They want to use the synergy of group training by being guided by professional trainers and having a healthy competition with other group members. In comparison with past seasons, people in 2019 tend to choose larger groups. Large groups give them a broader field for insights about their own performance and more opportunities for socialization. This is another sign that group training will have a strong position among the other trends in the fitness industry.
!Notice: Group members skip or quit classes less often and show more engagement compared to single athletes.
4. HOME WORKOUT
Here’re two subtrends: live streaming and sports apps. Livestream is conducted from live gym class, so domestic athlete feels involved in a real group workout with its competitive spirit and trainer’s cheers up. Fitness Apps are still more convenient to use. Buying a subscription for fitness app users can follow their own schedule.
Most of the app’s functionality includes programs for different levels, calories counter, statistics on performance and health indicators, GPS maps and routes, integration with other apps and social media, and so on. If you’re thinking about the ways to create your own fitness app, check our extensive guide that includes features, technologies, costs, and marketing strategies.
5. FUNCTIONAL TRAINING
This trend is not about chasing quick results of burning weight or making body swole. Followers of functional training value smart approaches based on accurate exercise performance in order to strengthen those muscles we use the most on a daily basis. This preference is common for older adults who value health more than perfect athletic shape. Functional training improves not only motor control but also breathing and cardiovascular system. This makes Functional Training an attractive option for older adults.
6. BODYWEIGHT TRAINING
This trend is becoming a classic since it never leaves top positions in the survey starting from 2013. Bodyweight Training can be performed with minimum equipment or without it. Physical effort achieves by resistance creating with own body and active repetitive movements. Gym-goers also can do these exercises at work or at home. Personal trainers include bodyweight training into the active rest phase of the training program. It’s easy to perform bodyweight exercises when a person is out of the gym facilities in between training days.
7. ACTIVE AGING PROGRAMS
Become an ally for older adults who aim to increase life expectancy. In 2020 every 7th person will be an older adult at the age of 60 or more. Older people are forming a significant part of your target audience now. This audience doesn’t chase weight loss or muscle growth trends. They join a fitness club in seek of improving general health and increase life activity. Combine fitness programs for older adults with many others that are already on your service list. They appreciate group training, functional training, yoga and some of them even don’t mind hiring a personal trainer.
8. WELLNESS COACHING
Wellness coaches are quite different from personal trainers. They do not only teach you how to do the right movements for a certain exercise. Wellness coaches guide you in the improvement of your entire lifestyle. They help to deal with self-sabotage, to cope with stress, and to accept the right mindset relating to sports and your results. During long-term private communication, wellness coaches develop a client’s vision of wellness as a key self-sufficient value. Then they help to create a wellness strategy and to set long-term goals and daily tasks.
!Tip: Use wellness coaching as a member retention tool. If you have CRM for gym, get reports of customers’ activities. Find those, who stuck on reaching their fitness goals and offer them wellness coaching. Wellness coaching proved to be a perfect option to overcome stagnation.
9. YOGA HIIT
Combined classes help athletes to get the best of both worlds. Movements and exercises from high-intensity interval training are good to burn calories and yoga positions guarantee to stretch muscles. During the HIIT phase, people work out at the limits of their strength and, then, relax with yoga stretching techniques. This hybrid class owes its existence to people’s active busy schedules. Your customers want to make their bodies slim, strong, and flexible. Traditionally, to achieve all these goals they have to attend three different classes. Yoga HIIT class offers all in one. That’s why this is one of the trends in the fitness industry that will outlast a couple of years more.
10. DNA TESTING
Advanced technology in the fitness industry enables us to learn about hormones that slow fat burning and discover the impact specific genes have on a person’s general workout capabilities. DNA Testing is popular with dedicated fitness enthusiasts as well as newbies. Test results give complete insights about individual health tendencies, so trainers can pick a better-customized program for clients and nutritionists can advise them on the best diet based on discovered genetic dispositions.
IN CONCLUSION
Observing fitness industry trends, we can conclude that fitness motivation takes different directions. Mindful wellness, socialization need, and increase of life expectancy are on the same level as such traditional motivations like weight loss and muscle growth. Let’s decipher client’s messages that lie under these trends:
- Trends for personal training, wellness coaching, wearable technologies, and DNA Testing is an inquiry for the most personalized customer experience, which is especially important in terms of health.
- Bodyweight training, workout at home, high-intensity interval training and yoga HIIT show convenience as a top priority.
- Group training, functional training, active aging programs, wellness coaching give a cue on a new mindset on fitness goals and values and form the vision of new targeted audiences.
If you succeed in satisfying all the inquiries that stand behind fitness industry growth trends under one roof, you’ll forget about competitors.
Exceed Team had known about these trends a long time before the survey came out thanks to customer behavior reports generated by CRM systems we develop and maintain for our gym partners.
If your facilities are not so large so it can host a lot of club members, we’d advise you to focus on a couple of trends. A CRM system for gym management enables you to find out what fitness trends will be in demand among your audience. If you want to have the upper hand in fitness trends and your members’ preferences, we can help you with custom CRM development.
Read also:
13 Working Methods to Increase Gym Member Retention
How to Sell More Gym Memberships — 5 Proven Tactics
How to Develop a Fitness App — From an MVP to a Full-blown Product
How a Gym CRM System Can Boost Your Health Club to New Ground
