Wearables will be the fitness trend for 2016. According to the worldwide survey of fitness trends, at least. What’s your “weapon of choice” for 2016?
World Wide Survey of Fitness Trends
In December, radio stations have their top 2000, the fitness industry has its World Wide Survey of Fitness Trends[1]. Once again for the tenth year, editors of the American Health & Fitness Journal have developed a survey and sent it out globally to thousands of professionals to identify trends in the fitness industry.
Although it looks ahead to the coming year, it often also confirms achievements from the past period. We can find a new form of fitness daily. Whether it’s the latest product on teleshopping or an actor who has found a “revolutionary way” to stay fit.
In the survey on fitness trends for the following year, we see which of these has not only become a hype but is also likely to persist in our fitness vocabulary for a longer time.
Wearables topping the list
For 2015, Bodyweight-training was at number 1 followed by: 2) High-Intensity Interval Training, 3) Personal Training, and 4) Strength Training. We didn’t see any difference in the top 4 compared to 2014.
This year is different with wearables suddenly topping the list. This year, we’ve tried out devices like the Apple Watch and Beast Sensor. Personally, it took me a while to take wearables seriously. Initially, I saw them as nothing more than glorified step counters for people who can’t motivate themselves (which of course also has its usefulness).
That was too simplistic, of course, and I’ve since come across some wearables that I’ve genuinely become excited about. What about an EMG suit! Clothing that you wear which measures the muscle activity of various major muscle groups during your exercises. What you normally only measure in a laboratory for research, you can now simply read out on your mobile or PC right after your training.
Where wearables were initially just a record of your activity, they are now starting to offer added value by providing new insights into how you train. It is expected that we will spend $6 billion globally on wearables in 2016.
No. 17 Smart phone exercise apps
Another newcomer, at number 17, is closely related to wearables. Apps on your mobile telling you what, when, and how to train. Many are stand-alone (training schedules and examples), but some only act as an output device for the data collected by a wearable (such as the Beast Sensor app and the Apple Watch app).
Instructional apps explaining how to do exercises, running apps telling you how much and when to run, nutrition apps telling you what and how much to eat.
The survey mentions that accuracy is still a concern in many cases. This applies to wearables as well in my opinion. For 2016, I hope we can separate the wheat from the chaff and see a few gems emerge in a sea of mostly useless apps and gadgets.
Crossfit further declined
As in previous years, the survey editors seem reluctant to mention the word “Crossfit”. However, High-Intensity Interval Training mainly encompasses Crossfit as evidenced by an interview with the survey’s author and as we assumed in previous years.
From a surprising first place in 2014, to a second place in 2015, and now a third place for 2016.
While being offered as a possible trend in previous surveys but not making the top 20, high-intensity interval training was no. 1 in the survey for 2014 despite the warnings of many survey respondents about potential dangers. Many of the comments claimed that clients liked this kind of program for a short time then were looking for something else, whereas others warned that it was very popular but were concerned with a potentially high injury rate.
…Despite the warnings by some health and fitness professionals of potentially increased injury rates using high-intensity interval training, this form of exercise remains popular in gyms all over the world.
W.R. Thompson, ACSM’S Health & Fitness Journal
Regarding the comments, nothing new compared to previous years.
Is it “your thing” too?
In this survey, we often see “trends” emerge of methods that have been emerging for a while but now seem to be breaking through. We see trends driven by fashion, rising quickly and disappearing even faster. So, we will probably only see the “really hip” ways of training here in a few years.
Is your approach for 2016 such a revolutionary, before-and-after-in-just-six-days method? Are you going for tantra-cardio-mindfulness or opting for a more old-school method that appears annually in the list such as strength training and traditional weight loss programs?
References:
- journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2015/11000/WORLDWIDE_SURVEY_OF_FITNESS_TRENDS_FOR_2016__10th.5.aspx?cid=MR-eJP-HotTopics-SportsMedicine-SportsMedicine-FIT-NoPromo
- npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/02/367832143/how-will-you-work-out-when-crossfits-no-longer-hip
