Over the past 12 months the fitness industry, and the way we workout, has fundamentally changed. At the end of March 2020, we went into our first (of many) lockdowns. All of a sudden, our regular workout havens were shut down and we were left with no access to equipment, community or motivation!
But something incredible happened as a result. Fast acting and innovative companies and trainers began to bring the same energy and passion delivered in their gyms and studios straight to your living room. It was by no means perfect, but shortly after the lockdown began, we had access to an abundance of live (often free) workouts online that could be completed using our own body weight and a couple of cans of soup. It was different, but it served a purpose and It was fun (at first at least).
After a few weeks of adjustment, those cans of soup turned into dumbbells and kitchen floors into yoga matts; and soon after, those Instagram workouts turned into fully fledged online training platforms. We now suddenly had access to a huge variety of exercise modalities from HIIT sessions to Barre workouts without having to leave the house.
With the world seemingly taking positive steps back to normality what happens next? Have we had our fill of HIIT workouts and are we ready to get back to training in the real world? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of online training to figure out what our fitness habits are going to look like over the next 12 months.
THE PROS
Convenience
Training from home certainly has its upsides. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly it’s convenient. With life heading back to ‘normality’ we are undoubtedly going to get busy again meaning we will shorter on time. Online training platforms bring the gym to you, allowing you to cut the time cost of travelling to the gym, getting changed and showered etc. For many this is a game changer, freeing up much needed hours of their day to fill with social and family time.
Cost
Not a lot to explain here. Delivering sessions online, especially classes, is a much cheaper offering from a gym and as a result those savings are passed onto the consumer, cutting your fees to a fraction of the ‘real life’ studio costs.
Global access
You can literally access these workouts from anywhere in the world. Online sessions are great for those constantly on the move. Stuck in a hotel room? Whip out your phone and press play on your favourite on demand or live workout. What’s more, you can experiment with trainers/gyms that are located in any part of the world. Fancy a boxing session from New York? A yoga class live form Bali? One click and you’re there.
THE CONS
Atmosphere/community
It’s just not the same. As convenient, and cheap, and flexible as home/online workouts are, nothing matches the atmosphere and energy of a real gym. Not even close!
Lack of kit
Unless you managed to kit out your home with a fully-fledged gym setup, you are going to run out of variety with your equipment. That’s not to say you can’t keep making progress with a couple of dumbbells, it’s that it all just gets a bit stale and boring.
Motivation/results
The flip side of home workouts being cheaper and more convenient is that it’s much harder to motivate yourself to turn up, and far easier to cancel. If you have a PT session, class or workout booked in (and paid for), you are accountable to turn up and get your money’s worth, which in turn will get you a better result over time.
SUMMARY
The future of fitness has undoubtedly changed. The Pandemic hasn’t altered the course of the industry, it’s just sped it up. Online training was always going to become a part of our lives, it’s just arrived much quicker and on a much larger scale as a result of the lockdowns, creating massive exposure to this method of training.
Ultimately, I think we’ve now got access to the best of both worlds and that a hybrid style training methodology will enable people to create more effective workouts than ever.
We all want maximum results in minimum time. Carving up your workout routine to include some ‘Real life’ workouts with those delivered ‘virtually’ will allow us to access more variety, more readily giving us much more flexibility to fit in our training whatever our dairy looks like.
At the Better Body Group we are running a fully integrated online training platform to complement our personal training, transformation packages and group training offerings, all delivered by our team of Graduate qualified Personal Trainers. For more information email us at enquiries@betterbodygroup.co.uk or call 01732451979 to book in a free 30 minute consultation.
