Top 10 Fitness Trends

Fitness is always trending but we often get stuck in a fitness routine rut where we don’t feel trendy at all. A simple change of regime and scenery is often what is needed to motivate us back into the type of movement that energises and heals the body.

Invite your favourite training buddy along with you on a fitness date with one of these trends:

If you’re still stuck doing the good old fashioned gym circuit following beeping lights, it’s probably time you tested out the abstract apparatus that go along with functional training routines. Ropes, trampolines, giant elastic bands and tyres are just a few ‘toys’ used to train the body to take on everyday outdoor activities (like mountain biking, running, hiking) with more strength and flexibility. You’ll find this type of equipment in cross fit gyms. Most progressive personal trainers use this style of training for clients aiming to achieve fitness goals that don’t just focus on bulking up.

Are still the best professionals to hold you accountable to your daily workout sessions. If it has been months since you last exercised, you’re bored of your own company or you just need some new workout ideas, a personal trainer could be the answer to getting your groove back.

If you want to work with your specific body type or challenge it’s a good idea to hire a professional to get you onto the right track and to make sure you are doing the best type of movement to enhance your body type. Certified, educated professionals who specialise in a specific sport or ‘art’ are becoming more relevant, especially as a precursor to starting group training in something like yoga, kung fu, chi gong or pilates. One on one sessions build a base level understanding of the sport so participants don’t feel out of depth when they decided to join a group training session or class.

Budget friendly and adaptable to your schedule, using your own body weight is one of the best forms of resistance training. Pilates and yoga are examples of sports that build strength using your own bodyweight. This means controlling movements by engaging specific muscle groups to support the body as it moves or holds postures. For example, planking, pull ups, push-ups, slow body roll ups etc. Get creative and use steps and railings during runs along a promenade, stopping every kilometre or so to add in a bit of strength training.

This ancient practice will always be on trend. It also proves the body weight training theory in that it relies completely on your own body weight and movement to sculpt form. There are myriad different forms of yoga to try including heated power, bikram (a set series of postures performed in a heated studio which is like a meditation for the entire body), yin (a gentle practice for targeted muscle and fascia release), kundalini (dynamic movement that focuses on the nervous system and glandular system and an excellent practice for healing addiction/addictive patterns) to name a few.

Almost everything we do is trackable in the 21st century and there is a wearable version of most of these digital devices. Health insurance companies have worked these personal tracking accessories into their schemes so it’s safe to predict that the options and wearability of technology will continue to revolutionise fitness routines. Wearable tech tracks steps taken, distance walked/run, sleep time and quality of sleep, sun exposure, fertility (according to skin temperature, breathing rate), glucose levels (to prevent diabetic foot ulcers), heart rate, training progress according to specific sports and more. Used in conjunction with an exercise app, you can technically train anytime, anywhere under ‘supervision’.

If everyone’s doing it, you know it’s trend-worthy and effective. So join those HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) groups in the park for workouts that aim to increase cardiovascular fitness by alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods, until exhaustion is reached.

It’s nicknamed lifting in liquid! Performing resistance training underwater has proven to be an intensive cardio workout that’s easy on your joints meaning less room for injury. Exercises literally involve lifting dumbells underwater or squatting under water while simultaneously holding your breath and the weights! 

To recover from those HIIT and functional training sessions, or from the general stresses we place on the body daily (including emotional/mental stresses), enroll in a myofascial release class. Once a week is enough to feel the effects of releasing the connective tissue that sits between the muscles and the organs; the fascia. Using a foam roller at home is also a form of muscle release and recovery. Specially designed small, soft balls and straps are also used to correct muscle imbalances, improve joint range of motion and neuromuscular efficiency.

Hiking or mountain climbing is a great way to exercise outdoors. With summer on the way in a country with an endless supply of both coastal and inland walking trails, hiking is accessible, budget friendly, easy on the joints, good for stimulating the senses and a great social activity.

Fitness trends are trends because they’re accessible to everyone - not just professional athletes. Sometimes just wearing that fancy new heart rate monitor is enough to make you want to join that group training session you drive past on a Saturday morning.