A massive worldwide survey done by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and published in their Health and Fitness Journal has highlighted the top fitness trends for 2019. I wanted to highlight the top 10 trends and help you determine if any of these trends are right for you.
1. Wearable Fitness Technology
Wearable fitness technology that tracks your activities has been skyrocketing in popularity over the last few years. From wristband trackers to wireless heart rate monitoring chest straps, there are tons of ways for you to receive accurate workout data to help you reach your fitness goals faster.
To help you incorporate wearable fitness technology into your health and fitness goals, be sure that any cardio equipment you buy has the ability to sync with your tracker. That way, you can transfer your exercise data from your machine to the tracker, then the app so you can have an accurate idea of how your workouts are interacting with your other health goals.
2. Group Training
Group training is another top fitness trend which has come back into popularity, thanks to the accountability factor of training with others and the energy that people enjoy working out in a group setting.
If you have been interested in group training, check out your local fitness studios and gyms and see if there are classes you can drop in and try to see if this trend is something you’d love.
3. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
This fitness trend is great for busy people who want to maximize what workout time they have available. HIIT allows you to burn calories faster and do it in a shorter amount of time by having you alternate between slow-to-moderate pacing and switching to short bursts of high activity.
So, if you have been looking to maximize your treadmill workouts or other cardio workouts, HIIT is something you should look into incorporating into your workout program.
4. Fitness Programs For Older Adults
As medical technology has lengthed our lifespans, there has begun to be a greater emphasis on fitness programs for older adults, as improved fitness leads to a better quality of life as we age.
While I am not a senior, I appreciate this trend as it emphasizes the importance of lifelong fitness and how important it is to develop a passion for health and fitness early in life.
5. Bodyweight Training
While investing in a piece of cardio equipment makes sense, it is tougher to build up a collection of free weights for strength training. This cost barrier, along with other obstacles, has made the rise of bodyweight training more popular.
As bodyweight training only requires your body, and maybe some ingenuity, to build up your strength, it makes sense that it has become a top fitness trend for 2019. If you want to start adding bodyweight exercises to your regime, start with simple movements such as push-ups, sit-ups, planks, and other moves to your dynamic stretching.
6. Employing Certified Fitness Professionals
The trend of employing certified fitness professionals doesn’t really impact people like you or me but is becoming a trend with companies, particularly fitness brands such as NordicTrack, ProForm, SOLE, and others. These companies have seen the value of hiring certified fitness professionals to develop better training programs so when consumers like us buy workout machines, we receive improved and more realistic workout programs.
7. Yoga
Fitness is not all about high-paced movement or muscle building, and the growing popularity of yoga proves this fact. Rather than rush through a workout, yoga allows you to center yourself, connect with your body in a series of strengthening movements, and enjoy greater balance and flexibility over time.
There are even ways you can burn more calories doing yoga if you implement certain practices, so yoga doesn’t just have to be for meditation and flexibility.
8. Personal Training
As the internet is making personal training more accessible, more people are connecting with trainers they have found online, or are using training programs like iFit Coach, which feature high-quality personal trainers leading you through a variety of exercises.
If you are interested in a personal trainer, be sure to look at what their qualifications are when it comes to helping you reach their goals. Some of the certifications you will want to look for are:
- American Council on Exercise (ACE)
- National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFPT)
- International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA)
- National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)
- National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)
- American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM)
9. Functional Fitness Training
I’ll admit, my passion for running and the strength training I do have very little to do with functional fitness, which emphasizes workouts which allow you to do your daily activities more effectively. But, along with the trend of fitness programs for older adults, functional fitness training has become more popular as more seniors have wanted to improve their fitness so they can remain in their homes and not need to move into assisted living.
10. Exercise Is Medicine
One I am personally a huge fan of is the trend to treat exercise as a form of medicine. It has been long acknowledged that exercise is excellent for mental health, but now, more researchers are finding that exercise can act as medicine for chronic disease management.
So, if you have been struggling with mental or physical health issues, ensuring that you workout for at least 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise may be able to help you more than other types of conventional medications.
As you can see, the 2019 fitness trends cover a spectrum of activities and innovations. Hopefully, one of these trends interests you and can help you reach your health and fitness goals this year.
