Wearables Top 2019 Fitness Trends

According to the American College of Sports Medicine’s 13th annual survey among fitness industry professionals, wearable technology is the top fitness trend for 2019.  This includes things like your Fitbit trackers, Apple smartwatches, heart rate monitors and GPS trackers.

Second in line, for the second year in a row, was “group training,” defined as including more than five participants in a group environment, and considered a separate category from small group personal training. An exercise class is a formatted class that the entire group follows.  Things like Zumba, step aerobics and Spinning are examples of group exercise classes. You show up and perform the motions that are being demonstrated or cued. A group exercise class is basically choreographed in that the entire group more or less is doing the same thing. In a group exercise setting, the teacher instructs, and the students follow. Group Training seems to be growing in popularity because (a) it works and (b)  it’s cost effective, especially when compared with its high priced cousin, personal (or private) training. Interesting factoid: group exercise didn’t even make the list until 2017.

The third top trend was high-intensity interval training (HIIT).  HIIT is a cardio session arranged as short bursts of very hard work. The whole point of high-intensity training is to kick up the intensity of your cardio. In order to qualify as true HIIT, you’ll need to push yourself to the max during every set. That’s why they’re short—anywhere from 20 to 90 seconds, typically. It’s the opposite of going for a long run where you ration your energy in order to sustain the activity for longer. HIIT first appeared in the top 20 in 2014, ranking as number one, and has appeared in the top five every year since.

Trends to watch: Fitness Programming for Older Adults (ranked fourth in 2019), and Body-Weight Training (ranked fifth this year).

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