This year, the fitness industry has changed drastically, as has the way we exercise. We went from sweating in full fitness centers to sweating in our own homes. Thus, many continued to exercise at home with the encouragement of trainers via the Zoom application, with the same goal of gaining fitness and maintaining well-being through training.
In many European countries and the USA, they gymnasiums and fitness centers closed months ago and we have the first research available on how it affected our exercise habits. ClassPass recently released the 2020 Report, a trend report for this year based on data from 30,000 surveys and the experiences of gyms and wellness centers from more than 30 countries. It showed an incredible increase in online training, but also a huge increase in those who say they exercise at noon. In fact, it's been the most popular time to exercise during the work week for quite a few months now.
“A lot of people are working from home and practicing online,” says the director and head of the research company ClassPass, Julia Healey. Online fitness classes have allowed us to exercise just a few steps away from our home 'offices' without worrying about being seen by colleagues or bosses. This year, adds Healey, people were forced to develop some new routines, and the bright spot of the day for many was the opportunity to sleep a little longer or the 'extra' time they suddenly gained, because they no longer have to waste time with 'travelling' ' to work. Time they can now use to exercise or spend time with their children. But does it make sense to exercise in the middle of the day? According to the professor of physiology and nutrition at University of North Carolina, dr. Anthony Hackney, exercise in this time frame has a great effect on our well-being.
There are several reasons and one of them is already ate breakfast, where blood sugar levels have increased, making high-intensity exercise possible, he says dr. Hackney. Plus, as personal fitness trainer Jay Cardiello points out, working out at noon also helps us focus better on afternoon work and be faster and more productive later in the day. At the same time, the post-exercise phase before the main meal is the one that helps us burn calories better, eaten at lunch.
But this year they did also changed the exercises, which people perform most often! For example, the popularity of yoga has grown by as much as 25 percent compared to 2019, which is why yoga has become the most popular online training. Such a change, according to Healey, happened because we were all manically searching for something to reduce the stress of the pandemic.
Yoga has gained incredible popularity during the pandemic because of its ability to calm down, Healey adds, which makes sense since it's known to ease anxiety and help control breathing, and it also helps us establish a "healthy" routine. By the way, Pilates topped the charts last year. It's impossible to say yet whether any of these trends will continue into 2021, but if 2020 has taught us anything, it's that you should always expect the unexpected.
