If you’re into keeping fit and working out, take a look at these fitness trend, all forecasted to make it big in 2019!
Rowing
It’s time for boutique spin studios to step aside and make room for the rise of the dedicated – and likely super-glamourous – rowing studio. This cardio blasting piece of equipment is no longer being relegated to solely your warm up, as, thanks to the hotly anticipated Engine Room in London, it’s now the main event. There’s little doubt that as the first of its kind in the UK, The Engine Room will start a domino effect of boutique rowing studios popping up across the country, as fitness lovers will want to not only get fitter, but perfect their technique in a fun, competitive group setting too.
Live streamed workouts
Home workouts have always been popular, but in 2019 these are set to step up a gear and become fully immersive fitness experiences that you can be a part of in your own front room. If you’ve got young children at home, if you’ve only got half an hour free at lunch, or simply the weather is too horrible to leave the house, you no longer have to!
As an innovator in immersion fitness, US company Peloton currently streams spin sessions from its NYC studio to all corners of the globe, allowing users to take part in classes from the comfort of their home. As well as offering more than 10,000 on-demand spin classes, Peloton’s biggest appeal is its 14 ‘live’ sessions a day. With a leader board that displays your name, along with the names of all the other riders in the class, and an instructor personally motivating all taking part, even those in the smallest of towns and villages in the UK can get involved with some of the most exciting workouts in the world.
Peloton isn’t the only big name in the fitness world allowing exercise enthusiasts to reap the benefits of workout classes at home. Fiit’s interactive fitness classes – from its three studios Cardio, Strength and Rebalance – give app users the ultimate workout, whenever and wherever they want with progress tracking and live stats on screen throughout. Flexible fitness membership app ClassPass has also just launched ClassPass Live, offering a variety of workouts from quick 10-minute on-demand sessions to 30-minute live interactive classes.
Smart jewellery
If you’re into your exercise, chances are you’re a fan of wearable tech, and if you don’t have one yourself, you’ll know someone who does. But while they’re super handy at tracking your steps, workouts, sleep and more, they’re not always the most attractive – especially if worn outside of a gym environment. With a gap in the market, brands like Bellabeat and Oura have come to the rescue creating beautiful pieces of wearable smart jewellery.
The gorgeous Bellabeat Leaf is one of the first wearable pieces of smart jewellery aimed specifically at women which now tracks sleep, stress, steps, calorie burn and your menstrual cycle. The Leaf Urban can be worn as a bracelet, necklace or clip, while the brand’s new Chakra tracker (designed by founder and art and design graduate Urska Srsen) contains stunning healing crystals rose quartz or onyx.
Then there’s the Oura Ring which calls itself ‘the world’s most advanced wearable’. Claiming to use 51 tracking measurements, including body temperature and breathing rate, the unisex piece of fitness tech works 24/7 and its simplistic elegant design means it looks great with gym kit, work wear and your best evening outfit!
Ninja Warrior gyms
Thanks to the colossal popularity of television shows such as Ninja Warrior, Takeshi’s Castle and Total Wipeout, it comes as no surprise that gyms are following suit and creating adrenaline fuelled obstacle courses that make great workouts. With a focus on improving balance, strength, coordination and other aspects of functional fitness, ninja training involves climbing, swinging and jumping among other testing challenges but most importantly it’s designed to be a lot of fun.
At purpose built indoor obstacle course Ultimate Ninja UK in Colchester, not only can you challenge yourself to the impressive range of full-sized ninja obstacles but you can also take part in a fitness class with a difference. Freestyle ninja training sessions provide a unique fitness challenge based around body-weight exercise, strength and agility, and there are sessions for kids and adults too!
Technical running
In the world of running, 2019 will bring a year of focusing on performance running and the technical nature of training. Already becoming popular in London and other larger cities in the country, we’re about to learn everything from Fartlek training to lactate thresholds, MHRs to negative splits, AND how to use them to make our running better. It’s not as simple as just going out for a run as clubs and coaches use speed, agility and technique training as well as simply running, in order to help runners achieve a personal best.
If going back to basics to up your running game sounds like your kind of thing, take a look at the running clubs, and potentially specialist running coaches, in your area. In Stowmarket for example, why not enquire about joining Stowmarket Striders, a road running club with about 350 members of all ages, which meets twice a week for structured training sessions and social runs. Or, in Ipswich, JAFFA is a friendly running club which coaches its members on both the road and on the track. For a more personalised approach, a running coach is definitely a step in the right direction. As an ultra runner herself, running coach Inge Nijkamp is an expert when it comes to this type of training and offers technical sessions for runners all abilities in the Ipswich and Woodbridge areas.
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