2017 — The year you'll join a fitness community & gyms goes truly tech
Many of us has started running off the kilo's with our attention towards the upcoming summer, and gyms everywhere are rejoicing over new users pouring into centers all over the world.
The fitness industry and especially gyms has until recently been a very non-techie space compared to most other parts of our daily routine.
It's not really because of a lack of platforms or technology, it's more a question of timing.
We're getting more and more healthy, we're wearing biometric wearables, Nike's to work (read Athleisure), if you've never done Yoga you're weird (I'm weird), most of us pays for gym memberships, and all of this is culminating in 2017.
The big brands now wants you to join the fitness community.
Running clubs
In early 2017, Richard Branson announced that his latest bet is on sports festivals, yep, you heard right — sports festivals.
Virgin Sports aims at gathering thousands of people to marathons, ultra marathons, 5K's, biking events, swimming and other activities.
Also the big brands such as Nike and Adidas sees the possibility to capitalize on people moving together in groups. They're now building out an existing layer on top of their wearables and smart shoes, and introduces running clubs and communities.
The athleisure trend which has evolved over the last 2–3 years, has both been fantastic and challenging for the big brands. As Nike and Adidas capitalize on us wearing sneakers to work, some has also been struggling, as normal fashion brands creates sports lines (Old Navy Active, Victoria Sport and GAP's GapFit) and challenges the traditional companies.
One example is Under Armour that came in $650 million under the predictions made by analysts, and that after 8 years of seeing 20 percent growth every quarter. It's not longer enough to make athletic clothes alone, and the big brands are looking at verticals.
In Barcelona, both Nike+ and Adidas Running club has hired running coaches with Olympic education to guide the local Run Clubs up and down the Spanish hills.
The ways Nike and Virgin Sports are doing it is different, but the motivation is the same. You'll be paying up for moving around.
The platform reality
That our lives are moving onto platforms is an established fact as most of us stream music and films, book hotels, flights, cars, as well as shop most of our items on the big global platforms.
However, when we're looking to work out, either outside or in a gym, we rarely use any of these existing platforms.
2017 will be the year the additional activities in our lives move over to the platforms as well. Big gym platforms such as Gym For Less, Classpass, etc lets you choose from all the gyms in your city at a fixed price by using your phone, and not with a 12 month subscription like many gyms require.
I can't speak for Classpass or any other platform, but Gym For Less I know personally, and January 2017 was the best month in their history in terms of signups.
For people that doesn't use gyms or need more support in keeping in shape, 8fit or Lifesum will keep you healthy and occupied through the winter through personalized meal and fitness plans served with interactive content.
The global market size of fitness clubs alone exceeds $80 billion a year, so it’s no wonder why these platforms are emerging to take a bigger piece of the cake, and we'll probably see more of the bigger platforms offer these kinds of subscription deals as well.
Just as the race to become the go-to app for on-demand delivery started in 2016, this year will be the one of the go-to fitness-marketplaces.
Gyms goes tech
There are still many old gyms with rusty equipment out there, but times are changing here as well.
The most modern equipment today, both synchs with your wearables, your apps and your platforms, making it easy to monitor your performance.
These new machines doesn't only monitor how well you work out, but gives you feedback on how to do it better, recreates your outdoor running patterns, let you run to the beat of your favorite songs, and much more.
But please relax. This post was not written to make you feel bad for not going to the gym or working out, merely to prepare you for the tech invasion the fitness industry we'll be seeing the next years.
