Home Gym Trends
Social, Streaming and Beyond
Written by Allison Landa
The fitness industry is bulking up. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association reports that the country’s $30 billion health and fitness industry has been growing between 3 and 4 percent annually
for the last decade. Home gyms constitute a huge part of this expansion, particularly when it comes to Bay Area residents who value privacy and
convenience. Why climb into the car or hop a bus when you can simply get a great workout in the comfort of your own home?
Here are the top home-gym trends for 2019.
Getting Social
You may want to work out at home to avoid unwanted advances or that guy who hogs every machine you want to use, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you want to do it alone. Enter Mirror, which connects you to others who are invested in fitness. This can take the form of training with experts in the field or working out live with friends. You can also choose to compete against yourself by earning points and working to beat your personal best.
At-Home Yoga
Through the magic of YouTube, you too can begin a yoga practice in your home gym. There are many choices of streaming yoga videos, but some particularly fun ones include Adriene Mishler, who has an estimated 1.6 million-plus subscribers, Jessamyn Stanley, whose practice seeks to defy body stereotypes, and YogaGlo, a subscription-based choice featuring more than 3,500 classes conducted by more than 30 teachers. The monthly price is $18 and the first 15 days are free. The great thing about at-home yoga is the low overhead — all you need is a mat, and perhaps a comfy set of pants, and you’re
ready to rumble!
Streaming On-Demand Workouts
In the Bay Area, variety is nothing if not the spice of our lives. That’s why the Peloton online studio is quickly gaining favor. Named for the main body of riders in a road-cycling race, Peloton offers on-demand streaming workouts via bike or treadmill. User Ken Jolley told us that “the competitive nature of the ranking during both live classes and encore” drove him to use Peloton. “I have an entire gym at my disposal 24/7/265, but it’s too quiet and there’s no drive. I need to be pushed. Peloton fills those voids.”
Virtual Personal Training
Digital workout studio Tonal, which is headquartered in Potrero Hill, offers
intelligent personal training in six different categories: muscle building, toning up, athletic performance, getting started, stretching and recovering, and cardio boosting. Using advanced data to monitor your progress, Tonal helps its coaches adapt workouts to maximize your benefits. This means you
need not calculate weight or pace — simply select your goal and make the commitment. Ultimately no one else can do that heavy lifting on your behalf.
