Whether you are a full-on fitness fanatic or just gearing up to get healthier in the new year, here are five fitness trends—plus easy ways you can stick to them—you need to know about for 2015.
Strength In Numbers
Find that you can only stick to your workout schedule if you bring along a friend? If so, this is the fad for you. “Everyone is cheating on their trainers and their gyms,” says KC Sklar, SoulCycle instructor in New York. “It’s about strength in numbers, seeking out group fitness classes that not only push you harder than you can on your own, but offer the extra sense of teamwork and community that a one-on-one workout just can’t.” Sklar also credits this “pack mentality” as the simple difference between giving up and staying the course as far as your weight-loss and training goals go.
More Burn, Less Time
It’s no secret that everyone is busy, and finding even a little time during the day to work out can sometimes feel like a massive scheduling task. “People want efficiency. Everyone’s lives are busy, and in 45 minutes at a class like SoulCycle, for example, you get high-intensity interval training, calorie-burning cardio, toning with weights, and guided stretching,” says Sklar. “That’s way more than most individuals will accomplish on their own at the gym in twice that amount of time.”
Boutique Studios Stay Strong
Boutique studios are big and will continue to remain hot for yet another year. More specifically, Traci D. Mitchell, fitness and nutrition expert and author of The Belly Burn Plan, predicts that we will see a surge in studios that are devoted to high-intensity interval training.
Fusion 2.0
Still a big formula for success: Barre fitness and ballet fusion workouts—especially those combined with cardio—with the overall theme being low-impact. “Fusion-style classes combining dance, Pilates, yoga mixed with cardio, and strength-training are popular,” says Tracey Mallett, creator of bootybarre. “People are looking more for active flexibility with the burn of muscle.”
Back To The Basics
It would be remiss not to include the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual fitness trend forecast, a roundup of 10 fitness predictions, as voted on by thousands of health and fitness professionals worldwide. Their number-one for the year: Body Weight Training (think push-ups, planks, lunges and squats), a form of exercise that uses minimal equipment (you can do a lot of these things in your own home or at work, no gym required), which makes it more affordable and allows people to take on a “back to basics” approach with fitness.
