Top 5 Fitness Trends of 2024 and Top 5 Changes
The fitness landscape has seen many changes over the past few years with the COVID virus and getting back to normalcy. We have seen the rise and fall of virtual personal training and workouts at home. We have seen group training ebb and flow only to be firing on all cylinders again. There have been fad diets and new diets that have been around forever (keto anyone), and now we stand on a new frontier where things are ever-changing. Perhaps faster than ever!
The five things we see being trends in 2024 are:
Aging Population Weight Training: The aging population will continue to look to professional personal trainers to safely and effectively assist them in building muscle, reducing their fall risk, and leading them into a healthier life of longevity.
Walking as a Baseline: Walking will continue to be the new gold standard. Too many people don’t get the bare minimum amount of steps daily, so going to the gym and riding the bike or using the elliptical or stepper will be unlikely to do anything in. terms of fat loss. Everyone needs a stable base of metabolism to lean on so they can enjoy life (food and drink).
Weight Training > Cardiovascular Exercise: More people will trade in cardio for weight training. People are starting to realize that cardio will help burn calories and increase blood flow, but it won’t help them fix their metabolisms or build a beautiful body. People will be “winging” it, trying to learn how to utilize weight training machines most effectively. It is our job as fitness professionals to create opportunities for them to learn how to build a routine and utilize the machines without injury.
Quality over Quantity of Workouts: More emphasis will be put on the duration of workouts. Getting people into the gym and moving is hard enough; expecting them to do it five days a week for 90 minutes at a time is near impossible. We will see greater emphasis on walking, nutrition, and 2-4 days a week of well-planned weight training.
Flexibility, Mobility, and Self-Care: We will see greater emphasis on yoga, pilates, foam rolling, and stretching. People are starting to understand that as we get older, our bodies break down and that it is not impossible to regain youthful flexibility and fascial resilience.
The five things we see going away in 2024 or being greatly reduced are:
HIIT Will Ride Off into the Sunset: HIIT will become an extinct dinosaur. Recently, you haven’t heard much about it. For individuals who follow a strict diet plan and get their required minimum steps per day, sure, HIIT can assist in releasing some stubborn body fat, but this will be reserved for breaking plateaus and individuals who are strict with their routines.
Virtual Training will Decrease: It was great during the pandemic, and it will still be used to access trainers who don’t live in your neck of the woods (or if you live somewhere without professional trainers), but it will not be the go-to that it was for the last 2-3 years.
Multi-Level Marketing Scams Will Be Called Out: How many friends do you have who have tried to sell you supplements, a fat-loss pre-packaged meal plan, or tried to recruit you to sell products with them? Sadly, these things create short-term results and are touted by people who generally have minimal education on fitness or nutrition.
Reliance on Supplements Will Be Reduced: Remember the days of bogus juice cleanses, fat burners, or testosterone supplements promising amazing results? People are getting smarter and looking for quality supplements that will help them actually make progress. Things like meal replacement protein shakes, caffeine, creatine, and pre-workout will reign supreme, and testosterone boosters, nitric oxide pump agents, and fat burners will sail a final goodbye.
Social Media Influencers Will Be “Found Out”: Young 18- to 25-year old “men and women” may look amazing, but they should not be the “image” people are taking their advice from when trying to get results. Obese people trying to lose weight and skinny people trying to build muscle are the most vulnerable to this type of garbage. Get your information from trusted trainers, nutritionists, and sources who have a bunch of letters behind their names and actually practice what they preach. Being naturally in shape in your teens, twenties, and early thirties is a real thing! We hope to see these “fit-fluencers” when they are 50 and see how they look.
This is an opinion based on seventeen years of observing fitness trends. We hope you find it entertaining and informative. Next year, we will look back and see which ones we got right and which ones we got wrong.
Heading into the new year 2024, we here at Formal Fitness Training wish you the very best in living your life of perpetual improvement. We are relentlessly dedicated to your health, wealth, success, happiness, relationships, and fitness!
Talk soon!
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
