Who knows how 2020 will be written in the history books? There are still a few months left and, as we have seen, a lot can happen in that time. As you know, my world revolves around fitness. Aside from all the global craziness that has happened, I see a change happening that hopefully continues into the future of fitness.
How has the future of fitness changed in 2020?
Here is an overview of what has happened this year. People have been stuck at home, with little to no workout equipment. This caused people to get creative.
People usually spend a ton of money on vacations, summer camps, and entertainment outside of the home. This year that money went towards something different.
It went towards bikes, personal workout equipment, and home improvement materials.
No, you aren’t reading the wrong article. This isn’t an economics blog, fitness is right around the corner.
What most call fitness
To the average person, fitness is understood to be visual. A certain ratio of shoulder width to bicep circumference, a tiny waist line, or thighs that don’t touch.
Many people imagine fitness happening in a building with air conditioning, an Olympic pool, tons of machines, in the most affluent part of town.
Fitness “gurus” will try to sell the average person on this certain supplement (or tea…you all know who you are), or a specific training plan will give you the ‘ultimate 6 pack in 30 days’. This won’t work, and isn’t what fitness is about.
What fitness actually is
Well, what is fitness about then?
Fitness provides freedom.
This freedom is what allows you to ride your bike with family and friends and not be bringing up the rear.
It also allows you to be able to load that sheet of plywood from the cart to your truck bed. Then you can carry that plywood from the truck bed to the garage and duck down as you walk through the door with it.
Fitness/freedom is why you can look good in a swimsuit but still enjoy foods you like.
And most important of all, fitness equals freedom through functionality.
The fitness equation
The fitness equation means a person’s level of freedom is directly related to how functionally fit they are.
Of course I don’t mean constitutionally free. I am sure North Korea has plenty of fit people.
Refer back to the example we gave earlier of people who believe fitness is a skinny girl drinking detox teas. Or those who think fitness means a bicep is supposed to be the size of a newborn child.
Those people might look fit, but how functional are they? Can the skinny girl even load the sheet of plywood by herself? Can the guy with sleeve splitting biceps go hiking and not feel like his lungs will explode? Are they actually fit? Are they free?
The future of fitness
My point is fitness is finally evolving. People had disposable income and they didn’t go buy a leg press machine, they bought a barbell and weight set. They didn’t put in an in-ground pool, they bought a road bike to ride with their friends and family.
Restaurants were closed. So, they didn’t spend money on going out to eat. Instead they started cooking real, healthy food. And they couldn’t go on vacations so they decided to use their own manual labor to finish all those house projects.
These things feel good to do. These things are changing how people think of fitness, and changing the future of fitness trends.
When will the globo-gym model be extinct? Will girls with a waist the size of a pencil and zero muscle tone stop selling BS products? Will guys, who spend years getting perfectly sculpted abdominals and shoulders, tell you that they know the secret to giving you the same in 30 days? One day, will functional fitness be the ultimate king like it was when humans were still trying to learn how to survive on Earth? That’s all highly doubtful.
But a movement changing the future of fitness has started. People are connecting fitness and functionality. My hope is that people will embrace functional fitness. I hope this trend will continue and that people will continue down the road of functionality – towards freedom.
