Ready to mix up your fitness trends? Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to do that after reading this list of fitness trends. In 2024 your favourite workouts will get bigger and better with upgrades in digital fitness and exercise tech. You’ll also find fun new ways to approach classic faves, while taking the time to understand how your body will best respond to exercise.
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According to Google Search data, weight loss and fitness will continue to be popular trends globally, when it comes to making personal resolutions. Trending exercises for the next 12 months (well, 10 now – eek) will include things like the back-to-nature ‘Tarzan movement’, efficient fitness regimes such as ‘exercise snacking’, and the more widely known High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) seeing an 83% increase in interest for 2024.
The study also revealed the trends on their way out, with weighted hula hooping which found fame on TikTok, dropping in interest alongside the likes of quirky trends such as eye yoga and forehead workouts.
If one thing throughout the report is apparent, it’s that good health is becoming ever more important and that many have health-based goals in mind. Taking a look at the trends that are becoming more popular, there are numerous ways to incorporate accessible exercise into your daily life to make it a habit you can sustain.
Check them out below.
1. Hormone-focused workouts | fitness trends
Not entirely new, but definitely making a comeback, are hormone-focused workouts: basically, exercise routines designed to optimise the production and balance of hormones in the body.
Why? Because hormones play a crucial role in various physiological processes, including metabolism, muscle growth, and overall well-being. So the idea here is to tailor your workout to positively impact hormonal levels – meaning enhanced fitness results and overall health.
There’s no cardio, no resting, and exercises should be performed as quickly as possible, so your workout might not even break 15 minutes. Why so short? It only takes a small amount of high-intensity exercise that works your muscles to failure for a burst of HGH.
2. Fitness mirrors
Fitness mirrors are the latest addition to the smart home gym revolution, and we’re big fans. Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston are also advocates — Kate Hudson said hers played a big part in getting back into fitness after the birth of her daughter Rani Ros.
They basically offer real-time and virtual group fitness and personal training from the comfort of your own home, so they’re essentially like a virtual PT.
3. Pvolve
According to its website, “Pvolve is a science-led method that combines low-impact functional fitness with resistance-based equipment to deliver results beyond a traditional workout.” Many of the sequences are meant to mimic everyday movement like reaching, rotating, and bending. For example, stepping off your back foot like you’re running in one sequence, or practicing a movement akin to lifting a box or reaching for a jar on a high shelf in your kitchen.
4. Hyrox
A simplified version of CrossFit, Hyrox is a global fitness race where participants from all around the world compete in the exact same format. The race starts with a 1 km run, followed by 1 functional movement, which repeats 8 times, taking place in large indoor venues, creating a unique stadium like atmosphere for all participants. The demands of the race require good cardiovascular endurance as well as being strong and somewhat mobile, so it’s effective at building well-rounded fitness without high-risk or high-skill movements.
5. Primal movements
Inspired by animals and our own early homosapien movements, primal movements can include anything from climbing trees, doing bear walks on all fours, or trying pull-ups on a tree branch. Along with being good for you physically, it aims to help reinstate the connection with nature that we have lost through the years. You might have also heard the term Tarzan movements which is basically the same thing.
6. Wall pilates
Anyone who has a) TikTok or b) the slightest interest in fitness will have come across wall Pilates. Much like the 12 3 30 workout, the 75 Hard and 75 Soft challenges, wall Pilates has gone viral, with a staggering 42.6 million views on TikTok. It basically involves performing traditional Pilates exercises with the support of a wall. The wall mimics the foot bar traditionally used in reformer Pilates classes, which adds resistance.
Fans claim it brings about similar benefits to that of reformer Pilates classes without the price tag, while being low impact. However like any Pilates done at home by yourself, you don’t get any feedback or correction from a teacher. It’s important to work in the correct alignment, move with precision, apply your breath correctly and engage the correct muscles to get the most benefits, and if you’re a beginner you may need a little more assistance.
7. Reformer pilates
Reformer pilates is not going anywhere, and is only getting more popular as time goes on.
A form of exercise that shares the principles of centring, concentration, control, precision, breath, and flow with traditional mat classes, but on a reformer machine, regular reformer pilates exercises can lead to greater strength, flexibility and balance, which in turn improve posture, movement and mental health.
In 2024 expect to see new types of reformer workouts like tempo/power pilates and Rowformer.
8. Exercise snacking
Exercise snacking revolves around a brief bout of exercise, as short as one minute, that, if done consistently, can yield surprising health perks. To try exercise snacking yourself this year, first consider which snacks might best jibe with your schedule and tastes. Stair climbing? A two-minute corridor jaunt? Fifteen chair squats? Maybe a dozen jumping jacks with your office door closed? Almost any activity that gets you up and moving can be an exercise snack.
Emerging research shows that exercise snacks target two important components of fitness: cardiovascular health and metabolic health, both of which are linked to lower risks of type 2 diabetes and heart disease
9. Cycle syncing
Similar to hormone-focused workouts, cycle syncing is the idea of tailoring your fitness routine to each phase of your menstrual cycle. Female athletes, coaches, and researchers have realised that athletic performance changes with hormonal shifts throughout the month, and training can be tweaked accordingly. So, the weeks when a woman has higher stamina may include harder workouts, and times marked by less energy are more recovery-focused.
