Even though the iron game stays mostly the same and persists on the tenets of lift hard, lift heavy, and lift often, there are a bunch of fitness fads that pop up every year or so. And that’s not a bad thing… more people exercising and working out, even if they may crowd up your favorite spot, is good for everyone.
Plus, in those often flighty trends are a few nuggets that may make your time training more interesting or more productive, so here we present what we think will be the best and most influential fitness trends of 2019. Reject them all as hogwash or glean some ideas to advance your own training, it won’t matter because they’ll be here soon to annoy and perhaps astonish.
Meat analogues made from vegetable components keep getting tastier and tastier—like the Impossible Burger—but the real innovation for carnivores is coming from companies like Mosa Meat and Memphis Meats. These guys are making “cultured meat,” which is grown in a lab from the muscle cells of your preferred livestock (cows, chickens, pigs, etc). The benefits include reducing pressure on the environment—one sample from a cow can make 20,000 lbs of beef—and eliminating inhumane treatment of animals so you’ll be able to get your protein fix without any guilt.
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DNA Testing for Optimizing Workout
Testing your DNA for ancestry has exploded in the last decade, but digging deeper into your unique code to figure out how everything from nutrition to exercise works the best with your body is the newest frontier. Companies like Helix can offer you insights into how to optimize your daily workouts, meals, and sleep to perform at your best.
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American Ninja Warrior Gyms
The functional fitness explosion got people moving in more efficient and interesting ways, but most programs were lacking the “fun” part of the equation. Ninja Warrior gyms, though—based on the popular NBC obstacle course TV show—that combine moves to improve acrobatics, agility, and strength are starting to pop up across the country.
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Streaming Classes on Home Fitness Equipment
Peleton was one of the first services that combined a top-quality home exercise machine with live streaming fitness classes, and people now swear by its mix of high-energy exercise within the comfort of your home. Look for more machines getting in on the streaming game, like NordicTrack’s new RW900 rower.
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Inline Skating
Roundly ridiculed when they first came out in the ’80s, inline skates are coming back into fitness form. People craving new ways to exercise are gravitating back to the fast, fun, and thrilling whole body workout that the skates can give. If you get the itch to push and glide in 2019, check out K2, which makes some of the slickest and most modern skates around.
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E-stim for Recovery
Electrical stimulation used in therapy to help alleviate pain and hasten recovery has been around for awhile, but the newest products (like PowerDot’s small and powerful devices) are getting better and cheaper. The wireless e-stim modules can increase blood flow, which may help speed up recovery and boost strength.
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Shorter Classes / Lifting Sessions
The amount of time to deal with all of life’s pressures and pleasures seems to be getting shorter and shorter these days, making carving out sufficient space for working out tougher and tougher. Hence, one of the new exercise trends will continue the focus on shorter, more productive workouts. One recent study found that doing as little as one set to failure of a lift once a week can give you significantly more strength compared to the standard of 3 sets of 10, 3 times a week.
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HIIT Fusion
HIIT hit the too-little-time-for-working-out nerve in the last few years, but the trend continues as people will always be stressed for time. The newest, and supposedly more efficeit, HIIT moves will incorporate a mix of exercises, like rowing at high intensity, coupled with a quick round of kettlebells.
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Multi-Function Exercise Machines
Again, with the focus on maximizing your time working out for the most efficiency, new exercise machines like the Bowflex HVT will combine your cardio with strength training. Less time equaling more muscle and greater endurance—what’s not to like about this trend?
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Rowing for Cardio
Hitting up the rowing machine for cardio has never been super popular (quick, how many ergs does your gym have? More than two would surprise us…) but 2019 is going to be a big year for the ergometer. Experts say that rowing is the most efficient total-body workout you can get, and now with new machines that can broadcast streaming services on huge screens, the time is ripe for a rowing renaissance.
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Smaller Niche Gyms
Like CrossFit and martial arts studios and boxing gyms, the focus for some people in 2019 will be on small, niche spaces that specifically cater to their exercise fetish. Whether it’s old stand-bys like yoga and Pilates, or newer fads like interval training or vertical climbing machines, forecasts point to people being more and more motivated to seek out particular workout experiences.
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Virtual Reality / Interactive Fitness Entertainment
The virtual reality world that was promised to us decades ago is finally coming into focus as high-quality VR headsets and games are now available from major companies, and that gaming trend is beginning to bleed over into other areas, including fitness. Be prepared for more integration between working out and spacing out as brands like Black Box become better known.
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Nootropics
Nootropics, also called smart drugs, are supplements made to help enhance your brain power and attentiveness, and they’ve been called the next big thing for years. But as people start opening up more to the idea that addressing all parts of the body, including the mind, makes for the best all-around fitness, these brain boosters will become more popular.
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Mind and Body Connection
Forging a strong and muscular physique takes more than just making into the gym a few times a week and following a solid program, you’ve also got to have your mind in the game. And guys looking for every edge are turning to exploring how to hone the brain for optimal fitness. Part of it includes mindfulness while working out to build a better connection to your muscles and how they work with your body and learning how to breathe properly to get much-needed oxygen to your muscles. Current apps like Calm and Breathe2Relax can help increase your mindfulness and fine-tune your breathing.
Most serious cyclists still scoff at the notion of electric bikes, but the category has been coming on strong the last few years, and 2019 will be its breakout. The more people get moving, regardless of electrical assistance, the better—studies have shown that riding e-bikes only burns 20% less calories than on a normal bike, that there’s a 10% increase in fitness among new riders, and they can replace 76% of people’s car trips, which helps the environment as well as fitness.
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CBD products
CBD, or cannabidiol, is one of over 100 compounds found in marijuana, and taking it as a supplement has been linked to helping alleviate pain, boost performance, and enhance recovery related to exercise. There’s no psychoactive component to CBD, so you won’t get high, but anecdotal evidence from everyone from endurance athletes to power lifters says the compound—which can come in a myriad forms, like softgels, oils, creams, and lotions—will be the next big thing in exercise supplements
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Swim Fitness
Just jumping in a pool and busting out a few laps won’t cut it for exercise anymore; you’ve got to actually workout in the water. Swim fitness, or aqua or water fitness, is when you use special weights, resistance fins, and other underwater gear to make sure your time in the water is intense, boosting your cardiovascular fitness, strength, endurance, and flexibility.
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Smart Kitchens
As the concept called the internet of things—a network of interconnected devices that surround you—continues to gain steam, the kitchen is becoming taken over by smart appliances with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and digital assistants. You can get connected coffee makers, toaster ovens, microwaves, and fridges, which can all help make you more efficient with your time and more likely to eat nutritiously.
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BandBell bars
These innovative barbells feature wooden ends with grooves that hold exercise bands, which then hold weights suspended underneath. BandBell bars give you a “kinetic” workout that is said to help strengthen, heal, and protect your joints.
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Bug Protein
Most lifters don’t care where their protein comes from, they just want to make sure they are getting in enough to keep the gains coming. That’s a good thing, since protein sourced from insects is a growing part of the supplement game. It’s only going to get more popular in 2019, as eating bugs for bulk is cheaper and more environmentally sound.
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Food as Medicine
This won’t be a big surprise for guys who are already into working out and eating right, but the movement to make people more aware that food can also be used as preventive and healing medicine should be strong in 2019. Doctors are beginning to really emphasize how dropping sugar, salt, and processed foods can be just as helpful when recovering from illness or injury as the drug they prescribe you.
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Drinkable Soups
Smoothies or juices don’t just have to be sweet and fruit-based—traditional soups are basically just hot veggie smoothies! Souping is the new juicing, trend watchers say, and drinking cold soups gives you some of the benefits of smoothies, but also up the fiber, drop the sugar, and end up being more filling with a similar stellar vitamin and mineral profile.
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Alkaline Diet
Not a super-new diet—Tom Brady is a famous and long-time adherent—but the meal plan heads most lists of a new trend. It’s based on eating foods that promote alkalinity within the body and tamps down acidity. This state is said to help build up bone and muscle strength and lower inflammation.
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Wearable Tech Gets Good
Fitness technology that you can easily wear has been around for a good many years, but 2019 is when the tech gets really good. From the Apple Watch to the newest FitBit models, keeping track of movement, heart rate, calories burned, and much more, they are now extremely accurate and helpful training buddies instead of frustrating hindrances.
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Group Training
Getting your sweat on with a group (bigger than five people) is again leading most fitness forecasters top trends lists. Though not many lifters are into this trend, they can be a great way to shake up your training and get some novel cardio in with some HIIT blasts that will test your endurance. And groups are also a great way to meet a like-minded crowd of new people.Â
