Just as the cut of our clothes changes with time, your fitness routine moves through phases. Some reflect fresh scientific discoveries or social change, others are the exercise equivalents of drop-crotch trousers that pass quietly into history. To try and predict the health and wellbeing trends set to define 2024, we spoke to a series of experts.
The biggest overall prediction is that next year will be the moment when many of the technologies associated with gaming will finally make their way into our fitness routine. The equipment manufacturers have been working with advances in altered reality and we will see tangible advantages genuinely useful to our advancing our goals.
Jak Phillips is global content director for fitness giant Les Mills, he predicts headsets will, at last, become an accepted part of our fitness regimes. “Virtual reality is really heating up. It got a bit of a bad reputation because of the association with the Metaverse but next year Apple is coming in with their headset and the whole experience is becoming so much better. The idea is that it becomes so good you forget you’re sweating.”
Phillips is convinced game creators will be catching up with tech in 2024 and taking it to new levels, “You can turn your living room into a dojo or your kitchen into a boxing ring. Integration between the real world and the digital will happen. Objects within your house can become ‘weapons’.”
Les Mills will also be bringing AI to strength training, a 2023 fitness obsession set to become even bigger. “Body combat was the first entry point but we’ve got 25 different workouts – more niche offerings. With the integration of artificial intelligence, there’s more you can do with cameras. They will be able to help you with form.”
Phillips also says we will be increasingly following our favourite class instructors remotely – meaning the man who brings the energy to a group in Brooklyn could also squeeze yet another ‘final’ round out of you while you’re away pitching for new business in Milan.
Strength is also a theme for science-led manufacturers Technogym. The Italian company makes almost every imaginable type of fitness equipment and predicts the next big wave will be automated personalisation facilitated by AI. This will effectively make the luxury of a trainer available to anyone with an app.
Enrico Manaresi, international communication director, says, “Our new app is a way to adapt your workout to your goals and your location – so whether you are at home, at the gym or away, the app will recognise the location and the equipment available, and it will guide you.”
He also points to the potential for intelligent machines to assist you in much the same way a live training partner would. Via the app, a machine that ‘knows’ you could adjust itself to your body size. "The machine adjusts the seats and the levers to your body and delivers the right resistance and different training methods. For instance, drop sets – the machine lowers the weight like a spotter,” adds Manaresi.
While these advances will help you manage the external, we will be seeing more data about our inner workings than ever before. The kind of tech previously available via expensive labs to elite athletes can now give all of us an insight into our general health. Next year’s big measure will be HRV – Heart Rate Variability. This is used as a gauge of the body’s response to stress and current state of resilience.
Health monitoring specialists, HAWQScore’s Head of Science, Livvy Probert predicts HRV will enter the culture alongside VO2 Max as the new measure of general health.
“HRV as a measure of stress is going to become a big thing – much smaller brands are tracking HRV so you have cheaper devices,” says Probert. With heart rate variability, it’s the gaps that suggest a robust stress response. A heart rate with very little variation can imply an ongoing stress situation. Probert points out that everyone’s HRV figure is theirs and to compare it with another person’s can be confusing. The useful figures are our own underlying trends.
All this data inevitably leads to a more purposeful approach to nutrition. The simple glugging of a protein shake may be swapped for plant and vegetable counting. Bethan Crouse, performance nutritionist at Loughborough University, says we will see a shift away from processed sources of nutrition and we will all be counting our Plant Points.
“It’s similar to five-a-day. People will be counting the number of plant points they’re eating in, say a Buddha bowl, with its fibre and anti-oxidants, instead of turning to something like a veggie sausage.” Variety will be the goal and having a numerical target will motivate humans who deal badly with the vague and long term.
So, in 2024 we look forward to competitively WhatsApping you our plant points while our leg press recommends a set progression and allows us to take on a virtual MMA star armed with a water bottle that looks like a laser cannon. Can’t wait.