The changing face of fitness in India

Over the last 24 months, the fitness industry has seen a complete shake-up, with Covid-19-related shutdowns resulting in gyms closing shop, many scrambling to digitise their business offerings, and many trainers and small businesses left hapless in its wake.

As with most businesses around the world, technology has been a central theme, with accelerated adoption during the pandemic fueling unprecedented changes in consumer behaviour willing to try new apps, workouts, and be counselled all from the comfort of their own home.

However, with everyone jumping on the "online fitness" bandwagon, albeit with a variety of approaches, there has been a significant increase in the number of fitness platforms all vying to "disrupt" the fitness industry.

The fitness industry in India is no different, and here are some material changes.

The Customer

The pandemic drove millions of people who were suddenly barred from their favourite gyms, forcing consumers to accelerate their adoption of home fitness. Home workouts, which were previously unthinkable, became the only way to go, and people began to see the benefits of these workouts, which included increased flexibility, privacy, and the convenience of being able to workout at home. In addition, many myths about bodyweight workouts being ineffective were debunked, allowing consumers to push themselves through intense workouts.

Fitness app downloads are expected to have increased by 46 percent worldwide in the second quarter of 2020, with India leading the way with a 156 percent increase, adding approximately 58 million new active users!

Fitness Studios

Traditional studios became agile during the pandemic by developing capabilities to cater to at-home consumers, focusing on home workouts, and moving all personal training to video apps for nearly a year. Similarly, many coaches began offering online group classes in order to retain customers and make ends meet.

And now that gyms and studios are open again, businesses and trainers are continuing to offer hybrid programmes to help clients stay consistent regardless of which mode they choose.

Fitness Tech Platforms

Fitness platforms offer far more than just fitness through technology, but also accountability, community, group challenges, rewards programmes, access to exclusive events, and so much more – no wonder people embraced them, and they became the pandemic's largest gainers, with ready solutions to die-hard enthusiasts' fitness woes. To attract customers, they also included a variety of entry-level programmes such as dance, yoga, and mindfulness.

Their subscription services allowed you to exercise at your leisure while feeling more connected to those around you and accountable to a coach or community.

Big changes are still taking place in the industry, as the entire spectrum of home fitness (or anytime-anywhere-accessible-fitness) is quickly becoming the norm, with more people opting for remote formats.

Tech platforms are currently reimagining the entire fitness experience, putting the consumer at the centre. This is accomplished through the use of hyper-personalization, in which programmes can be built seamlessly around clients' lifestyles, heart rates, sleep, nutrition logs, daily step count, and mood patterns, among other things – using these correctly can be powerful in how we can improve results for each individual, all while doing activities they enjoy.

Fitness apps can be designed to provide meaningful experiences for customers regardless of their preferences, location, or price point. This, combined with meaningful insights, can assist us in losing weight while not giving up foods we enjoy or engaging in activities we enjoy!

Doing what we enjoy leads to consistency and sustainability, which makes leading a healthy lifestyle easier. "What gets measured gets done," and "what gets done gets done"! All of this culminates in hyper-personalization and keeping the customer at the centre of everything we do!

(Ketan Mavinkurve, Founder and CEO of Alpha Coach)