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New fitness habits being created during Covid?

forbes.com

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Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#161

Post by lizardking »

mrslave wrote: post #157
jarjoura wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah there cowboy. I've been on waiting lists for any serious at home gym equipment since April. Not a peep, but I refuse to pay Marketplace/Craigslist scalpers. I was lucky to get resistance bands and those have been working well at least. Having a long ass commute and a dog to attend to meant my life was pretty much office and home. I was always too exhausted to consider a serious workout routine. However, since sh…

1 kettlebell. 1 jump rope. Thank me later. ;-)

Pull up bar too, or Olympic rings. Between those and body weight exercises you can have a complete workout regimen.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#162

Post by wcarron »

I think this article makes a lot of assumptions. It states gym members ships increased by 37% in ~ 1 decade. But, was that total memberships or % of population? How long do the memberships persist? It only mentions 6 months, pre-covid.

Are these people actually utilizing their memberships? I know when I had an LA Fitness membership, I went like... 3 times in a year because I hated the environment and fighting for a damn rack with gym tren bros. It wasn't until I found rock climbing that I began training 3x/week for 2+ hours.

What about obesity rates? Are they declining and, if so, is the decline directly attributable to increased gym memberships? And again, what about more rural areas where people might have turned to hiking/backpacking/outdoor sports? Seems like soulcycle subscriptions et al. are such a tiny part of the fitness industry as to be almost insignificant.

This article is entirely speculation, and rather thoughtless at that.

Personally, I think it's probably a grey mess. I stopped climbing for 2 months (March & April) as quarantine depression took hold. I substituted with lots of bodyweight workouts, but it wasn't the same. I lost my psyche. But, as soon as I could, I went back to bouldering and rock climbing outside 3x/week again, and it's remained steady at that level, with new habits of bodyweight workouts as supplemental work.

I know many of my friends experienced similar drops in activity during quarantine, and only about 50% of them have bounced back and resumed training. The others have seriously put on weight or had their diets go to shit or switched to simple walks/runs instead of weights or other sports.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#164

Post by bashwizard »

I will most likely not renew my gym membership this year. I bought a few kettlebells in february and man, the type of workout I get out of those fothermuckers is crazy. And the time I save from having to commute back and fourth to the gym makes such a difference even if it's just ~20 minutes every gym day.

Kettlebells and MMA/BJJ is where it's at for me in the future.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#165

Post by wreath »

mtalantikite wrote: post #116
flictonic wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strength training is extremely hard to do without equipment. It's a common misconception that body weight or minimal equipment is an adequate substitute. Iron Wolf is not strength training, it's endurance. I'm not knocking him, it looks like a great workout, but any intermediate barbell lifter will lose strength and size on this workout. There's simply no substitute for heavy compound barbell movements.

I guess it depends on what you mean by strength. For body building/size, yeah for sure you need weights. You can do a ton with some rings and p-bars along with your own body weight though (and maybe a kettlebell or two). I personally don’t care about size or external looks, that’s not what I practice for, but you certainly can get strong without weights. I’m sure a lot of people that can lift heavy can’t do a planche…

Strength is force production. Your muscles twitch and produce force to moves your bones which moves an external mass. Your body adapts to this external resistance by "over-compensating". This time you lift 100lbs, next time you can lift 105lbs because your muscles adapted (provided you slept, ate and rested well enough). Now, if you are not used to strength training, push ups are strength training exercises (your body being the external resistance against gravity). If you already lift, push ups won't improve your strength in any meaningful way. it's probably harder the first time you do it even though you've been barbell training, but the novelty quickly runs out and you're doing endurance now (different energy system in play).

Is this better than sitting on the couch whole day? Yeah probably better. But strength is not size and esthetics. It's force production against an external resistance. big does not equal strong.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#167

Post by watwut »

site-packages1 wrote: post #127
watwut wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freeletics is great, but sometimes it pushes you too much. The whole no excuses thing is great and motivating, untill you injure yourself by overtraining and not having enough rest. I know, cause I injured myself like that and could not exercise properly for a year. Just something to be cautious about.

That's good to know and interesting. Honestly I've felt the opposite, like it's not pushing me hard enough. But my experience so far has been on the Starting Strength and Fit For Life routines, so maybe those are designed to work out a bunch of muscle groups but not super push you. Once I'm done with this cycle I'm planning to move to one of the more serious ones and will keep your caution in mind.

It will ramp up difficulty over time. I think that part of issue was that the algorithm assumed I will be progressing despite me being over-trained and not progressing anymore.

I used it for two years before it got to that point.

The real trap is that it feels really good to finish super hard session. Endorphins flow and you feel like a hero, so it is hard to make yourself stop. It is sort of addictive.

I mean, it is good app and I liked the experience, except for how it ended and how frustrating it was to not be able to exercise anymore.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#168

Post by wreath »

site-packages1 wrote: post #37
iakov wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This app sounds really cool and smart for what it is trying to do. Do you mind sharing the name?

Sure, this one's called Freeletics. It was reasonably priced for a year (and you can find discount codes on Google). The feedback loop is _okay_ because although they have really stellar example videos on how to do the exercises, you still have to self-assess how closely you're matching the videos (there's no person that watches you or critiques). That's the only downside to the "AI" driven workout progressions.

I tried freeletics 5 years ago. It felt great being hot and sweaty afterwards, until i had a knee injury from all the jumping (high impact) with bad form trying to beat the clock. I have yet to see someone who didn't quit freeletics because of an injury.

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#169

Post by walrus01 »

Most bicycle stores look like a grocery store in the 1-2 days before a hurricane hits. Tons of inventory is missing. Finding basic items can require phoning 5 or 6 different shops.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/studies-reports/2020/06/16/b...

My theory is that it's a combination of people who don't want to commute by public transit due to covid19 concerns, and people whose regular gyms and group-fitness clubs and classes have been cancelled also due to covid19, combined with the usual April and onwards spring/summertime boom in sales for everything bike related.

Bicycle retailers are a highly cyclic business and usually things are very slow from mid October to late March. Except in places with really good year-round weather (San Diego and similar).

Re: New fitness habits being created during Covid?

#170

Post by Denzel »

sickcodebruh wrote: post #16

The only people I know who seem to feel really good about their COVID fitness levels are those who prioritized it before the pandemic and are so committed that they were willing and able to figure out alternatives. People who didn't prioritize it or struggled to get into sustainable schedules are doing poorly. Even some of my friends who had really good routines fell into pretty serious depressions at the start of it…

Counter anecdote: my mother started Nutrisystem and prioritizing fitness because the pandemic gave her the time away from work to focus, experiment, and dial in a new routine.

She’s lost almost 20 pounds and counting, healthily, and currently weighs less than she has in 30 years; her doctor halved her blood pressure medicine a couple weeks ago, and predicts she’ll be able to stop it entirely soon — once again something she’s been on for 30 years; her blood work came back with flying colors; and she went on her first actual grueling hike in her life a couple weeks ago.

She has a new lease on life due to the pandemic: a window of opportunity where she didn’t have to work to live. Now she’s ready to return to work, with her new habits, and never look back.

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