Fitness

Fitness: What are the top trends for 2024?

Published

2 years ago

January 15, 2024

Fitness: What are the top trends for 2024?

Yoga is a perennial favourite, even if it doesn’t always crack the top 10, but at No. 1 is wearable technology such as smart watches.

Published Jan 14, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read

Smart watches lead the pack in the wearables market, with more and more exercise enthusiasts tracking their workouts, heart rate, step counts, exercise minutes and sleep in real time as well as using the data to analyze their performance. In this file photo taken on Sept. 19, 2019, an employee demonstrates an Apple watch at the Apple Store in New York City. Photo by JOHANNES EISELE /AFP via Getty Images

At the end of every December, the American College of Sports Medicine predicts the top-20 fitness trends for the coming year. In addition to offering insight into what’s on the immediate horizon, the list also provides context as to how fitness trends evolve over time, including the pandemic years when most fitness and recreation facilities were either closed or were operating with restrictions.

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The ACSM creates their annual forecast by compiling a long list of trends based on a review of the past year. The list is then sent to fitness professionals who categorize the trends based on popularity. The first set of predictions was published in 2006 for 2007. Over the subsequent 17 years, some fitness activities have been one and done, while others can be counted on to find a spot somewhere in the top-20 year after year.

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Yoga is a perennial favourite, even if it doesn’t always crack the top 10. Other activities like functional fitness and circuit training rotate on and off the list. This year, several of the activities that were trending during the pandemic are notably absent, including online training, which was No. 1 in 2021, and home exercise gyms, which took the No. 2 spot in 2022. This signals a full-scale return to gyms and group exercise, despite several experts suggesting online fitness was here to stay.

What hasn’t shown a decline in popularity since the pandemic is wearable technology. Consistently landing in the top three since 2016, it’s No. 1 on this year’s list. Smart watches lead the pack in the wearables market, with more and more exercise enthusiasts tracking their workouts, heart rate, step counts, exercise minutes and sleep in real time as well as using the data to analyze their performance.

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In keeping with the popularity of digital technology, mobile exercise apps breaks into the top 10 for the first time in 2024, taking the No. 7 spot. First appearing in 2016 when most apps were little more than step or calorie counters, today’s fitness apps offer a variety of exercise metrics in real time as well as timers to facilitate interval training, on-demand fitness classes, sleep and diet trackers and mindfulness training.

A surprise at No. 2 is worksite health promotion, which suggests employees returning to the office are demanding the workplace be more than a place to sit behind a desk. Office-based exercise classes and/or sports leagues, fitness challenges and healthy lifestyle education are some of the more popular activities that promote a better balance between work and an active lifestyle.

Fitness programming for older adults takes the No. 3 spot. With the last of the baby boomers reaching retirement age in the next few years, 23 per cent of the Canadian population will be 65 by 2030. With active and healthy aging a popular theme among the boomers, older adults are demanding more fitness programming geared to their needs. And since the majority of this population is no longer working from 9 to 5, gyms and recreation centres will need to offer more daytime programming to accommodate this increasingly large cohort of exercisers.

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Dropping down to No. 20 is high intensity interval training, which has held a place in the top 10 for the past decade. HIIT has seen a steady decline in popularity since the last time it held the No. 1 spot in 2018.

For first time, exercise for mental health has cracked the top 20 at No. 8. Highlighting the positive role exercise has on mental health will hopefully mean less emphasis on exercise as a tool for looking good and more as a means for feeling good.

Unexpectedly, traditional strength training is well down the list at No. 17, a prediction that may prove to be misguided. Fitness professionals have already started ramping up the messaging on the importance of weight training, especially for older adults. Slowing down the gradual loss of muscle mass that occurs with age helps maintain a high level of physical function, which is the key to maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle as the decades add up.

Also surprising is exercise for weight loss at No. 4. With significant weight loss now possible with a prescription for any of the new class of weight loss drugs, people are less likely to head to the gym to work off unwanted weight. Hopefully, the message will get out weight loss isn’t specific to unwanted body fat, which means valuable muscle will also be lost when the numbers on the scale start to decrease.

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That said, the folks from the ACSM are buoyed by what they see as the potential for the fitness industry to have an even greater effect on health outcomes, including mental health. “Exercise is medicine” is largely considered the No. 1 benefit of physical activity, and just so happens to be No. 16 on this year’s list of worldwide fitness trends.

ACSM Top 20 Fitness Trends for 2024

1. Wearable technology
2. Worksite health promotion
3. Fitness programs for older adults
4. Exercise for weight loss
5. Reimbursement for qualified fitness professionals (similar to those received for clients of physiotherapists and other health care professionals)
6. Employing certified fitness professionals
7. Mobile exercise apps
8. Exercise for mental health
9. Youth athletic development
10. Personal training
11. Lifestyle medicine
12. Outdoor fitness activities
13. Health/wellness coaching
14. Functional fitness training
15. Yoga
16. Exercise is medicine
17. Traditional strength training
18. Data-driven training technology
19. Online personal training
20. High intensity interval training

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Fitness

Put the fun back in your fitness routine with this 10-minute follow-along workout from The Curvy Girl Trainer Lacee Green

Published

5 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Press Room

Put the fun back in your fitness routine with this 10-minute follow-along workout from The Curvy Girl Trainer Lacee Green

Ever feel like beginner-friendly workouts are anything but?

That’s how BODi Super Trainer Lacee Green felt, so she devised a three-week, entry-level program designed for genuine newcomers to exercise—or those just getting back into it.

“My beginner-only plan is for every body and everybody,” Green tells Fit&Well.

Green’s program combines low-impact cardio, strength, core and mobility workouts for a total of five sessions a week and 30 minutes a day.

One of the routines she loves—that she says will provide a flavor of the plan—is a total-body cardio workout inspired by seven different sports.

“There is no repetition, it’s all bodyweight and super fun,” she says. “We do basketball, we do pickleball, we do soccer, and it’s really going to get your heart rate up.”

It will all count toward the CDC’s recommended 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week, while incorporating resistance training elements to strengthen your bones and muscles, she explains.

And Green has provided the full 10-minute routine below for you to try.

10-minute cardio workout for beginners

Press play on the video above and Green will guide you through the workout, or keep reading to see what’s in store.

Green’s 10-minute beginner-only cardio workout is inspired by seven different sports that she says will help channel your inner athlete.

Each sport links to an exercise during the routine. Follow the short warm-up, then perform each move for 40 seconds and rest for 20 seconds, for one round per sport.

In the video, another trainer demonstrates variations of each exercise so you can make it slightly more challenging as desired. The workout concludes with a short cool-down.

Here’s a brief breakdown of each exercise.

1. Basketball catch and shoot

Step to your side, then reach up into full extension as if shooting a three-pointer. Repeat by shuffling from side to side.

2. Quick football feet

Lower into a quarter squat with your feet wide apart and alternate quick stepping onto either foot. On Green’s cues, switch the direction you face from center to left and right.

3. Skater side-step

Step side to side as if skating, hitting an imaginary hockey stick across your body.

4. Soccer kick-up

Keeping light on your feet, hop from side to side as if juggling a football with your feet.

5. Pickleball shuffle

Lower into a half squat with your hands together in front of you. Keeping low, step or jump forward, then shuffle back to the start position.

6. Boxing jab cross

Stand side on with slightly bent knees and your guard up. Alternate throwing jabs with your left and right, switching your stance after 20 seconds.

7. Baseball squat to high plank

With your feet wide apart, lower into a deep squat with your hands up like a catcher. Place your hands on the floor and step back into a high plank, then back to the low squat.

About our expert

Lacee Green

Lacee Green is a BODi Super Trainer, certified personal trainer (CPT) and coach with more than 10 years of experience. She hosts a number of BODi on-demand fitness programs that are designed to challenge and motivate you while also providing a supportive and inclusive environment.

Fitness

Higher fitness levels linked to lower risk of depression, dementia – Harvard Health

Published

17 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

Higher fitness levels linked to lower risk of depression, dementia – Harvard Health

research review

People with high cardiorespiratory fitness were 36% less likely to experience depression and 39% less likely to develop dementia than those with low cardiorespiratory fitness. Even small improvements in fitness were linked to a lower risk. Experts believe that exercise’s ability to boost blood flow to the brain, reduce bodywide inflammation, and improve stress regulation may explain the connection.

Fitness

These 20-Minute Burpee Workouts Replaced His Entire Gym Routine – and Transformed His Physique

Published

1 day ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

These 20-Minute Burpee Workouts Replaced His Entire Gym Routine – and Transformed His Physique

While many swear by them, most people see burpees as a form of punishment – usually dished out drill sergeant-style by overzealous bootcamp PTs. Often the final blow in an already brutal workout, burpees are designed to test cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance and mental grit. Love them or loathe them, they deliver every time.

For Max Edwards – aka Busy Dad Training on YouTube – they became a simple but highly effective way to stay fit and lean during lockdown. Once a committed powerlifter, spending upwards of 80 minutes a day in the gym, he was forced to overhaul his approach due to fatherhood, lockdown and a schedule that no longer allowed for long, structured lifting sessions.

‘Even though I was putting in hours and hours into the gym and even though my physique was pretty good, I wasn’t becoming truly excellent at any physical discipline,’ he explained in a YouTube video.

‘I loved the intentionality of training,’ says Edwards. ‘The fact that every session has a point, every rep in every set is helping you get towards a training goal, and I loved that there was a clear way of gauging progression – feeling like I was developing competence and moving towards mastery.’

Why He Walked Away From Powerlifting

Despite that structure, Edwards began to question whether powerlifting was sustainable long-term.

‘My sessions were very taxing on my central nervous system. I was exhausted between sessions. It felt as if I needed at least nine hours of sleep each night just to function.’

He also noted that his appetite was consistently high.

But the biggest drawback was time.

‘I could not justify taking 80 minutes a day away from my family for what felt like a self-centred pursuit,’ he says.

A Simpler Approach That Stuck

‘Over the course of that year I fixed my relationship with alcohol and I developed, for the first time in my adult life, a relationship with physical training,’ says Edwards.

With limited time and no access to equipment, he turned to burpees. Just two variations, four times a week, with each session lasting 20 minutes.

‘My approach in each workout was very simple. On a six-count training day I would do as many six-counts as I possibly could within 20 minutes. On a Navy Seal training day I would do as many Navy Seal burpees as I could within 20 minutes – then in the next workout I would simply try to beat the number I had managed previously.’

This style of training is known as AMRAP – as many reps (or rounds) as possible.

The Results

Edwards initially saw the routine as nothing more than a six-month stopgap to stay in shape. But that quickly changed.

‘I remember catching sight of myself in the mirror one morning and I was utterly baffled by the man I saw looking back at me.’

He found himself in the best shape of his life. His energy levels improved, his resting heart rate dropped and his physique changed in ways that powerlifting hadn’t quite delivered.

‘It has been five years since I have set foot in a gym,’ he says. ‘That six-month training practice has become the defining training practice of my life – and for five years I have trained for no more than 80 minutes per week.’

The Burpee Workouts

1/ 6-Count Burpees

20-minute AMRAP, twice a week

How to do them:

Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
Crouch down and place your hands on the floor (count 1)
Jump your feet back into a high plank (count 2)
Lower into the bottom of a push-up (count 3)
Push back up to plank (count 4)
Jump your feet forward to your hands (count 5)
Stand up straight (count 6)

20-minute AMRAP, twice a week

How to do them:

Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
Crouch down and place your hands on the floor
Jump your feet back into a high plank
Perform a push-up (chest to floor)
At the top, bring your right knee to your right elbow, then return
Perform another push-up
Bring your left knee to your left elbow, then return
Perform a third push-up
Jump your feet forward
Stand or jump to finish

Kate is a fitness writer for Men’s Health UK where she contributes regular workouts, training tips and nutrition guides. She has a post graduate diploma in Sports Performance Nutrition and before joining Men’s Health she was a nutritionist, fitness writer and personal trainer with over 5k hours coaching on the gym floor. Kate has a keen interest in volunteering for animal shelters and when she isn’t lifting weights in her garden, she can be found walking her rescue dog.