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The bad news first: the new Christmas sneakers don’t walk by themselves. The happier news? Getting back on the New Year’s gym doesn’t have to mean working out seven days a week and breaking a sweat on the treadmill at Barry’s.
This year, London’s Fitterati have been hard at work showcasing some shiny new tricks and trends that you might actually want to stick with: think 15-minute workouts, gamified dance sessions in the metaverse, and low-impact feel-good classes that’ll ‘you’ actually feeling energetic enough to make it through the end of January, maybe even beyond.
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From cashback from your gym membership (yes, you read that right) to yoga classes that sync with your cycle, this is your fitness mega guide for 2023. Let’s do it.
Microdose your workout
rise
Don’t let January’s gym intimidation put you off. The good news for those who like to use exercise for a mental boost (surely… everyone?): According to a new study by Asics, it only takes 15 minutes and nine seconds for exercise to make you feel cheered up, so do it You don’t have to do vigorous, hour-long classes or 10,000 runs all the time to get that endorphin rush.
F45 Chief of Athletics Gunnar Peterson agrees that efficiency will be a leading training trend this year as our lives get more chaotic, and peloton coach Ally Love says she increasingly encourages her clients to focus on that Focus on what she calls the “Power of One”: Focus on one small thing you want to accomplish that day, whether it’s 50 sit-ups or a 10-minute class. “When you can do just one thing, no matter how big or small, suddenly it becomes achievable,” she says.
Seven-minute workouts are among the most popular on YouTube (see: PT Lucy Wyndham-Read’s seven-minute workouts, each regularly garnering over 96 million views) and 60-second #standingabs workouts are popular at more than 22 .7 trending on TikTok million views. If you have time to fit in 30 minutes, the 12-3-30 workout is another top fitness hack that’s making the rounds on TikTok by doing 30 minutes at 5mph and a grade of 12 percent walking on a treadmill. According to Google, searches for it have increased by 309 percent.
Meanwhile, EMS (Electromuscular Stimulation) training – a favorite among A-listers like Tom Holland and time-poor city dwellers – is another ultra-efficient workout set to hit the mainstream this year thanks to new London studios like Feel Electric, Ironbody Fit and Surge. Only 20 minutes on the electric heart rate machines should correspond to 90 minutes in the gym. The perfect lunchtime hero for those prone to an afternoon slump.
Pilates is the new yoga
FS8
Claim it’s some kind of hot new trend and you’ll be laughed at by the reformer machine, but Pilates will have an even bigger moment in 2023 thanks to its low-impact, body-lengthening results. Just ask Harry Styles, Kate Moss, and Kendall Jenner, who are among the 70 percent of exercisers who say Pilates has now replaced yoga as their main exercise form.
“I always tell my clients that Pilates gets your body back to where it’s supposed to be,” says Hollie Grant, award-winning Pilates instructor and founder of Pilates PT with a women’s focus. “Modern life involves so much flexion; We look at phones, sit at laptops, drive cars, and our bodies almost forget what they were made for. Pilates fixes that. It improves your posture, strengthens weak muscles, and these in turn reduce back pain and weakness.”
Australian fitness brand Strong Pilates will open three London studios in February and F45 recently opened a new Pilates-focused sister studio, FS8, which combines reformer work with floor work, dumbbells and activation bands in low-impact, heavy-sweat classes. The first UK studio recently opened on Great Titchfield Street in Fitzrovia. The signature SPIRIT class at David Lloyd Clubs offers the sacred trio of Yoga, Pilates and Meditation to improve balance, core and overall general Zen mood.
Sync with your cycle
fitness session
If 2022 was the year women’s health made it into Parliament, it looks like 2023 is the year it finally made it to the gym. More than 40 percent of women who exercise regularly believe their menstrual cycle has a negative impact on their workout, and gyms are reportedly listening.
London boutique studio Ten Health & Fitness recently added on-demand pelvic floor classes and antenatal and postnatal physio sessions to its women’s health offering, and Grant is offering antenatal and postnatal Pilates sessions through her platform, The Bump Plan. Elsewhere, corporate fitness subscription Gympass has just launched a shiny new menopause hub on its online platform; and Psycle recently worked with NHS doctor Frankie Jackson-Spence to develop a four-week ‘Psycle with your cycle’ program as part of its at-home fitness offering. Classes are designed to work in sync with the different phases of your cycle, reducing inflammation, improving circulation and increasing energy levels.
For women looking for a more comprehensive way to harness their hormones, ONE LDN founder Evgenia Koroleva just launched an eight-week program called The Female Curve. Spread over a two-month period, it offers a fully customized fitness and nutrition plan tailored to your menstrual cycle: think workouts that focus on where you are in your cycle; weekly meetings with The Curve coaching staff; instant messaging with your personal coach; and phased menstrual counseling for everything from meal plans to emotional well-being.
The feminine curve
dr Tamara Alireza, functional medicine practitioner at Skinfluencer London, says this increasing focus on women’s menstrual cycles is another reason workouts like Pilates are on the rise: The slow-toning, low-impact nature of the exercise releases and improves endorphins blood circulation, reducing fatigue; focusing on the pelvic floor muscles improves circulation and promotes relaxation; and focusing on the diaphragm, deep breathing increases concentration, promotes positivity, and allows for stretching of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. “Stress is a major cause of menstrual problems like irregular periods, pain and mood swings,” she says. “Deeper breathing and yoga-based mindfulness meditation helps reduce stress and, in turn, the hormonal effects of stress.”
Rent, don’t buy
Atlo
Rental ski gear and popular designer clothes are now the norm, and even second-hand sportswear has surged in importance in 2022 (see: sites like GoodFit, Re Run Clothing, and Bamboo Clothing) — so the same revolution can happen for our underutilized gym memberships ? Absolutely, according to free new fitness app Athlo, which allows busy (or lazy) gym-goers to earn between 60 and 90 percent cashback by borrowing their membership — perfect if you’re on vacation or have a busy week at the gym where you can’t make it to the gym.
“You may be an avid gym member who goes to the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but then your Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday membership isn’t being used. So you can reserve those days to rent for the rest of the year,” explains founder Matthew Mansell. Sharing is caring.
The meta the better
Les Mills
OK, so not all of us are going to spend 2023 taking HIIT classes in the metaverse and doing lightsaber workouts in space. But for those struggling to find the motivation to do a regular workout, VR is proving to be an increasingly fun (and affordable) option. According to a recent study in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise, adults who did bicep curls with a VR headset reported 10 percent less pain intensity than those who did the same workout at the gym.
The magic is in the gamification. FitXr is widely considered the fiit of the VR world, with daily on-demand classes ranging from boxing to dance HIIT (bonus: there’s a multiplayer mode so you can train with up to six friends). Recently voted the best fitness VR app in the world by Meta, Les Mills’ new Bodycombat VR app pits players against martial arts challenges across intergalactic deserts and neo-city skylines, with additional points for effort and technique and more Immersive With the imersU ROW rowing brand, you can row the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic rowing courses from the comfort of your own home. If you missed the Oculus headset for Christmas, don’t panic. Apple is slated to release a VR headset sometime in 2023.
stay calm
CoreTx
Sweating during a HIIT workout might feel like the only way to warm up this winter, but Fitperts say the cold could actually be a fitness superpower. According to Google Trends, searches for “cold therapy” are up 38 per cent since 2021/22 as London’s fitterati take advantage of the benefits of recovery rather than just working our bodies into the ground.
The good news is that you don’t have to jump into a freezing lake (please don’t) to get your blood flowing and heal your aching muscles. Monk, a smart new ice bath company, recently secured funding from BrewDog founder James Watt, and the first units sold out in days thanks to the company’s mission to bring cold water therapy to the masses at home through a bath that you You can control it from your phone (no installation required – just fill it with water and take the plunge).
Meanwhile, many of London’s smartest athletes swear by CoreTx, a Stanford-approved palm cooling device used to cool users’ palms between sets of strength exercises and said to reduce fatigue, reduce heat stress and increase the likelihood of sticking an exercise program. Users so far say its performance benefits are “better than steroids”. Cold girls winter?
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