For the longest time, dancers were dancers, and baseball players were baseball players. The last two decades, however, witnessed a shift in philosophy. An emphasis was placed on the concept of cross-training. The thinking being, that if a hockey player learns to ride a horse, his slapshot will improve. As CEO and Founder of Lagree Fitness, a company that is at the vanguard of innovation and development, I think a lot about how philosophy, equipment, and spaces affect the client’s experience. As more and more boutique studios are opening and big-box gyms are closing, I wonder, what is the next shift going to be?
Different Planes of Motion:
Cross-training is effective because it forces your body to work through different planes of motion than it is accustomed to. By creating overall body conditioning, instead of focusing on training a particular technique, your ability to swing a bat is improved because a rising tide lifts all boats. The Lagree Fitness Method I created takes this concept to the next level. Instead of relying on playing football in the morning and boxing in the afternoon, the Lagree Method is a self-contained system designed to work your body through all planes of motion. The Supra™, for instance, is the only machine that both rises and tilts. By training on the Supra, you are constantly having to balance and engage your core as you strength-train. This, in turn, creates total body conditioning.
Cross Pollination of the Sexes:
It used to be the case that when you walked into a gym it looked like you were walking into a junior high-school dance: the boys would be on the dumbbell side and the girls would be on the cardio side. This is no longer the case. As a growing number of people are searching for fitness communities and finding them in boutique studios, men and women are finally dancing together. Women are realizing that incorporating strength-training into their routines won’t turn them into Rambo. And men are discovering the benefits of increased flexibility and holistic fitness. Fitness used to be measured by the number of pounds a person could lift/pull/press/raise. Do you remember asking yourself who would win in a fight, Bruce Lee or Arnold? I do. Bruce won. Now, the measure of fitness is overall athletic ability. The growing want from both sexes is to have overall body strength and conditioning. Today’s society wants to be Ninjas. We want to be Bruce Lee.
Time Is Of the Essence:
Modern consumers want it now. We want to watch whatever we want, whenever we want. We want to buy things from our sofas and have them arrive the next day. And we want to exercise in the smallest amount of time possible while achieving maximum results. This is why I have developed the twenty-five minute workout. The other factor in all of this is, that in today’s workplace, being fit is as important as being on time. Shorter workouts allow nine-to-fivers to exercise during lunch breaks, pay less per class, and lead to a fitter, more productive workforce. Just imagine how great you would feel if you could exercise for 25 minutes with better results than exercising for an hour. It would be like being paid the same salary for half the work.
Ultimately, people want community. In the process of building fitness communities, and researching and developing our equipment, we should consider the future. By incorporating different planes of motion, creating gender neutral methods, and shortening the amount of time spent in the studio we can all predict the future of fitness, which is a win for clients and trainers alike. What’s more, is it would help people to feel part of a community, and not as isolated individuals.
