More than one in five Americans belong to a gym or health club, but only a fraction of those clients regularly work out or attend fitness classes. While membership peaks in January, it’s often difficult for trainers and instructors to retain their client lists as the year progresses. However, many gyms are now offering alternative fitness options in an attempt to attract a different type of client. With the rise of social media, particularly among young people, more Instagram-worthy classes that take their inspiration from gymnastics are becoming increasingly popular.
Get Ready To Boogie
Traditional gymnastics, like aerobics, may have peaked in popularity a few decades ago, but that doesn’t mean the fitness benefits can’t be spun-off into more modern classes. One of such classes gaining popularity is Boogie Bounce. It’s a trampoline-based class that incorporates club music, lighting, and dancing with gymnastics-inspired jumps and twists on a minitrampoline. It’s also low impact, a high calorie burner, and is accessible for all age groups. The class has also become a popular option for birthday and bachelorette parties, considering it makes for some attention-grabbing social media videos and posts.
Let’s Get Tricky
Tricking is another form of gymnastics-inspired exercise that is gaining in popularity due to its video-friendly style. Flips taken from a traditional floor routine are mixed with martial arts kicks and a touch of breakdancing style to create a new trend that both burns calories and looks impressive. While tricking may not have started inside a health club, more and more gyms are offering classes or individual training to teach clients how to perform the moves. Learning to trick from a qualified instructor also provides the client with better results and teaches proper form. There is already a plethora of online tricking videos, mostly from young men on social sites like YouTube, so it’s only a matter of time before we see tricking gain even more popularity among the younger generations.
The Parkour Professional
While most people are familiar with parkour, it’s not usually thought of as an exercise class. Parkour stems from military obstacle course training and often finds participants performing gymnastic-like acrobatics over urban obstacles such as railings, building ledges, and concrete barriers. Once again, social media brought attention to this craze in the noughties via amateurs filming video footage for online consumption. However, after parkour was officially recognized as a sport in 2017 and the first Parkour World Cup was held last year, the craze has returned and this time fitness instructors are offering to teach the discipline both inside and outside the gym. Intro to parkour classes are seeing instructors take clients through an urban obstacle course, while some gyms are building indoor parkour courses of their own.
For the internet generation, even working out has become a social media-worthy activity. With so many influencers using fitness to hook their followers, it’s no wonder the high flying kicks, jumps, and flips of gymnastics-based classes are gaining in popularity. Considering not only what will offer the best results, but also what will make a great Instagram post or YouTube video, has become the norm when it comes to the next generation of gym-goers.
Was this Article Helpful?
If this article was helpful to you, please consider linking this article to your own blog or sharing this through the social buttons below. You will also find other great articles at “Youth Fitness“.
- 0share
- 0Facebook
- 0Twitter
- 0Pinterest
- 0LinkedIn
Sally Perkins
