Covid-19: How technology can revolutionise your at-home workout

Chester Avey takes a moment to detail the tech-enabled fitness options to help you keep fit during lockdown

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the world into chaos, forcing millions upon millions of people to self-isolate at home. 

Maintaining the health and wellbeing of both ourselves and our loved ones has become more imperative than ever – not only to combat the threat of the virus itself but to ensure we stay happy and healthy at home. 

Keeping fit and exercising is one of the best ways to do exactly that, to ensure we stay proactive and utilise the time we have at home to the best of our ability. But why stop there? 

Thanks to the increasingly technological world we live in, numerous exercise-based advances over the years have made at-home workouts much easier, more refined and more effective than ever before. Join us as we take you through how. 

1. Wearables.

Back in the old days before wearables technology, it was much more difficult to keep track of how much exercise you were actually doing. Nowadays, however, that has all changed – fitness trackers now provide you with up-to-the-minute information related not only to your workout you’re doing but pretty much everything else as well. 

Back in 2018, the sales revenue from fitness tracker devices was estimated to be approximately £2.1 billion. A year later, estimates showed that – in America alone – approximately 57 million people used a wearable device at least once a month. 

That’s a lot of people, and it’s not really hard to see why either. With simple and easy to use gadgets, these trackers enable users to monitor and evaluate the metrics of their fitness progress, removing the need for a regular gym or in-person personal training session. 

2. Fitness Apps.

Whether it be myfitnesspal, Strava or Map My Fitness, chances are you will have a fitness app or two already on your phone. After all, the global fitness app market is absolutely booming, with estimates predicting it to be worth more than £12 billion within the next six years. 

This growing trend correlates with the growing need of society to live more healthily, to make constructive lifestyle changes, and to combat obesity. Fitness apps help stimulate this movement by promoting ways in which consumers can keep on track of their workouts and decide what and when to eat. 

Whether you’re looking to gain muscle, lose fat, combat a pre-existing sweating condition, or have your own virtual personal assistant, there will be an app out there to meet your exact requirements. As a result, this makes exercising at home incredibly straightforward; a commodity especially beneficial right now in light of needing to self-isolate. 

3. Live Streaming Workout Classes.

From Joe Wicks to Peloton, the coronavirus pandemic has caused live streaming workout classes to become more popular than ever before. 

These classes enable you to bring virtual coaching into your home, giving solo exercisers – wherever they are in the world – the opportunity to join in on a group fitness class. This provides another great example of how technology has revolutionised exercise; users can now exercise wherever they like, without the need to travel or be somewhere at a set time. 

Time, cost and convenience are each an added bonus as well, since online fitness classes typically cost a lot less than a gym or fitness-class membership. They also have an unlimited capacity, meaning tickets will never sell out and you’ll never miss out on your chance to join in. 

4. Virtual Reality Fitness.

Let’s face it – no one really enjoys working out when it’s raining, cold or windy outside. Many of us will convince ourselves it’s not worth it and to try again another day. 

Fortunately, at-home workouts have now changed that for the better, encouraging us to stay at home and – if we really want to go the extra mile – use virtual reality fitness.

Although this area of technology is still in its relative infancy, VR is fast becoming more and more used within the world of fitness. Box VR, for instance, a virtual reality game produced by Microsoft, has been shown to be highly effective at conditioning the arms, shoulders and chest while carrying out a cardio workout. 

VirZoom and the Icaros flying machine have been shown to be beneficial as well, demonstrating the growing movement towards using VR as a tool for exercising. While it may be a while until it’s more readily available as an at-home platform, it certainly appears that at-home VR workouts could become a popular way of exercising as we move forward. 

Final thoughts…

The coronavirus outbreak may have heightened the need to look after our personal health and wellbeing but, thanks to technology, keeping fit and healthy at home is now incredibly easy to do. 

Whether it be through an app, an online fitness class, a fitness tracker or a technology-stuffed piece of gym equipment, the days of needing to train at a gym in-person are effectively a thing of the past. 

In today’s world, technology has given everyone, everywhere the ability to become their best selves and look after their body effectively. And especially now, with the pandemic here, for that, we all need to be thankful.