Fitness tech boom

"Going to the gym" is usually on many people's new year's to-do list. Normally, gyms receive lots of new customers in January. But with Covid-19, many gyms are shut. A new type of online gym is becoming popular. It's called Fitness Tech.

The Fitness Tech business offers a lot, like apps to meditate and watches to count your steps. But customers have asked for more. They wanted to communicate like they were at the gym. Fitness Tech started to offer this service. Jeremy Needham talks about the gym community online.

Jeremy Needham: "A big part of going to the gym together is sort of suffering together. It's like, you experience pain, you work really hard and you sweat. And so do the people around you, and you build a camaraderie around that. And now that we don't share that space, at least in real time, we have to do it virtually right?"

Fitness Tech is successful because it has made a social space for gym lovers online.

Richard Kowalski tells us about the success of the business.

Richard Kowalski: "Fitness tech devices will be a $4.5 billion market in the US this year, and there's a growing group of people who are engaging with these devices in their home, they want connectivity. They want to engage with other people online. And this is helping people incentivize them to keep fit, and to just engage with other people."

Fitness Tech provides many sport communities like boxing and rowing. They are also at every level.

Aquil Abdullah used to row for the US Olympic team. He likes meeting and communicating with new rowers.

Aquil Abdullah: "You start talking to each other. And then all of a sudden, you have a group of maybe six guys, you know, from all over the world, a guy is in London, a guy is out in California, a guy is down in Florida, and you have this community."

Exercise machines aren't cheap. If you can afford one for your home, you can become part of the Fitness Tech community. But remember, you must use the machine and work out hard if you want to get fit. View Less