10 Fitness Trends That Aren’t Worth Your Time
The fitness industry is a 30.6B dollar industry and every year it seems that we dump more and more money into our “health”. In 2023 the fitness industry is expected to pull in 30.8B dollars. Within the industry, there are things that work and things that are designed to grab more of your money. Today I’m going to teach you to understand the difference between the two.
The Fitness Trends That Aren’t Worth Your Time
About two years ago I wrote an article titled The Worst Trends in Fitness where I explained some of the worst practices that affect the strength and conditioning industry, or the training of athletes. This article is going to be more about fitness trends that affect regular everyday people, or as we refer to them the general population. The 10 fitness trends that are a total waste of your time are:
Group Fitness
Recovery Rooms
Stretch Labs
Overzealous Core Training
Corrective Exercises or “Prehab”
Hyper Focused Mobility Training
Detox Diets/Juice Cleanses/Alkaline Diets
Vibration Machines
Fat Burning Supplements
Conditioning As A Method For Fat Loss
I’m going to break each of these down and discuss some alternatives. Each one of these trends promises better fitness in less time, but in the end, you’ll be left just as overweight as when you started with less cash in your pocket.
Group Fitness
On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Group fitness is a very viable financial option for many people. Not everyone can afford between $75-150 per session and a $150-250 per month payment seems like a really sweet opportunity to get fit. However, there are a few problems with typical group fitness classes:
Group fitness instructors paint with very broad brushes
If you’re someone who has very specific needs then group fitness classes aren’t going to be for you. For instance, if you’re dealing with a nagging injury or serious fitness deficiencies, if you’re brand new to fitness in a class that isn’t for beginners, or are unable to do certain movements then group fitness classes are going to leave you wanting. If the trainer caters to your needs then they’ll be leaving the rest of the group to fend for themselves and in my experience, this doesn’t happen all that often. What typically happens is the client gets put into a position where they cannot keep up and either quit or end up getting hurt.
Group fitness classes typically only work for the coachable and self-motivated
Most group training classes have between 6-12 people training on the floor with 1, maybe 2 coaches working with the group. While you technically have someone telling you what to do, they’re not watching you the entire time. Many people will take reps off, cut sets short, or fail to increase the load when it’s warranted. In my experience, many people need also constant coaching cues to maintain movement proficiency and when someone isn’t in their ear they get out of position. When you’re in a larger group, you need to be self-motivated and really coachable to excel.
You don’t get to pick the goals of the session
Usually, when you get into training it’s because you have specific goals in mind. In group training classes you’re left to the whims of the coach running them. The coach doesn’t like the squat? You probably won’t squat much. Do you really want to get better at the bench? If the coach doesn’t program it, then you won’t get much work with it. Group fitness classes typically have a theme that you sign up for, however, their idea of conditioning may vary from yours.
Instructors typically rotate
Now I’ve heard this from a lot of general population clients that I’ve worked with in the past. They’ll join a group and legit only continue going for a specific coach. Facilities will rotate coaches through and sometimes it won’t be the coach you connected with. This can impact your attendance and decrease the amount of time that you’re in the gym.
There are other reasons why group fitness classes aren’t for the majority of people, but the above four reasons are the biggest ones in my opinion. There are definitely people who can excel in a group fitness setting and the cost can be tempting, however, most people would be much better off at least starting with a knowledgeable coach/trainer doing privates before hopping into a group setting.
Recovery Rooms
This is a relatively new trend that’s popped up over the course of the last 3-4 years. I remember back when we opened our doors here at The Lyons Den there were three facilities a stone’s throw away from us that started offering these “recovery rooms”. They look really nice and incredibly welcoming, they’re a great sell for a lot of gyms but they’re one of the most unnecessary aspects of training.
So, what are recovery rooms? They’re mostly a way for facilities to extract more money from you without having to pay a coach to work with you. They can just hook you up to a machine and walk away to coach or sell something else.
These recovery rooms often consist of massage chairs, Normatec boots, Game Readys, E Stim machines, ice baths, and massage tables, among other modalities. You’ll find things that are typically found in a physical therapy room but here they’re used for those who are healthy. They’re a place to relax after training to “jump-start” your recovery.
Last month, I wrote specifically about active and passive recovery and compared the various modalities used as recovery tools. These recovery modalities are really designed for people who are injured, not healthy people recovering from training. Here’s a list of why recovery rooms are bunk and a waste of your time and money:
A small case study at the University of Minnesota showed lower markers of inflammation in athletes who took a 20-minute walk after training vs athletes who used recovery modalities
These recovery tools cost money that you don’t need to spend, and they cost time you don’t need to waste sitting around, doing nothing
Active recovery strategies allow you to focus on aspects of your fitness that are lacking while also pushing along your recovery, seriously check out that article
I’m being 100% honest here and not trying to offend anyone when I tell you that you’re probably not training hard enough to facilitate the need for recovery modalities. Seriously
While it can be nice to feel pampered and special with the need for a recovery room, save your money and go for a 20-minute walk.
Stretch Labs
This isn’t specifically aimed at The Stretch Lab, but something about if the shoe fits or something. Stretching can be a very important part of your overall training. It can help create what’s called a parasympathetic shift in our autonomic nervous system (puts us into a rest and digest mode vs fight or flight), but the effects of stretching are very short-lived. One study even showed that stretching had virtually no effect on recovery times. Stretching can facilitate very short-term gains in flexibility that can be beneficial to your training session, however, flexibility is very fleeting and very dependent on your mobility.
If you want to increase your overall flexibility, you need to get stronger at the very end ranges of motion. This will increase your mobility, and these increases in mobility help to increase your flexibility. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s really how it works.
Stretching adaptations are short, like a few hours short. Going to a place twice per week to stretch for an hour isn’t going to move the needle. Save your money and get in the gym if you want to increase your flexibility.
Overzealous Core Training
You’ve probably heard what I’m about to say a million times: “Your core is the most important part of your training”.
While this is true to a degree, it’s also incredibly misleading. Your core has many functions from stability, to flexion and extension, to rotation, and even force transfer. While it may be true that it’s important, it’s not true that you need entire classes dedicated to core training. But that doesn’t stop gyms and fitness facilities from offering core training classes that last anywhere from 30 minutes to a full hour.
Core training became super popular back when functional fitness was all the rage and kind of stuck around a little bit too long. This was back when everyone was balancing on BOSU balls, and everything had to be done on a stability ball or Airex pad. Core training being front and center allowed more personal trainers to peddle this functional fitness garbage and was really on brand with the whole scheme. It wasn’t necessary then and it isn’t necessary now.
When it comes to your core, chipping away at its development is the best course of action. The athletes in my care train their core two to three times per week for about 6-7 minutes. We use it as part of our active dynamic general warm-up on upper body days, and on lower body days we use it as cues for core tightness. We choose 3 to 4 exercises and perform them for 2 sets. That’s it because that’s all we need to move the needle in a positive direction. You don’t need a thousand reps of anything to see positive results and more volume when it comes to your core isn’t going to give you that six-pack. Spend your time training with compound movements if you want to see real results.
Corrective and Prehab Exercises
This one is a relic from the functional fitness fad as well. These exercises were called “prehab” exercises because they were rehab movements done to prevent injury instead of to recover from said injury. There are a lot of benefits to corrective exercises, and they really can help to prevent certain overuse injuries. I use them with my athletes and I think every smart strength coach or personal trainer should do the same.
That being said, at some point, we ended up prescribing these exercises for people who didn’t need them. Our training sessions turned into 30 minutes of “activating” the glutes, working small scapula stabilizers, and internal and external rotation of the shoulder. We spent entirely too much time trying to correct issues that athletes didn’t have and “activating” muscles that were firing perfectly already.
I’ll take it a step further and say there’s probably some truth to the fact that the overprescribing of prehab and corrective exercises is causing more harm than good. These muscles are pretty small, and they’re not designed for high loads or high volume. I’ve got baseball and tennis players whose coaches are having them do hundreds of reps per week of internal and external rotation with bands on the field or court. On top of that, they’re doing them in here with me.
We also, for some stupid reason, started trying to progress these movements in load. Y’s, I’s, T’s, and external rotation exercises aren’t meant to be done with a heavy load. But I still see personal trainers having their clients do these exercises on a TRX, using their body weight! With these exercises, we’re talking 2-5lbs at most for the load, the odds of people staying in position when the load is their body weight is pretty small.
On the flip side, I’ve seen trainers using glute activation exercises as movements within their training. Like lateral tube walks to help increase the size of your glutes. The load isn’t nearly high enough to move the needle with these banded movements if you’re looking for hypertrophy.
When it comes to these corrective exercises, make sure you’re actually correcting something when you implement them, otherwise, you’re wasting your time or potentially creating more issues than you’re correcting.
Hyper Focused Mobility Training
Training for mobility has its place within your toolbox. However, back in the early twenty-teens, a lot of trainers fell victim to Kelly Starret and his book Becoming a Supple Leopard. This book is actually a really good resource, however, it should be used as a small part of your training. Many trainers took these band-distracted mobility exercises and soft tissue releases and created 45-minute-long movement prep sessions where there was barely any time to lift.
One of the best ways to increase your mobility believe it or not is to actually LIFT. Most mobility issues are strength issues masquerading as flexibility issues and can be fixed by increasing strength at the very end ranges of motion for that joint. If your body doesn’t perceive you to be strong enough to get out of certain positions, it won’t let you get INTO them. There’s also some evidence that stronger muscles allow the muscle spindles to relax more, leading to increased flexibility.
While mobility is incredibly important, you shouldn’t really dedicate entire sessions to it. Including it into your warm-up/movement prep, making sure you’re training through a full range of motion, and including some active recovery strategies using mobility as a piece of the puzzle are the best ways to help increase your mobility.
Detox Diets/Juice Cleanses/Alkaline Diets
I grouped these three together because they’re all usually included in the same multilevel marketing pyramid schemes peddled by the popular girls you went to high school with. We’re gonna start off with the detox diets/juice cleanses because they’re really the same thing.
Detox Diets/Juice Cleanses
Now when I say detox diets I’m really referring to juice cleanses. There’s actually some good evidence to suggest that elimination diets like the Carnivore Diet can work to help you eliminate foods that create inflammation in your body so we’re going to leave elimination diets to the side for now.
Juice cleanses are an absolute farce. Typically these juice cleanses are gonna run you anywhere from $100 to $200 with promises of you losing 5-10lbs in a week. They’ll usually cold-pressed juices because cold-pressed sounds better than regular juice so they can charge more. Cold-pressed juice just means that the fruit or vegetable wasn’t heated prior to the juicing process. The difference between cold-pressed and regular juice is minimal, and there’s some conflicting evidence as to whether or not cold-pressed juice has more antioxidants than regularly processed juices.
You’ll lose weight with these cleanses, but only because you’re going to shed a ton of water weight because the caloric value of what you’re eating is so low. You’re consuming fewer calories and fewer electrolytes so your body holds onto less water. The process is a lot more intricate than that, but essentially you’ll use a lot of your glycogen (stored sugar) which causes your body to expel some of the water it’s holding onto. Some of these cleanses also include either laxatives or diuretics which will also cause you to lose a lot of water weight.
Your body has a detox process all its own. Your liver and kidneys cleanse your body’s blood all day long and if something is wrong with your detox system in your body, then you’re probably going to need a hospital and not a juice cleanse. Save your money and make real lifestyle changes that will lead to your weight loss goals.
Alkaline Diets
This section is going to be relatively short. Alkaline diets don’t work, and the reason they don’t work is because of the hydrochloric acid in your stomach, and the mechanisms within our body to keep our ph within a specific range between 7.35 and 7.45. Anything above or below of this range is death.
Blood pH Levels
Anything outside of this range is death. We cannot be alkaline, it’s impossible.
Vibration Machines
These machines were all the rage during the whole functional fitness era. The most popular of these machines were called Power Plates and every facility that I worked at had one or two of them, and they all ended up in the closet collecting dust.
There’s actually some value to these machines when it comes to short-term flexibility, pain relief, and even a very small amount of evidence to suggest that they increase something called post-activation potentiation, or PAP. These machines work on frequencies that act a lot like TENS units and can help alleviate some pain caused by delayed onset muscle soreness. They also signal the muscle spindles to release allowing for a greater range of motion for a short period of time. Using them when you’re sore prior to training will allow you to warm up pain-free, which will help increase blood flow to the working muscles.
All that being said, that’s not what these machines were marketed as. The companies who sold these machines marketed them as having three main capabilities:
Increases your strength
Fat reduction - cellulite specifically
Increases in your bone density
These claims were backed up by some studies, however, there were some issues with these studies. Population sizes, population samples, control groups, etc. were all issues in many of these studies. Many of these studies were also funded by the creators of the product itself. A lot of conflicts of interest there. Critical Fitness wrote a pretty solid article about the issues with the studies back in 2019, and you should check it out if you’re interested in learning more.
If you’re going to spend $10,000 on a machine to help you alleviate DOMS and increase your flexibility for about 5 minutes, then these machines might be for you! If you’re hoping they increase your fitness, save your money.
Fat Burning Supplements
Fat burning supplements aren’t nearly as popular as they were say, 10-15 years ago. At one point, they had ephedra in them and they worked. There was something called an ECA stack, and it really actually worked to help people lose fat. They contained Ephedra, Caffeine, and Asprin and up until pro athletes started dying from using them and the federal government banned them, they were pretty popular.
Today’s fat burning supplements don’t work quite as well. Back then you had Stacker, Hydroxycut, Redline (they used to be pills), Yellowjackets, and Xenadrine were the most popular, and for a good while they had this ECA stack in them. Following the federal law that made ephedra illegal, they were forced to change their formulas. This kind of changed everything.
Today, your typical fat burning pill only helps you burn between an extra 60-100 calories on a good day. They do this by increasing thermogenesis, which is just a fancy way of saying they make your body hotter. This leads to more calories burned throughout the day. As a solid side effect though they can also deliver insomnia and anxiety to your daily schedule. With everything we know about lack of sleep and increased stress being bad for cortisol levels, it may end up being a net negative when it comes to fat loss.
60-100 extra calories burned per day would take you 35 days at best, and 58 days at worst to burn an extra pound. At $50-100 a bottle I’m not positive the actual cost is worth it, much less the cost of loss of sleep and productivity. Save your money.
Conditioning as a Method For Fat Loss
When it comes to weight loss, conditioning is a lot less important than you may think. I wrote an article about two years ago about how running is actually bad for fat loss. Believe it or not, for the average person running for longer distances is contraindicated on many levels. We adapt to the stimulus relatively quickly, it can create a hormonal environment that isn’t conducive to fat loss, and the Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption is less than that of lifting weights.
Conditioning leaves us tired which increases the immediate gratification that exercise can often give us. Being exhausted leaves one to believe that they did something of value. But your average run will only burn around 100 calories for your average individual. 30 minutes of typical vigorous exercise will burn around 350 calories, whereas vigorous weight lifting will burn ~280 calories. The difference is about 70 calories, however, the recovery process from weight lifting lasts for upwards of 48-72 hours while the recovery process from cardio lasts 30-60 minutes. This means for an additional 48-72 hours after weight lifting your body is burning more calories than normal, and the total from weight lifting is actually higher than your 30-minute cardio session when it’s all said and done. Wild, huh?
Conditioning classes tend to be pretty popular among the general public when it comes to fitness. They change up your training which can definitely make it more interesting, but focusing specifically on cardio is going to be a net loss for the vast majority of people.
Wrapping This All Up
When it comes to fitness, a lot of people are vying for your money. They’ll make promises that their way is the best (and often only) way. Their product is the best product and actually works. Their method is the only method that works.
The truth is all of this excess knowledge we’ve gained about fitness over the last few decades, we’ve used it to attempt to swindle more money out of people. Instead of making fitness easier, we’ve chosen to make it more convoluted than it needs to be.
We’ve taken hard lines and grasped onto certain methods or movements when in reality everything is going to work differently for everyone. We’ve told the general public “Our way is the only way!” when in reality there are a million different ways to get where you’re trying to go.
We’ve created products that you can’t live without, when in reality many of these things are unnecessary. My hope in writing this is to inform you all that there’s no easy way to the fitness you desire. People are going to try to sell you services and products that you don’t need. Not everything people pitch your way needs to be hit!
