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Text/Zou Shuai
Source: Shenran (ID: shenrancaijing)
Under the epidemic, offline gyms were closed, and online “gyms” became lively.
Fitness enthusiasts have begun to purchase home fitness equipment such as dumbbells, elastic bands, yoga mats, kettlebells, and cordless skipping ropes. There are also people who choose to go to the rooftop, corridors, or community squares to exercise, which is better than at home, but they also need to consider the weather, the Internet, and if they throw ropes or play concerts, they will not affect their neighbors. In any case, exercise against all odds.
Fitness practitioners have also made use of online channels that have long been established. Fitness institutions can’t start classes offline, so they maintain income by offering online paid courses, and open free live broadcasts to maintain customers. Even coaches who are suspended from business are self-monitoring and regularly live broadcast on personal social platforms. At the same time, the fitness equipment market has also ushered in a small upsurge. The sales of yoga mats have tripled, and the dumbbells in the Keep online store are out of stock from time to time. Offline stopped, but everyone made money.
However, home fitness is essentially doing the most inhumane thing in the most comfortable place. Without the offline atmosphere, home fitness enthusiasts often have to fight against inertia, habits are difficult to cultivate, and the final destination of many equipment may still be ashes. For practitioners, online conditions are limited, commercialization is the biggest problem, and the accumulation of popularity through free live broadcasts is difficult to bring about consumption. Selling equipment is also a Red Sea business that can’t be a splash.
Whether users are looking for “meal replacements” or practitioners looking for “antidote” and opportunities, the trend of home fitness has indeed returned, but how long it can stay this time is still unknown.
Exercise at home too:
From water bottle to dumbbell, from bedroom to community
After the May 1st holiday, Fengge, who lives in Chaoyang District, Beijing, officially works from home. She told Shen Ran that as early as the end of April, gyms in various districts of Beijing were closed one after another due to the impact of the epidemic. Before working from home, Fengge had not been to the gym for more than a week. “I usually have the habit of exercising, and I basically go to the gym 4 times a week. When I can go to the gym, I basically don’t exercise at home.”
After starting to work from home, Fengge urgently purchased a batch of home fitness equipment. “I bought a pair of 1kg and a pair of 2kg dumbbells, both of which are elastic bands with 15kg resistance and a long elastic band.” Choosing to buy these, Feng Ge also did some homework. “Because the space at home is limited, if you have to complete one part of strength training every day, the most economical equipment is dumbbells and elastic bands. I also considered buying TRX suspension belts, but after research, I found that it is not easy to fix at home, and it is long A similar type of training can be done with the elastic band.”
Fengge spent less than 200 yuan to purchase these small equipment, and currently uses it every day, “It’s very cost-effective, and it is the price of two classes of super orangutans. I follow Keep, Station B, and Xiaohongshu for strength training. Do the videos on the website, add an hour of cardio every day, find videos online, or jump rope with Keep.”
Leon lives in Fengtai District, Beijing. Before working from home, sports and fitness occupied a large part of his life. In addition to going to the gym every day, he also played squash, swimming, Frisbee, cycling, and outdoor running. Therefore, Leon’s first reaction after staying at home was: hurry up and buy equipment. “It’s like when others buy vegetables and stock up on supplies. Those are food, and home fitness equipment is also my food.” Leon has basic equipment such as dumbbells, elastic bands, and kettlebells in his hands. This time at home, he bought it again on Taobao. A set of barbells and pedals, with two 5kg, two 2.5kg, and two 1kg barbell plates, cost a total of more than 1,000 yuan. “I’m also going to buy two 10kg and two 7.5kg ones.”
The troops and horses have not moved, and the food and grass go first. Those who don’t have equipment buy equipment, and those who have equipment also pull out the dusty equipment and fitness mirrors. Some people choose a more economical and recyclable solution, using 2L oil drums instead of kettlebells, 500ml mineral water bottles instead of dumbbells, and barbell plates can also be replaced with home cooking pots.
After solving the equipment part, another problem to be solved in home fitness is who to practice with. Leon told Shen Ran that, like hoarding equipment, he had prepared various training videos early, including the Lemy class that he often took offline. “Bought the barbell and pedals so I can practice Body Pump and Body Step at home with the videos.”
The same is true for Feng Ge. She created two new folders, anaerobic and aerobic, on the Keep APP. “The anaerobic folder includes my carefully selected exercises for the hips, legs, chest and shoulders. In order to use the newly purchased equipment, I chose to use elastic bands and dumbbells. The same is true for the aerobic folder. There are 4,000 jump ropes, HIIT, and more.”
“I only started going to the gym in April, and I just developed a fitness habit when the epidemic came.” Beibei, who lives in Haidian, Beijing, is also a member of the home fitness army. Compared with enthusiasts who have fitness awareness and self-drive , Bebe considers that she needs the atmosphere of the gym and the supervision of professionals, so she opened a fitness APP membership. “The course will be customized according to my physique and training goals, including anaerobic and aerobic every day. I get up at 7:00 every morning and follow the 21-day healthy physique increase plan to exercise for about 30 minutes. It’s very useful for people.”
In addition to the videos of fitness bloggers such as Pamela, Han Xiaosi, and Saturday Ye that can be seen everywhere on the Internet, there are also fitness live broadcast rooms on platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, including Liu Genghong, Chen Yiru, as well as offline fitness institutions such as Super Orangutan and Leke also joined the live broadcast battlefield.
In order to ensure home training, everyone practiced from the bedroom to the living room, from the flower bed downstairs to the rooftop, any empty space can be used. “Exercise habits need to be maintained. Because of the epidemic, staying at home may be the norm, so you can still practice. Don’t wait to go back to the gym when you can’t even pick up a 5kg barbell.” Leon described this home fitness time as , “Secretly work hard and then go back to the gym to amaze everyone.”
Live broadcast, online classes, selling equipment,
The antidote and business opportunities for practitioners have come
For practitioners such as gyms and coaches who rely on offline scenarios, home fitness is their way of self-help during the epidemic.
A Wei, a coach of a fitness institution in Shanghai, has been at home since March 21, and offline classes have been temporarily suspended. “I was ecstatic at the beginning, thinking that I could finally take a vacation. But after a few days, I realized that there would be no income without classes. I was a little anxious, so I started an online class.” The online class is also arranged through the official channel of the institution. The class is held at the Tencent conference. Both the coach and the students turn on the camera and teach through video. The price of a single class is as low as 39 yuan, and the average duration of each class is about 1 hour.
The frequency of Ah Wei’s online classes is maintained at the rhythm of one session a day, with an occasional extra session on weekends. In terms of frequency and intensity, online classes are obviously not as tiring as the four or five offline classes per day, but A Wei said that after the online classes started, he felt more busy. “Because we have to prepare lessons every day, read a lot of materials, design movements, and arrange routines. The students who take online classes are all at home, and they basically have a good foundation. They can also rely on the atmosphere offline, but online must change. Giving students new things in a tricky way can avoid boredom and achieve better training results.”
Shan Shan is also a fitness coach at an institution in Shanghai. She introduced her schedule to Shen Ran during the period of online classes. “Get up at 6:30 in the morning, go to get out of class at 7:00, end class around 10:00, and go out to do nucleic acid. There will be another class at 2:00 in the afternoon. After the end, you have to check materials, watch videos, and update your own course routines. Lesson preparation will occupy me. Most of the day. Go to bed around 1pm.”
A Wei said that online classes are paid according to the number of students, while offline classes are paid for the last class. Therefore, although the online class schedule is relatively small, if the coach can guarantee the number of students, especially if each class can reach full capacity, the income is reasonable. “But it’s definitely incomparable with offline classes. My salary last month was only half of what it was before.” She introduced that the students who come to her online classes are basically old offline students, who are usually more active and more sticky. .
Online classes do open a window for fitness trainers. However, because online classes also require training, inspections and qualifications, not all coaches can offer online classes while at home. The live broadcast room, which is free but can maintain customers and harvest traffic, has become another window. Fitness institutions such as Leke, Super Gorilla, Space, and One Mega Wade have launched special fitness live follow-up exercises, and regularly arrange different coaches to live broadcast training courses such as dance, fighting, Zumba, etc. At other times, some coaches will also spontaneously start broadcasting. Live practice at home or in the community.
The group coaches are all “rolled up”. According to a netizen, on May 12, the 6 coaches of the super orangutan started live practice sessions at 7:30, 12:00, 16:00, 19:00, 19:30, and 20:00, respectively. Full from morning till night. A coach, who did not want to be named, said that sometimes a small reward can be received for the live broadcast, which can also be regarded as a subsidy for the “unemployment period” at home.
For offline fitness institutions, fitness live broadcast is a kind of self-help. For some fitness KOLs, live streaming is a business opportunity.
How hot is the fitness live broadcast now? Xiaohongshu, a fitness enthusiast, has sorted out the class schedules of the major live broadcast rooms every day. According to incomplete statistics, there are 35 fitness live broadcasts from 7:00 to 21:00 on May 12, distributed in Douyin, Xiaohongshu, On platforms such as WeChat video accounts, the hosts include Liu Genghong, Shangyoga, lululemon, Super Gorilla, Leke, Space, and One trillion Wade. Among them, lululemon has arranged 10 live broadcasts, and Space also has 7 live broadcasts.
Not only Liu Genghong, but Chen Yiru, Pamela, and Zheng Duoyan were all involved in Douyin’s fitness live broadcast track. According to Feigua data, Zheng Duoyan started broadcasting on Douyin on May 11, with 1.34 million viewers and 100,000 followers on the same day, including 79,000 live broadcast followers. On May 2, Pamela started live broadcasting, and the highest number of viewers in a single game was more than 15 million. From the broadcast to May 16, Pamela gained 3.02 million followers within half a month.
Netizens spontaneously summarize the sources of major fitness live schedules / Xiaohongshu blogger Zheng MiLi OnTheGoThere is also the equipment market that smells business opportunities. During the May Day holiday, according to media reports, data from a retail platform showed that the sales of indoor fitness products such as yoga mats and foam rollers in Beijing increased by 29.36% from the previous week. A store owner in Beijing also said that the sales of indoor fitness products during the May Day were significantly In addition, the sales of a yoga mat in the store increased by 2 to 3 times in a week. Lin Wei, a practitioner in the sports industry, also told Shen Ran that, judging from the background data of a home fitness smart device they made, the frequency of use and content consumption of users in cities related to the recent epidemic have increased.
“The epidemic situation is one of the reasons for staying at home. Liu Genghong’s live broadcast is also a bonus. The popularity he brought is very similar to the value brought by Zheng Duoyan’s group of fitness experts to the fitness industry, which is the popularization of the awareness of fitness for the whole people. From the relevant data, in recent times, the search volume, the number of notes, and the topic of fitness on Xiaohongshu have increased.” Lin Wei said.
Is it difficult to exercise at home for a long time?
The popularity of home fitness under the epidemic is indeed a part of the good for the fitness industry. Looking back at 2020, when the epidemic just emerged, in the second and third quarters of that year, Keep’s average MAU was higher than the average MAU in the four quarters of 2019.
Not only is the online APP sitting on a group of users, Lewis, general manager of Jianmeng Talent Strategy Center, told Shen Ran that Liu Genghong is on fire, and is actually helping Leke, Super Gorilla and other gymnasiums to cultivate Xiaobai customer groups. “For example, if a person watches a basketball game every day, he will definitely want to play on a real court one day. The same is true for users who follow Liu Genghong’s dance exercises. When they jump to a certain stage and have a foundation, they want to improve their grades and experience. , and is not affected by the epidemic, I will go to the venue to consume.”
The number of users of online home fitness is increasing, but it is difficult to realize it online, but it will divert a lot of traffic to offline. In a way, this is also the loss of online users.
Keep’s commercialization struggles can attest to that, too. In 2015, the Keep APP was launched, and the demand for online fitness at home has a carrier. Fans can search for training videos on major video platforms without having to endure endless sales of personal training in traditional offline gyms. However, the model has been established and users have accumulated, and there are still many obstacles to the commercialization of Keep. Keep’s prospectus mentioned that in 2019, 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021, Keep has been in a state of loss.
The plight of Keep is just a microcosm of the plight of the entire home fitness industry. An insider in the fitness industry analyzed to Shen Ran that small home fitness equipment such as yoga mats and dumbbells also have market demand in gyms and ordinary users. The value brought by the epidemic and Liu Genghong to this market can only be said to be “selling” a little better.” He said that this market is too red, and a short-term boom is meaningless. “Buy lululemon in pursuit of price and quality, and buy Decathlon and Nike in the mid-end. If it is cheaper, there are still factory goods. The market has been divided.”
It is difficult for the equipment market to really ride the wind. Similarly, for offline gyms, home fitness is also a supplement in special times. It is a helpless move, and it is also a “meal replacement” for users. Beibei also said that when offline gyms reopen, she will still go back, and fitness memberships will not necessarily renew. “There are very few membership courses. I don’t know what new content will be available when I use them up. And practicing with Keep is also a way to keep yourself energized at home every day. It’s only light exercise, and it definitely can’t be compared with offline ones. System fitness ratio.”
Lewis believes that in the fitness live broadcast track, even if Leke, Super Gorilla and other institutions have stable audiences, compared with personal live broadcast rooms such as Liu Genghong, institutions have more things to consider. Practical issues such as maintaining brand influence, coordinating coaching time, choosing music and lighting, etc. will make the live broadcast of the organization “unable to let go”.
Feng Ge followed a few live broadcasts of super orangutans, and her feeling was, “It’s really a bit cramped.” First, the music problem, because the live broadcast was performed in the store’s gymnasium, and the music was played in the gymnasium as usual. Therefore, in the live broadcast, there will be a situation where the music cannot be heard clearly and the delay is delayed. In addition, institutions generally choose to broadcast live on multiple platforms at the same time. “Users who watch live broadcasts on Xiaohongshu are talking to themselves and can’t get a response. The coach has been replying to the barrage of Douyin.”
Do the most inhumane things in the most comfortable place, and the paradox of home fitness is also reflected in enthusiasts. Even Leon, who has been in the habit of exercising and fitness for many years, still can’t help but touch the fish and paddle in the home scene. “I did a few sessions of Body Pump myself at home, and when I was doing biceps or pressing, I felt a little tired, so I stopped, wiped the yoga mat, took a sip of water, and passed that session. I usually go offline. When you are in class, you will definitely not open a small stove for yourself. And from the perspective of training effect, you can’t rest when you reach the second head, and the coach will stare at you, but at home you have to fight your own inertia all the time. .”
A Wei has been taking online classes for more than a month, but still has not been able to get used to the remote teaching form of video calls. “In offline classes, I can basically see the movements of each student clearly. In small classes, I can give more precise guidance. When I see who has a problem with their movements, I point them out and they will receive it immediately. The whole focus and efficiency are very high. .”
As for online, although there is a camera in front of each student, the camera is far away from the student, and the microphone is turned off. The coach needs to raise his mind to see clearly the different brightness, distance, and scene. The movements of the students in the first shot. “If I say that someone has a problem with his movements, and I have to run over and call him on the mic, he may not hear it. Even if he hears it, I have to run over, turn on the mic, and make sure it’s not me. Two minutes have passed since the set process was completed, and the progress of the course will also be disrupted.”
Home fitness has too much resistance and limited effect, and users’ willingness to pay is naturally not that strong. Short-term popularity is also regarded as a substitute for offline fitness. Home fitness is a trend that comes and goes. It’s the biggest problem when you come and go, but you can’t stand.
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