New Media and Fitness
When one thinks of fitness, he or she may think of counting calories or getting a personal trainer to achieve individual fitness goals. However, since the revolution of new media, one has to wonder how far fitness and new media have come. This wiki page is dedicated to the fitness apps in addition to other new media technologies that have revolutionized fitness. Most importantly, these apps are available for both Android and iOS users.
Not all of the New Media's impact on fitness and media is negative. It has introduced a myriad of new methods to take better care of our body, mind, and soul. It may be difficult to drag yourself to the gym after a long day, especially when it is wet or cold outside. However, when you're scrolling through your newsfeed on social media platforms and seeing other people and their fitness regimens' results, it has a more substantial impact than any commercial or motivating speech. New Media can be a motivating factor in one's fitness.
If you are looking for a workout or an exercise inspiration, it can be found on nearly every social media platform. New media has allowed people to stop learning new workouts or getting healthier recipes from health, fitness, or lifestyle magazines. Instead, it has increased accessibility to resources promoting health and wellness. Also, the revolution of fitness new media has grown outside of just apps dedicated to fitness. Other social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are now also used by fitness enthusiasts to work on their fitness goals. In today's society, fitness has become such a big deal due to social media. There is a vast community of fitness enthusiasts on the internet; they either encourage one another, share ideas, and market products to help people meet their fitness goals. How do they do this? As we all know, social media has become very visual, and we, as humans, are visual creatures, in the sense that we respond better to what we can see. These fitness share images like the one on this Instagram page Fitness Edge[[1]] to encourage other fitness enthusiasts that are looking to lose weight are gain weight or get fit. Often, pages like this usually have an external app link that helps to either help count calories or create a meal plan or sell products that can help them reach their goals faster or easier. They share photos like this one.
In addition to large social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, people have also created a fitness community on YouTube. Being able to post any kind of video on YouTube, there are hundreds of fitness channels where they answer general questions their viewers might have and give any workout tips that they might have. With so many supporters and other fitness enthusiasts on YouTube, they have formed a tight community where everyone supports each other. There are many channels that were able to create their own supplement and clothing brand with the large number of followers and supporters they have. Some examples of fitness videos on YouTube include workout programs, Q&A, diet tips, and the progress they have made. These videos have gained popularity since they are free and provide a lot of valuable information. There are work out videos that can be followed either at home with no equipment to those that can be followed by professionals. Additionally, during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of these channels gained a lot of popularity since most gyms were closed and government mandates did not allow people to visit gyms. Chloe Ting, for example, gained over 4 million followers on her Youtube, and her workout programs became popular since they are beginner friendly [1]. Her videos went viral on Tiktok and Youtube, proving how successful these channels can be.
Accessories
With the emergence of new technologies, accessories for fitness has greatly improved in the past decades. A stopwatch is the basic measuring tool for most timed sports. The manual clicking of a button allows athletes to measure the pace at which one is swimming, biking, running, etc. Many companies have innovated this simple item to create new and improved tools for athletes to better master their sport of interest. New watches with more advanced systems that are integrated have been created. The Apple Watch [2] is a prime example of how far technology has come in the fitness sector. The apple watch tracks a lot of day to day progress such as steps taken, amount of time spent exercising, as well as your heart rate. These tools help individuals have a better standard measurement of personal health and fitness on a daily basis.
New media has also helped individuals share their personal achievements on social media. Applications such as Nike Run Club [3] and Strava [4] have created a sense of social connections with peers through fitness. These applications connect with smartwatches or phones to show the distance traveled and time spent running, biking, swimming, or any physical activity done. The improvement of technology has made these numbers very concise and accurate. It is impressive to see that the average person can see their heart rate while training through a simple device on their wrist. Moreover, certain watches (such as Garmin Forerunner) can also help track VO2 intake. This is the amount of oxygen being supplied to the blood when performing strenuous activities.
Garmin, as well as other companies, have also created heart rate monitors that can be strapped under the chest. These monitors are accurate and allow athletes to track the rate of their heartbeat while they exercise. This can allow trainers to see which heart rate an athlete has to hit or stabilize to manage a consistent output of energy without exhausting oneself.
Websites
With new media technology, a lot of information is now accessible through the World Wide Web. This is also apparent with fitness and nutrition. An example of this is when you go to the website “Google.com” and type in a word or sentence like “gym” or “fitness,” Google would provide you with search results that are related to the keywords you typed in, making finding relevant information easier.
BodyBuilding.com
Although Google makes finding information much easier as it narrows down all relevant information in the World Wide Web related to what you search for, it still gives you a vast amount of information. With new media, there are many different websites that are specifically just dedicated to fitness and have fitness-related information all arranged and consolidated into one source. An example of this would be the website “Bodybuilding .com". When you enter the website you will see just how well information is sorted in new media. On the website, there are many tabs that link to different categories and sub-categories of fitness [5]. Categories such as exercises, losing weight, or building lean muscles, are separated so that you can find what specific aspect of fitness you would like and just click on those categories so that it would provide information related to just that category. Because of the way that information is sorted in new media, people do not have to spend so much more time looking for and reviewing information.
Not only does bodybuilding.com provide information on fitness and nutrition, but it also specializes in dietary and sports supplements. Through the click of a button, a user is able to buy protein, creatine, and any other fitness-enhancing supplement. The supplements are broken down and categorized based on a user's needs such as weight gainers, protein supplements, vitamins, etc. Each supplement consists of a name brand, amount of servings, nutrition label, and reviews, which are all crucial when it comes to purchasing a supplement. Bodybulding.com also offers a clothing and accessories section, where you can purchase workout accessories and bodybuilding.com branded clothing.
Letsrun.com & subreddit/running
With new media, not only is more information available, but also a community for those practicing the same health and fitness lifestyles. For example, letsrun.com is a forum site that has countless posts and a community that responds and contributes information and support. Forum-like sites like Reddit also has multiple subreddits dedicated to a particular genre, and in this case, the subreddit /running is one for running. Like the previous example, it is a community of like-minded people who contribute with posts that inform, question, or discuss various things, with other members of the community responding, creating a conversation.
New media has done something incredible by connecting people from all over the world who share something in common, creating a community that is beyond any kind of border. The community then helps each other through these posts and online interactions with the ease of someone's phone or computer.
Brands
With the emergence of influencers in new media, many brands have been marketed heavily to the public. Major gym brands have sponsored many athletes and social media influencers with their products. The age of technology has given birth to many well-known brands such as Alphaletes and Gymshark. A lot of these collaborations have helped these brands become recognized by all and give people a sense of wearing brand-name goods when working out.
Alphalete Aesthetics
Through the growth and application of new media, online clothing outlets have held a high demand. Alphalete is an online web store that sells suitable fitness clothing with heavy focuses on comfort, functionality, and aesthetics. The store is divided between male and female clothing, ranging from top-wear to bottom wear. Unlike bodybuilding.com, which focuses on its versatility and range of products, Alphalete focuses strictly on apparel. Christian Guzman, the CEO of Alphalete, was originally a YouTube star, who converted his fitness channel into a fitness empire. Through accumulated success, Alphalete quickly became a multi-million dollar brand.
The reason behind their success is supported by new media. Christian Guzman engaged heavily with his community through platforms like YouTube and Instagram, and the responding community showed an abundance of support through likes and shares, but mostly through purchase. Quality and visual representation of the products are catalysts to consumer growth, but the usage of new media allowed the opportunity. Strictly promoting and advertising the brand through new media allowed mass attraction and growth, displaying the powerful capabilities of new media.
Gymshark
Gymshark is another fitness apparel and accessories brand that is located in the United Kingdom. Gymshark was founded in 2012 and the company produces fitness wear for both men and women [6]. As of 2020, Gymshark is valued at over $1 billion. The majority owner of Gymshark is Ben Francis who founded the company with Lewis Morgan. In 2016, Gymshark was named United Kingdom's fastest-growing company in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100. This was due to their large social media presence and use of new media. Gymshark has sponsored many well-known athletes such as David Laid. Gymshark also has a blog which promotes health and wellness. Their Instagram page has almost 5 million followers and they are continuously growing and sponsoring more athletes.
Gymshark engages and unites people throughout the world through social media, clothing, events, and YouTube videos. This brings the fitness community together and not only bring groups of different people together who practice different sports but actually try out and learn something new. With gyms hark using its huge branding and fitness lifestyle to bring in more people it created a recipe of success for people to get into shape and indulge in a fun and active lifestyle.