Emma Sheppard is a journalist specialising in business, technology, family and social affairs. As well as Canvas8, her work has appeared in The Guardian, Wired, BBC Worldwide, The Independent and more.

The video centers on a woman in her mid-thirties, sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat. She smiles and waves at her 6.6 million YouTube subscribers. This is Adriene Mischler, ‘the people’s yogini’, from Austin, Texas. 

 In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, her video tutorials have never been more in demand. “The beauty about the home practice is it’s yours,” says Mischler, addressing the thousands of her viewers now confined to their homes. “Yoga practice is the perfect antidote to feeling unbalanced and uneasy.” 

While the number of people exercising at home has increased, COVID-19 has forced more of us indoors – as of March 2020, 42% of Americans have been urged to stay at home. 

 Businesses, schools, and universities are closing (or going online) in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. While some gyms and studios remain open (messaging members to allay fears about germs), at-home fitness companies are reporting a surge in demand – Peloton, for example, saw its stock jump by 13% on March 16th. 

 Customers are connecting with their favorite workouts in new ways – Barry’s is streaming

, Cassey Ho, the instructor behind the Blogilates YouTube channel has released a 

The wide-ranging benefits of exercise mean it’s also being encouraged by officials, even if you can’t leave the house. World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recommended that adults exercise for at least 30 minutes every day (children should do an hour). “Find an exercise video online, dance to music, do some yoga, or walk up and down the stairs,” he says. “During this difficult time, it’s important to continue looking after your physical and mental health. This will not only help you in the long term, it will also help you fight COVID-19 if you get it.” 

 “Certainly mental health during this period is just as important as physical health,” says Dr. Sari Shepphird, a sport and performance psychologist. “Keeping structure is really important and very useful to one’s mental state … setting a schedule to facilitate [physical] activity will keep you feeling productive and like you’re working toward a goal.” 

 But how can brands stand out in what’s becoming a crowded market? What are Americans looking for when it comes to exercising at home?

At-home fitness has come a long way since Jane Fonda released her Original Workout video in 1982. It would go on to sell more than 17 million copies worldwide and opened up a world of exercise to women, who had been largely left out of the conversation (gyms were predominantly for men at the time). 

 “Back then, we [women] were not supposed to be strong and fit,” says Fonda. Pre-dating Fonda was Jack LaLanne, who had a TV program in the 1950s to encourage Americans to get more active. 

 And while more than 60 million Americans (one in five adults) have a membership to a fitness center or health club, finding the time and motivation to work out can be a challenge – almost two-thirds (63%) of memberships go unused and 82% of members use the gym less than once per week. 

 Only 22.9% of adults in the US get the recommended amount of aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise, and 42% of people say they don’t have the time to work out more frequently. 

At-home fitness solutions aim to tackle those barriers. Take Peloton, which has 1.4 million global users and has been valued at more than $4 billion. 

 The brand started with a smart bike when it launched in 2012 and has since added a smart treadmill and digital-only package to its range. 

 Research has found 7% of Americans subscribe to an in-home fitness class, and 54% are interested in buying an at-home fitness system. 

Peloton’s success has led to a boom of connected fitness equipment, including 

, a smart LED screen/mirror (retailing for $1,500) – which counts Alicia Keys, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jennifer Aniston among its fans – integrates seamlessly into modern lifestyles and living environments, and provides an in-home virtual personal trainer. Even the group that owns SoulCycle, known for its high-energy spin classes, announced in 2019 that it would be adding on-demand fitness streams to its portfolio to cater to customers who want to interact with the brand on their own schedule. 

Digitally immersive workouts can help people to de-stress

Though many Americans will be limiting their physical contact with others during the COVID-19 outbreak, connected at-home fitness devices provide a way to digitally connect with your workout buddies. “There are so many opportunities to exercise at home and still feel like you’re connected to someone, even getting feedback from someone,” says Dr. Shepphird. “Even ten years ago, exercising at home was a lot more isolating.” 

 This feeling of connection while exercising alone is something that the team launching Strava, dubbed ‘the social network for athletes’, understood in 2009. Since then, it has grown to 42 million users, adding one million more each month, who upload, track, and plan their running and bike routes, follow other athletes, give them kudos, and join clubs or challenges. 

Psychologists believe tapping into a virtual community can help simulate that peer pressure we need to perform at our best in real life, says Dr. Erin Ayala, a psychology professor. “In psychology, one of the things that increases motivation is relatedness or the sense of community. If you know that you fit in with the other people around you, who are doing similar things, then you’re going to be more motivated to keep doing it.” 

 Peloton, for example, allows friends to ride together using video chat or send digital high fives, and many will get a shout-out from the instructor when they hit a milestone. Mirror participants can also send emoji reactions during a class, and public leaderboards add a competitive component on many of these platforms.

Keeping structure is really important and very useful to one’s mental state … setting a schedule to facilitate [physical] activity will keep you feeling productive and like you’re working toward a goal

Another danger of exercising alone at home, particularly for beginners, is feeling overwhelmed by the options available, and a potentially high risk of injury, says Dr. Ayala. “For athletes who might get super motivated and go, go, go, they may not give themselves ample rest. And for people who are just getting started, they may unintentionally have unhealthy movement patterns and they might get injured.” 

 That’s something yoga app Zenia is trying to address – it uses machine learning, computer vision, and motion tracking to analyze 16 joints across the body and provide visual feedback to users while they engage in on-demand classes. The team behind the app collected more than 200,000 yoga images and worked with professional yoga teachers during development. 

Zenia founder Alexey Kurov says up to 60% of people will do yoga at home but a lack of feedback from a trained instructor means they’re vulnerable to injury. “They do it by themselves and don’t understand if they’ve done something wrong.” The development team also found that while users would like to go to more classes in person, they don’t feel that they have the time. “For yoga, it’s very important how regularly you do exercise, so it’s better to do ten or 15 minutes at home every day, rather than once or twice a week at the studio,” says Kurov. 

 The app is also helpful for self-conscious, gym-shy users who train with the app at home to develop some foundational knowledge and technique before they go to their first live class. In the future, Kurov believes the technology has the potential to be applied to other sports, such as running, weightlifting, and tennis. 

Virtual trainers can push users to work a little bit harder

While finance used to be a barrier to entry for working out at home – most people don’t have the money or space to create a home gym – Dr. Shepphird says that technology has leveled the playing field by enabling access to free content across YouTube and social media, and often little to no equipment is required. The other benefit of digital platforms is that trainers and companies continually update their content. “You’re seeing something different all the time. Instead of the monotony of the same routine, perhaps doing that for three to six months and then feeling like you’re burnt out, you can change things up as much as possible. You can be doing a different routine every few days,” explains Dr. Shepphird 

Keeping workouts fresh and interesting is leading a number of companies to gamify their classes. Zwift, which has more than one million subscribers, is like a video game for cyclists and runners, with digital avatars that can wave at each other. The founder, Eric Min, started riding indoors after he and his wife had kids and he found cycling fitness DVDs weren’t exciting enough. Since its release in 2016, Zwift has become popular with professional athletes and has added routes such as one of the time-trial stages from the Giro d’Italia race, and Alpe d’Huez from the Tour de France – rides that few amateur cyclists would ever get to try. 

One of the things that increases motivation is relatedness or the sense of community. If you know that you fit in with the other people around you, who are doing similar things, then you’re going to be more motivated to keep doing it

Using digital tools to keep fit means there’s also the potential to personalize a workout, which would normally mean hiring an expensive personal trainer. Exercise app Aaptiv has launched an AI-based assistant called Coach, which builds personalized daily, weekly, and monthly workout plans based on the user’s goals, fitness levels, eating habits, and other data. “No one will have the same plan,” says Aaptiv founder Ethan Agarwal. 

 will launch an AI-powered home fitness system in the summer of 2020, which will count reps and calories burned, recommend weights, and offer real-time technique advice. 

Wellness is big business, with self-improvement being the most popular app theme in 2018 – and almost all of Gen Yers (94%) reported making personal improvement commitments in 2019. 

 Researchers have found that incentives people perceive as valuable can inspire someone to continue working toward a goal, even if they feel like giving up. 

, for example, has introduced a scheme that offers monetary rewards and prizes to users who go to the gym.

Exercise is a lifeline, now more than ever

While the majority of people are housebound during the COVID-19 outbreak, turning to indoor exercise in one way to provide our days with a form of structure and sense of normalcy, as well as being a welcome distraction to the stress that comes with this change in circumstances. According to Dr. Shepphird, these needs are all things that fitness brands can tap into. “If providers can help people feel like they have a greater sense of personal empowerment … to help ourselves feel as normal as we can, that would be really beneficial for companies to reinforce.” 

Platforms and content tailored to kids is an emerging necessity

Parents are also looking for ways to keep their children entertained and active while at home, driving the popularity of platforms that offer child-focused content. Zwift offers free subscriptions to under-16s (parents have to sign a consent form), 

 has a variety of quick, kid-friendly classes in its library, and Mirror is moving into this space after finding that parents were taking yoga classes with their young children. 

) has been hosting live daily home workouts for children, who are missing out on gym class since schools closed their doors. More than 790,000 households tuned in to the first YouTube session, showing that stepping in to lend parents a hand is the best way to help out the whole family. 

Enable personalization at every level possible

Encouraging social connection with others, offering personalization options, and allowing users to set goals they can track are also important factors for players in this space to consider, says Dr. Ayala. “Especially for people just getting started, people need a sense of competence or self-efficacy. It’s really important for them to know they’re making progress and doing things in the ‘right’ way.” Being able to maintain a sense of control, in a world where the COVID-19 outbreak has taken that feeling of autonomy away (at least in the short term), means the demand for products that promote self-sufficiency will keep increasing. “That’s another benefit of at-home exercise – it allows people to personalize things and tweak it based on their lifestyle, their goals, their interests, and their values,” explains Dr. Ayala. 

Dr. Erin Ayala is a professor of psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Minnesota, specialising in women’s health and sports psychology.

Dr. Sari Shepphird is a sport and performance psychologist, and host of the Manage the Moment podcast.

Alexey Kurov is the founder of Zenia, the world’s first AI-powered yoga assistant.

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Interview with Dr. Sari Shepphird conducted by the author

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Interview with Dr. Erin Ayala conducted by the author

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Interview with Alexey Kurov conducted by the author

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