The Hottest Fitness Trends For 2022!

Well, good news! 2022 is going to be defined by a range of new wellness trends set to change the game. From hula hoops and mushrooms to pickleball and VR, industry experts outline the hottest fitness and food options for the new year. Low impact is the new high intensity! This year, people will fall in love with more mellow ways to move their bodies, which is being dubbed “flexercise.”

Related: Nearly have of people believe this will improve if they exercise...

Louise Richardson, director of marketing at Pinterest says that they can determine these trends based on what people are searching on their platform!

’Our annual trends report is based on things people have been searching for in recent months and searches for things like “daily stretching routine” (+80%), “walking in nature” (+95%) and even “lazy workout in bed” (+135%), have started to spike in recent months. When it comes to exercise, people are planning a slower, more mindful way to look after themselves.'

It seems we’re not willing to snap back into our hectic pre-pandemic lives and have actually taken some real positives from slowing down.

Here's What People Have Been Searching for!

Searches of “simple dance moves” spiking 150% in recent months…

Google trends and predicts weighted hula-hoop workouts will dominate 2022.

Searches for “weighted hula-hoop” on Google have had a huge 234% spike in interest over the last year and on TikTok, the hashtag #weightedhulahoop” had almost 200 million views.

Also trending, Mushrooms is skincare…No longer a niche ingredient, various studies show the impressive impact mushrooms can have on the skin. ‘Reishi mushrooms support the skin barrier by soothing inflammation, locking in moisture and helping the skin weather environmental aggressors.

Pickleball has taken off in the US and is starting to make its way into the UK…In the UK, interest in the sport is growing with a 76.2% increase in Pickleball search interest between 2020 and 2021 and an average of 12.1k monthly Google searches throughout 2021. Pickleball is a hybrid of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong and can be played indoors or outdoors, as singles or as doubles.

And becoming very popular is Gamification in Fitness! Within the fitness industry, this means using fitness devices, VR headsets and apps etc, to bring game elements to fitness tasks with things like leader boards and rep counting. Data from Grandview Research suggests that global wearable technology is set to grow nearly 16% per year from 2020 until 2027 — making this trend even more likely to take off.

Some of the newest fitness challenges include workouts from home that don’t just reward performance, but also healthy behaviours — like water intake, sleep and meditation — integrating fitness gamification into everyday life.