Covid-19 was and is a nightmare to many of us and especially to people in the fitness community. And fitness, in general, took a great hit because people were either too depressed or busy in trying to earn a livelihood that they totally let go of off their personal fitness schedules and this impact can be felt even today. But can we really call covid-19 a curse or see it as a blessing that can reshape the definition of fitness in today’s world? In this blog, we will look at the challenges faced by people in the fitness community and how they managed to adapt to these challenges and come out fitter and stronger than ever.
Challenges and adaptations –
Place –
It would be an understatement to say that the fitness world is a bit orthodox, and for good reason, because fitness although with new names and instruments have stayed the same for thousands of years because our bodies have remained the same and there are only a finite number of ways to stay fit in the cellular level i.e., you let your body do the effort, your muscles become more efficient at doing that effort over time. And advancements in the fitness world were always physical, the introduction of new equipment, more techniques etc. but there was never the chance or need to change how people exercise. People would generally have a teacher to follow and they would imitate and learn from that person while standing in front of them. However, as we know the pandemic is the polar opposite of this concept of learning. People could not go out because of the risk of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Therefore, the only way to meaningfully and properly do exercise and stay fit was to work out indoors. This led leading fitness academies and training institutes and martial arts training institutes like us at MAE (Martial Art Extreme) to redesign and rethink the concept of staying fit from the safety of a person’s home and this led to the creation of many reputed virtual and online fitness training programs that are just as effective and, in some cases, even better for people to stay at home continue their fitness journey.
Psychology-
Fitness is something empowering and confidence-inducing but it also takes a great deal of confidence to start your fitness journey. Psychologically speaking, in simple terms we can divide people into two categories, one being the introverts and the other extroverts. The extroverts usually have an outgoing personality and love working together on solutions and interacting with people, the traditional gyms and fitness institutes were perfect for them as they could interact with people and work out at the same time. The introverts were always left out of the equation and they were the ones lacking the confidence to go out in the open and interact with people. The pandemic and the lockdowns gave rise to excellent opportunities to work out from the comfort of one’s home and this helped the introverts muster the self-confidence that they lacked and stay fit as well. The extroverts are not at a disadvantage as well because many of these training programs have live sessions where every student can interact with everyone else and this makes online fitness safe and beneficial to the extroverts as well.
Businesses –
The fitness business is a very costly affair, to say the least. It takes years and years to train oneself and only then can a person start understanding the management side of the fitness industry and after that can they start dreaming about creating a viable fitness-oriented business of their own. But dreaming is not enough because now they have to accumulate the capital required to properly run to business and that includes renting or buying a place to set up a school, hiring trainers, security, and buying equipment and then comes the aspect of marketing and advertising and only then they will have set up a business. Now due to fact that there is a pandemic, this dream seemed to have shattered for many but there was a way out. The solution for these fitness entrepreneurs was to set up shop online and setting things up online requires 1/10th the capital and a bit of technical know-how. Because of the advent of online fitness training and virtual fitness training, these small players could once again dream of becoming successful in the world of fitness.
These were a few scenarios that got enacted over and over again during the pandemic, but people like always have and will find a way out and reach the light at the end of the tunnel. We at MAE have designed our courses specifically because of the pandemic as we couldn’t bear to see people missing out on their fitness and therefore our panel of fitness and martial arts masters headed by Jerry Bola have come up with these online fitness and martial art courses that are effective, affordable and overall fun and engaging to do from the safety of your homes. Let’s face it, we in the fitness world can compromise on everything but not fitness.
