To understand well what we are about to discuss in this article, understanding the word “virtual” is important. The google definition of the word is: not existing as such but made by software to appear to do so.
A virtual business is any business that conducts all or most of its business via the internet. It may or may not have some kind of physical presence — such as an office or warehouse — but there is not a physical location that customers can visit.
The corona-virus global pandemic has changed our lives completely. Gym owners worldwide are forced to keep their gym premises closed because the governments have imposed lockdown to prevent the spread of disease.
When people are confined to their homes, the fitness enthusiasts have been pushed to explore the at-home fitness options.
A survey that involved 2000 Americans reveals that going to a gym is becoming more and more obsolete due to the coronavirus pandemic. 63% of the respondents feel that they have gotten into better shape over the past few months.
Gym owners around the world are left worried about what this could mean for the future of their fitness business.
Virtual Fitness
Exercise and technology fuse together to create virtual fitness. This article will explore the options currently available and are likely to be the new norm in the fitness world.
Live Stream Workout Classes
Live streaming refers to online streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time.
Streaming is a method of data transmission. It is used when you watch a video on the internet. It is a way to deliver a video file a little bit at a time, often from a remote storage location.
The goal is to eliminate the need to download the entire video on the client device to play it. This is achieved by transmitting a few seconds of the file at a time for the internet.
Live streaming is when the streaming video is sent over the internet in real-time, without first being recorded and stored.
Think about the difference between regular streaming and live streaming as the difference between an actor reciting a memorized monologue and improvising a speech. In the former, the content is created beforehand, stored, and then relayed to the audience. In the latter, the audience receives the content at the same moment that the actor creates it — just like in live streaming.
Live streaming usually refers to broadcast live streams: one-to-many connections that go out to multiple users at once.
Benefits Of Live Streaming Workout Sessions
Let us tell you some benefits of live streaming that are the reasons for its growing popularity.
Stay Connected With Your Members During These Challenging Times
One way to never lose a member is to keep them convinced with the belief that they need you for achieving their fitness goals.
Amid COVID-19 global pandemic when nobody can come to your gym premises, live streaming would allow you to connect with your members online and give them a feeling that their membership at your gym could still help achieve their fitness goals at home.
Keep Regular Live Stream Sessions With Your Members
People may not feel the same motivation to exercise at home as they feel in the gym premises environment. Such members would eventually give up their gym membership because of their lack of discipline.
By keeping regular live stream sessions with your members, you can force them to work out regularly and achieve their fitness goals sooner.
Receive Digital Subscription From Different Parts Of The World
If you go digital, you are accessible to everyone no matter in what part of the world they are! Gym owners are now investing to have a website for their fitness business that could be a platform where they can receive digital subscriptions.
Your website can offer live stream workout sessions, diet plans, and packages of recorded workout videos that anyone from any part of the world can purchase and make payment online.
AI-Powered Fitness Applications
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a computer science field focused on creating machines that seem like they possess human intelligence. These machines’ intelligence is “artificial” because humans create it and it does not exist naturally.
AI-powered fitness applications employ AI, and its subsets like machine learning (ML), computer vision, natural language processing, and more to assist their users during workouts and their overall fitness journey.
Computer Vision Eliminates The Need Of A Fitness Trainer
Fitness applications come with virtual trainers that can monitor your posture while you exercise by using computer vision.
Computer vision is an AI field focused on training computers to interpret and understand the visual world. It involves training machines to accurately identify and locate objects then react to what they see using digital images from cameras, videos, and deep learning models.
Using camera of your laptop or smartphone, fitness apps can also scan the user’s body using computer vision to tailor workout plans and diet plans that are most appropriate for their body-type.
While monitoring your posture and movements during the exercise, these applications provide real-time instructions and feedback on your moves and position. They would tell you to bend this way or that, go lower while attempting to squat, straighten your back, or hold elbows at more of a right angle.
Why Fitness Enthusiast are Shifting To AI-Powered Fitness Apps?
There has been an increase in the popularity of fitness apps in the last few months. A study finds that fitness apps grew by 50% during the first half of 2020, and the most likely reason is the global pandemic that forced fitness enthusiasts to look for alternative ways to exercise at home and stay fit.
Besides, fitness applications provide the following advantages to their users:
Exercise anytime at any place
With fitness apps, the only thing you would probably need is a mobile phone and a good internet connection to start exercising.
No need of any exercise equipment
Fitness apps are focused on exercises that should not require large exercise machines or equipment that are available at a gym premise. The purpose of these apps is to help users achieve their goals outside of a gym premise, where exercise equipment is not always available.
Keep your yoga mat with you always and you are ready to workout at any place with a good internet connection.
Users can track their fitness
A good fitness app allows users to track your exercises and set new fitness goals for your body. AI-powered apps also provide recommended plans based on the user’s ability and stamina.
To use such a feature, users are often required to create an account using their Email address and a password, and log in.
The Conclusion — Gym Owners Should Consider Investing In A Virtual Platform
Software companies were quick to identify the business problems that emerged for fitness business owners worldwide. Many such businesses have been saved till now that went into shutdown position because of the pandemic through investment in a digital platform.
Inqline is one software company that launched its Inqline Fit platform during these times and helped Solace New York have its own virtual platform to provide live stream workout sessions and more services.
