5 biggest fitness and wellness technology trends in 2022

At this time of year, many of us are looking to get off to a positive start in terms of health, fitness and wellbeing. And technology fans are in luck, because there are more ways than ever to kick off the fitness itch while also getting our latest gadgets and tools fix.

Where lockdowns may have limited our ability to go to the gym, or in some cases even out of our homes, in 2020 and 2021, an abundance of at-home exercise solutions appeared. These will still be very much present in 2022. However, other tools and trends are aimed at those who are excited to be out in the open air again.

Fitness technology is always an exciting field, with any number of innovative startups from giants like Google and Apple constantly finding new ways to collect and interpret data to help us achieve goals and improve our health. live. So here’s a rundown of what’s on the cards in 2022:

Meditation and Mindfulness Techniques

Four in 10 American adults are concerned about their mental health due to disruptions in our way of life, school closures, massive shifts toward working from home, and general anxiety. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020. This has increased. Increased interest in relaxation, meditation and mindfulness and technology-based solutions. More than three million people are said to use the meditation app daily, and popular health platforms including Fitbit now include functionality designed to help track and improve stress and other mental health factors. Apple is said to be working on adding features that will help detect and diagnose conditions including depression and anxiety using its Apple Health platform, as well as the ability to detect cognitive decline, which Can act as an early warning for the onset of such situations. as in Alzheimer’s disease. The wearable revolution has helped countless people take control of their physical fitness, and 2022 could be the year where we see its impact in mental health care as well.

workplace wellness technology

Technology solutions designed to monitor wellness in the workplace will emerge during 2022 as employers become more aware of the importance of encouraging fitness and wellness among their employees. We can expect the technology to be deployed by more employers – especially older ones – for health activities such as gym attendance or taking desk breaks for gentle physical activity. Platforms like GymPass combine fitness apps with gym memberships and classes, so employers can offer their employees a choice of programs. This allows them to choose solutions that best suit their specific needs. Other apps like Zevo Health are designed to work with teams that are either office-based or working from home and integrate with wearables and fitness platforms they already own at their workplaces. Wellness programs to integrate with your overall fitness regime.

AI Personal Trainer

Anyone can benefit from a personal trainer – a fitness professional who is giving us individual attention and a personalized plan to fight flab and increase overall fitness. Unfortunately, they don’t come cheap. Fortunately, personalization is a task where artificial intelligence excels, which has led to the development and release of many AI-powered personal trainer applications. Apps like ArtiFit use AI techniques like computer vision, where cameras track body movements during exercise and then provide user feedback in real time on their posture and technique. You can also use augmented reality (AR) to get a visual overlay on top of a video recording of your workout, showing you where you’re going wrong and how you can improve. Mirror is an AR and computer-vision-equipped mirror that provides personalized fitness advice and coaching while you watch yourself exercising in the reflection. AI holds great potential when it comes to developing personalized workout routines, as it is able to accurately predict the safe and optimal workout program taking into account age, fitness level and body mass. Take Weight Watchers, for example—now rebranded simply as WW—which offers its own machine learning-powered personal wellness program that tracks users’ diet as well as physical activity and sleep. keep in mind.

Smarter and smarter wearables

Wearables are one of the most important health and fitness tech trends because of their ability to easily collect and monitor your health and performance data for anyone. This year we’ll see the first physical fruits of Google’s acquisition of wearables pioneer Fitbit — a deal Google wants to point out is “about the devices, not the data.” This means we may be seeing the first Fitbit devices running Android software instead of Fitbit’s dedicated (and somewhat flaky!) OS. The blood oxygen (Sp02) monitor is a common addition to many lines of wearable fitness devices this year – as the metric is recognized as a useful indicator of whether a body is fighting off a viral infection. And for those who don’t like to wear watches, smart fitness technology is showing up in a wide range of devices, such as rings and earbuds.

Better and smarter home fitness technology

With COVID-19 still a cause for great concern, many of us will continue to abandon public gyms in favor of exercising at home, at least as early as 2022. The craze for home fitness tech has seen some manufacturers like Peloton do extremely well during the pandemic, and if CES 2022 is anything to go by, that trend shows no signs of slowing down. Several competitors have emerged in Peloton’s gamified exercise bike, including the SoulCycle at-Home, which has the unique selling point that riders are encouraged to synchronize their cycling workouts with the sound of music. If you love cycling, NordicTrack and Echelon are among manufacturers that have created a range of smart treadmills that combine on-demand as well as live-streamed fitness classes. The addition of touchscreens, network connectivity and interactive streaming functions has transformed the home exercise equipment of 2022 from simple mechanical devices constructed from steel frames, weights and pulleys to sophisticated, smart and connected technology pieces.

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