Asheesh Grewal founded MyHealthBuddy in 2017 as a result of his quest of improving his own health. With corporate life taking a toll on him, he began to extensively study health and nutrition to achieve his fitness goals. During this period, the Gurugram-based Grewal, now 41, worked hard on his fitness and physical transformation. After losing 12 kgs, he realised this was his true calling and decided to make a full-fledged career out of it.
Under-rated for a long while, health and fitness has now gained a lot more importance than before. Especially after witnessing COVID-19, most of us have understood why good physical and mental health, right food, immunity and exercising are essential.
With the lockdown restrictions leading to less / almost nil real time physical training spaces, getting fitness on track have been challenging for everyone who once preferred gyms, parks, joggers ground, group exercising sessions etc.
Online food ordering made people pile on even more than they already felt heavy about or else they went on deteriorating good health they once had. No like-minded company has been another demotivated space for so many. A company to go for morning run, or push hard at gym or dance it out together turned obsolete. Just not weight, body’s wellbeing in terms of lipid / cholesterol profile, blood glucose levels, kidney profile etc. also saw worsening for many people; thanks to poor eating habits, almost nil movement being home bound and zero workouts. Another major dent has been feeling sick mentally with more of sad news around every other day.
But as they say, with one door getting closed, some other is definitely opened.
The online fitness and coaching platform has been a saviour to many people who have been looking for pandemic safe physical health and mental wellbeing; either to begin it or to resume it.
How things changed?
Health and fitness apps: This category saw a sudden upsurge to million more subscribers than the existing base they would have had. The growing need to stay fit or get fit and bring in some action made people look to virtual options.
The apps made life easier here.
YouTube tutorials: Numerous coaches and instructors flooded YouTube with their workout videos, home workout videos and engagement activities to run their own show. These videos also aided home bound people to stick onto some activity in their whole day in the name of a workout. The tutorials provided recognition and rewards to many jobless trainers at the same time.
Online personal training sessions: Gym trainers and coaches empanelled with existing firms or freelanced themselves to give live training sessions over internet. This has been a win win situation for trainers and the client. The existing clients would always prefer their own trainer or otherwise they encash on new clientele. Online meeting platforms like zoom, Google meets, Microsoft teams etc. saw a peak rise in being a preferred option to host virtual classes / meets / conferences.
Home gym set ups: The equipment manufacturers at local or national level saw s rise in selling home gym set ups for people who have always been fond of gym and weights or else by their profession as it is. Starting from small procurements like dumbbells barbells kettle bells to as much as a complete cable tower / home gym set up; there has been no limit to installations people did for maintaining their exercise routines.
Fitness gadgets like bands and smart watches: Walks have been so far the safest for many of them. The gadgets like smart watches, bands etc. saw an increased interest to track steps and physical activities, setting reminders and many other health and fitness features.
A holistic mental and physical wellbeing with customised fitness consultation: Structured approach in terms of diet and workout along with managing mental health and stress has been the most impactful and is all about changing gears in fitness tradition. Online coaching and consultation is now a much more preferred option; because it is structured, designed and customised as per individual and his goals, gives flexibility to follow and yet creates an unsaid accountability.
This space has been working into multiple categories – be it a postpartum weight loss for a female, corporate wellness programs, stress management and mental wellbeing programs, live sessions for strength training or group exercising sessions like Zumba aerobics yoga etc. The category evolved big time – thanks pandemic and lockdown. The market for all this has always been existing, pandemic just made a happy realisation and the online fitness sector soared high. It was a category which was previously driven by interest and now is becoming a basic.
Data usage surged all-time high for many reasons – primarily to remove boredom with web-series and online gaming etc. but yes, it also witnessed utility to take live fitness app workouts and challenges, workout with YouTube tutorials and demonstrations, zoom group activity sessions by certified instructors and coaches and many more similar platforms to propagate fitness in a safe and digital way.
With first wave – more scare, the population has been totally aloof of each other. As the lockdown called off and all facilities opened up, the hesitation and scare still persisted. It now seems that like remote working, fitness from home will stay for long. Top of it, people did see results with the self-driven home training sessions or online training or a completely guided food and workout routine under a certified coach connect – all done virtually. Lockdown just made these convenient fitness options to stay here for long.