The shift of the fitness industry towards the wellness industry has been going on for a while. But since the start of the Pandemic, the shift has become much more pronounced. The Pandemic changed people’s perspectives about health.
This shift in perspective led people to pay more attention to all attributes of their health instead of just focusing on fitness. As a result, these people started incorporating wellness into their daily lifestyles.
Are Wellness And Fitness The Same?
These days, the line between fitness and wellness is blurred, and a personal trainer is expected to take care of the fitness and wellness needs of the client. This has opened up several new niches in the fitness world related to wellness, and as a personal trainer, you can capitalize on them and further your career.
But before you can do that, you’ll need to understand what wellness is and how it’s impacting the fitness industry. This article will tell you all about it.
On a side note, if you want to get proper wellness training, check out the lifestyle and wellness course offered by W.I.T.S. Education.
What Is Wellness?
While the words fitness and wellness are being used interchangeably, both of them are quite different. Fitness specifically refers to a person’s physical health and the activities done to improve physical health. This includes exercise, other physical activities, and diet.
On the other hand, wellness refers to balancing a person’s physical and mental health. It includes physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Moreover, unlike fitness, wellness doesn’t have a definitive approach. Wellness is defined differently for each individual.
So the lifestyle habits that might work for someone wouldn’t work for anyone else. That’s why trainers need to go for a personalized approach to ensure their client’s wellness and fitness needs are properly met.
How Does Wellness Fit In The Fitness Industry?
When wellness is combined with fitness, it covers all areas of life instead of just focusing on physical health. That’s why wellness is regarded as a lifestyle rather than an activity. There are seven ways wellness is incorporated into our daily lives and is transforming the fitness industry.
Physical Wellness
Physical wellness refers to maintaining a healthy quality of life that allows people to relieve their stress and fatigue through exercising. But these exercises aren’t stressful workouts that take a toll on the client’s health.
Instead, these workouts are developed so that the body can achieve optimal health. Physical wellness exercises include outdoor workouts, yoga, and low-impact workouts that are easy to follow and don’t require much physical effort.
Besides exercises, physical wellness also includes diet and nutrition. Instead of a low-calorie diet, physical wellness includes foods that are healthy and make people happy. That way, the mind and body remain relaxed and happy.
Environmental Wellness
Environmental wellness refers to having a good surrounding environment that allows people to stay healthy and happy. Environmental wellness can be related to the workplace environment, workout environment, leisure environment, and house environment.
All of these environments are important to maintain a healthy mental state so people can go about their lives stress-free. In fitness, environmental wellness refers to the environment where people work out. Because without the right environment, it’ll be difficult for people to see effective results for their workout.
Generally, outdoor settings are preferred for workouts. These outdoor settings are usually in parks or backyards with plenty of greenery and fresh air.
Intellectual Wellness
Intellectual wellness isn’t properly a part of fitness, but it does help people make better decisions about their health and well-being. Intellectual wellness refers to creative and cognitive abilities that encourage people to find happiness and be content with their lives. Intellectual wellness is needed if people want to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Not just that, but intellectual wellness allows people to put limits on their fitness too and prevent them from going overboard and hurting themselves in the process. Personal trainers can improve their client’s intellectual wellness to make better decisions regarding fitness and not rely on the trainer at all times.
Spiritual Wellness
Spiritual wellness is at the forefront of modern fitness. It refers to maintaining a sound body and mind and balancing lifestyle and fitness. People can adhere to a fitness-centered lifestyle through spiritual fitness without reverting to their old unhealthy habits.
Moreover, spiritual wellness gives people the strength to push through difficult workouts to achieve fitness goals. Through spiritual fitness, people can find the meaning in their lives and make lifestyle changes that’ll allow them to lead more fulfilling lifestyles.
Many workouts require people to connect with their spirituality to achieve faster results. Yoga and Pilates are some of the workouts that emphasize spirituality.
Social Wellness
Social wellness refers to social interactions and relationships. In terms of fitness, it refers to the relationship between the trainers and the clients. A trainer is required to offer a healthy and supportive environment to their clients to get effective results from their workouts.
On the other hand, the clients should consider the trainers’ advice and follow their lead to properly learn new workout routines. Social wellness is commonly a two-way procedure, and any miscommunication can lead to poor results regarding fitness. As a trainer, it’s a part of your job to ensure that the client’s social wellness needs are met.
Emotional Wellness
Emotional wellness is extremely important when it comes to fitness because it allows clients to successfully adapt to the changes in their lifestyle without stressing too much. Especially if someone is working out for the first time, they’ll need emotional wellness to maintain their willpower. Otherwise, they’ll give up on their fitness.
This is because incorporating fitness into their lifestyle requires several changes, which might cause clients to get stressed. As a trainer, you can improve your client’s emotional well-being by motivating them and making sure that their workout and lifestyle changes aren’t taking a toll on them.
Occupational Wellness
Occupational wellness in the fitness industry is geared more towards the trainers than clients. Occupational wellness refers to maintaining a healthy work-life balance to go about your day without stressing. Personal trainers deal with several people every day, and each person has a different personality and requirement.
If a trainer doesn’t pay attention to their personal needs in terms of your work, they’ll be unhappy and won’t be able to train the clients properly. As a result, they might lose some clients due to poor results. Moreover, trainers are responsible for taking care of all aspects of a client’s fitness. Without occupational wellness, trainers won’t be able to properly guide the clients regarding diet and lifestyle changes.
Who Are The Target Group For Wellness?
Usually, when fitness is mentioned, the market is generally geared towards youngsters and young adults who can keep up with their fitness and busy lifestyles.
The older population is mostly left behind. But with wellness, there is no target group. Each personal trainer can decide which demographic group they want to work with and modify their training techniques.
Besides that, senior fitness is an emerging market with great potential for wellness training. Medical Wellness and fitness is another branch of fitness getting a lot of attention. But to enter either of these branches, trainers need additional training because they’ll be working with people with challenging fitness needs.
Workouts That Involve Wellness?
Yoga
Yoga helps the body in several ways besides improving fitness. It helps with stress management, improving the sleep cycle, reducing stress, and improving eating habits. Moreover, some yoga techniques improve blood circulation and improve cognitive abilities.
This is why yoga is considered a lifestyle instead of a workout routine. The effectiveness of yoga depends on the trainer’s capabilities and external factors such as the environment. Because doing yoga in a stressful environment won’t give the same results because the body doesn’t get a chance to relax properly.
Jogging And Running
Regular jogging improves the body’s immune system, blood circulation, and cognitive abilities. It also reduces insulin resistance and is, therefore, a good workout for people suffering from diabetes. The fresh atmosphere decreases stress and helps reduce symptoms of anxiety.
Besides that, the extra influx of oxygen in the body allows rapid muscle development that improves physical fitness. On the other hand, running gives the body short bursts of energy that improve endurance and focus.
Low Impact Workouts
Low impact workouts are designed for people who can’t participate in HIIT workouts. These workouts put less pressure on the body and heart and are a relaxing form of exercise. People with medical conditions that prevent them from working out usually go for low-impact workouts.
Trainers can make these workouts more impactful by adding wellness attributes to them. For example, mixing different workouts reduces stress while still keeping the body fit. Or creating a peaceful and relaxing environment so the client can focus well on their workout.
The Future Of Wellness In The Fitness Industry
Consumer Defined Wellness
Like fitness, the wellness industry will soon follow the consumer-defined path where the clients will have the upper hand in what they want from trainers in terms of wellness. Fitness trainers will have to adjust their methods to fit the client’s needs.
From the client’s point of view, wellness is constantly evolving with new emerging branches. Just like fitness, wellness will too turn into a complex connection of lifestyle and fitness needs with several subbranches.
This is a good thing because it’ll allow fitness trainers to create new revenue streams and open up new niches in the industry. Besides fitness trainers, other businesses can capitalize on the wellness market with their services and products. For example, wellness meal plans and books about spiritual wellness.
Branching Into Different Lifestyle Industries
Wellness has the potential to go beyond fitness and become a lifestyle choice. Wellness will be incorporated into several aspects of people’s lives in the future. This will give personal trainers a chance to collaborate with different brands and services.
They’ll also be able to give the clients a complete lifestyle package that’ll take care of their fitness needs and medical, nutritional, mental, and social well-being. This is why trainers interested in wellness need to create a name for themselves right now so that they can easily branch out into different fields in the future.
Medical Wellness Training
Due to certain health conditions, some people cannot take part in fitness. These people might be suffering from diseases or issues with muscles and joints that restrict their movement. That’s why these people turn to medical fitness to relieve their pain or stress and get in shape.
Medical fitness is centered around wellness, and the trainers are usually trained medical professionals such as occupational therapists. They can easily combine wellness and fitness with training their clients. Their workouts differ from regular ones and include several unconventional training methods like cycling and swimming.
Moreover, these wellness trainers usually work closely with the client’s doctors to optimize their workouts and improve their fitness levels.
Holistic fitness
Holistic fitness combines spiritual wellness with fitness to give clients a complete lifestyle transformation. In holistic fitness, trainers are responsible for giving clients a soothing environment to work out in and motivating them to keep pushing through their workouts.
Trainers usually target the clients’ mental well-being instead of physical because once they’re mentally happy and content with life, it’ll be easier to focus on their physique. Besides that, holistic wellness uses several spiritual workouts like yoga and taichi that allow clients to relax.
Do you want to learn more about the wellness industry? Check out the lifestyle wellness course offered by W.I.T.S. Education. W.I.T.S. is a fitness training institute that offers multiple courses related to fitness. Some of their courses include a certified personal trainer course, group exercise instructor course, and senior fitness course.
The institute is accredited by the N.C.C.A. and the American Council of Education and allows college students to earn course credits. They also have the largest network of universities and colleges in the country.
Moreover, W.I.T.S. offers hybrid learning with online classes and hands-on practical in-person labs. Their labs are located all over North America and train students to have practical knowledge instead of just being book smart. So hurry up, check out their courses and enroll today!