It is two weeks into 2019 and many people are undoubtedly working to stick to their New Year’s resolutions. Health and fitness often top the list.
The American College of Sports Medicine released the results of a survey about the top fitness trends of 2019. Topping the list are wearable technology, group training and high-intensity interval training.
KPBS spoke to trainer Jimmy Bouldin from Renegade in Hillcrest about the exercise trends that made the list.
Q: What is muscle-based fitness?
A: We’re focused on strength training. Basic old-school principles like body building, power training, hypertrophy - which is muscle gain and then conditioning. The same thing you’re going to find with professional athletes. They go through strength and conditioning camp. That’s more or less what this is - it's strength and conditioning camp.
Q: Is Renegade in line with the fitness trends or going against them?
A: I think everyone is starting to realize they need strength. That’s what we need as humans. We don’t just need cardio. We don’t just need fitness. It’s all great to just be up, moving around, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to be strong enough to live life. So that’s what we’re doing here. We’re building bodies to live life to the fullest.
Q: What do you think about virtual or on-demand exercising classes?
A: I think that any sort of exercise is going to be good exercise. The downfall that I see when you’re working out at home is there are so many distractions ... if you have kids or if a phone call comes in. There’s just so many things.
Q: What are the benefits of using your own body weight?
A: Eventually you’re going to need mechanical tension in the form of bands or dumbbells or kettle bars or something. But body weight exercises are great because you need to learn how to use your body first. You have to perfect that squat. You have to perfect pressing overhead or pulling before you really want to add mechanical tension. Then, when we add the mechanical tension, then you really see the true benefit of the exercises. You can see people pushing or pulling dumbbells at any gym out there and never getting results because they’re just not understanding how to use their bodies correctly.
Q: How important is diet in the fitness journey?
A: I would say diet and exercise - they’re about equal with each other. This is only half of the equation. Once you get done here, it’s really important that you go and eat. You need to refuel yourself. If you were a car, you just took a really long, really fast drive.
