When it comes to losing weight and staying healthy, most guides will recommend weight lifting, cardio, and dieting. However, millennials on average tend to have a small amount of resentment for all three. Sure, gyms are currently packed full but when you look at the statistics, you will see that traditional body-building regimens are quickly losing ground to CrossFit and similar exercise forms.
Furthermore, it appears that diets, especially strict ones, are not as popular amongst millennials as they are amongst older demographics. With this in mind, there are several short, social and fun workouts and sports that millennials just might enjoy.
Long-turn motivation
While it is true that long and steady-paced cardio training is the best for both fat burn and weight loss, they simply don’t have an appeal for millennials. Instead, they are interested in brief and intensive sessions consisting of calisthenics-based exercises, such as push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and lunges. Aside from this, they are also interested in a strength training.
The reason behind this is the fact that they are more interested in the short-turn, which helps with one’s motivation in the long-run. Furthermore, for people who never exercised before, these exercises produce some immediate results (first signs of improvements can be seen after several trainings, which, also helps one’s intrinsic motivation).
Gadgets add the fun
It isn’t a wild guess to claim that most millennials are tech-savvy or at least tech-friendly. Therefore, adding fitness apps and gadgets may be a fun way to motivate them and make their workout sessions much more enjoyable. By being able to inform them of their heart rate, calorie loss and distance that they walked, ran or cycled, these gadgets and tools will keep them interested much longer. Furthermore, having this kind of extensive information background can further help them get informed and educated on the matters of fitness.
Alternatives to traditional cardio
Even though running on a treadmill while listening to an audiobook or your personal soundtrack may seem like something quite compelling, more and more millennials are quickly rejecting this form of cardio. Instead, they are more likely to turn towards something less monotonous like group sports (football, soccer, basketball). Apart from this, looking for affordable bicycle deals online and turning to cycling might also be a great idea. Aside from being a highly efficient method of urban commute, cycling is also an interesting hobby, seeing as how the landscapes and circumstances form around you as you go.
Yoga is growing in popularity
As we already elaborated, if there’s one thing that millennials hate its monotony. This is where Yoga enters the picture, due to the fact that it gets reinvented every several years. Furthermore, there are so many forms and positions that not even a most dedicated master can hope to learn them all in one lifetime (especially since new ones keep emerging). For millennials, who hate the idea of not having more room to advance, this is simply an ideal opportunity.
Boxing is great for your cardiovascular system
Finally, boxing is, beyond doubt one of the best forms of exercise for your cardiovascular system. Apart from gaining speed, balance and building up your stamina, you are also practicing an incredibly safe form of exercise. Think about it, most boxing workouts come down to skip rope, bag punching, and the above-discussed calisthenics-based exercises. For those who feel a bit more confident later on, sparing might also turn into a fun activity, especially when practiced with friends.
In conclusion
At the end of the day, while they do care about health, millennials want their fitness activities to be short, intense and diverse. Because of this, practicing sports that have ever-changing circumstances might be just what they’re looking for. Moreover, finding a discipline that will allow you to improve traits you deeply care about or implement an app into your regimen might also be quite efficient. Either way, options are many and it is up to you to properly explore them.