Perseverance is free for the savvy trainer
EXPENSIVE gadgets and active wear won’t help you lose weight or keep fit if you aren’t willing to put in the work.
Athlete High Performance strength coach Maz Smith said it was common to see people in the Cairns community donning activewear, heart rate monitors and signing up for short term programs.
“They want the instant gratification and instant results,” Ms Smith said.
The nation’s addiction to fighting flab will see consumers splash more than $4.7 billion in 2018 on the latest fitness fads including programs, activewear and sporting gadgets.
New research from the Commonwealth Bank has revealed 57 per cent of people have a goal to get fit this year but many could simply be wasting their money on fitness fads.
The data, crunched by ACA research and the first of its kind in this field, found Australians spend $712 million a month on health and fitness activities – the equivalent to $38 per person – and only 36 per cent of people admit to getting good value out of their health and fitness spending.
The research also found we have an addiction to fitness trackers – one in five people purchased a fitness tracker in the past year.
Ms Smith said these weren’t necessarily beneficial unless the buyer was training to compete themselves.
“I think that’s where a lot people’s money does go, in decking themselves out with stuff they don’t necessarily need,” she said. “Where I coach is very basic, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s all about the clients actually putting in the work.”
And on Australians’ shopping lists in 2018, activewear (18 per cent) and trainers (17 per cent) are among popular purchases.
CBA’s executive general manager Clive Van Horen said there were plenty of ways consumers could track their spending on banking apps to nsure they were not wasting money on these types of fads.
“A large number of people are spending money on sport and fitness equipment they never use,’’ he said.
Ms Smith believed there had been a shift in the fitness industry since she’d started 15 years ago. “More people are spending money on memberships because there more specialised centres,” she said.
“When I first started out in the industry it was so limited … now there are more specialised centres that are more suited to people’s goals, so they’re willing to spend more money on their membership.”