Fitness startups flex serious muscles, home workout sessions a big hit

The indoor is the new outdoor. The corornavirus outbreak has upended everything that has come in its way — life, travel, work, business, entertainment and also fitness.

Exercise mats and trainers are competing for space along with laptops or work stations in crowded living rooms as India enters the final week — probably — of the extended nationwide lockdown to break the change of infections.

The lockdown hasn’t curbed the enthusiasm for fitness and fitness startups never had it so good.

People are working out and running marathons in their homes, with technology making up for the loss of equipment and trainers. Online fitness classes are a big hit, offering workout sessions for everyone — children, young and the old.

As a top executive at one of the fitness startups put it, the lockdown is for fitness startups what demonetisation was for digital payments.

Work the core

Bengaluru-based Curefit, which runs Cult Fit range of gyms and outdoor arenas, has brought a large number of workout sessions online, allowing customers to take classes at home without any equipment.

DIY, or Do It Yourself, sessions are the buzz, with celebrity fitness enthusiasts going live with online classes.

“The popularity of these celebrities has helped us in reaching a new set of audiences. On an average, we see double the attendance in these premiers of these sessions (conducted by celebrities) compared to other sessions (conducted by Cult trainers),” said Naresh Krishnaswamy, who heads growth and marketing at CureFit.

While CureFit has upped its game in the online space after expanding physical footprint in large Indian cities, another startup is trying to build an online community of fitness enthusiasts from scratch.

Pune-based Fittr moved away from the physical model to conduct classes online through video.

Jitendra Chouksey’s bootstrapped firm, launched in 2016, is among the seven Indian start-ups picked as part of the third cohort of Sequoia Surge, an early-stage accelerator programme from the American venture capital firm.

What started as a WhatsApp group moved to Facebook, where it garnered more than 5 lakh followers and then an app, which got 4.5 lakh downloads within six months of its launch in September 2019. Video sessions also let Fittr cater to a global clientele.

“There are one-on-one sessions on our platform with 60 percent of our participants coming from India, 18 percent from the United States and Canada and the rest spread across the Middle East, Australia and Europe,” said Chouksey.

Unlike other players, it is trying to build a community of fitness enthusiasts. Along with workout sessions, the platform also answers queries on fitness, food habits and healthy living.

Hyderabad-based Fitb.ee is trying to popularise online sessions targeted at children.

Started in December 2017, the bootstrapped startup tried to set up gyms but seeing growing demand and difficulty in recruiting student trainers, it tapped online channels for a bigger reach.

The startup has around 250 videos on its mobile application, which was launched in January 2020.  The lockdown has seen a three-fold jump in the use of the app. It has already had more than 10,000 downloads.

“This is the time when children are not being able to engage in much physical exercise outside, so we are trying to keep them engaged through simple workout videos,” Fitb.ee cofounder Avinash Rajapet said.

It caters to children in the age group of four to 19 years through Youtube videos. For young children, they have animal movements, superhuman poses and for teenagers, basic kickboxing moves and similar exercises.

Besides online sessions, the startup has tied up with schools and is a partner in their physical education programmes. What starts as an engagement in school can get picked up by the children through the app, thereby making it a customer acquisition tool for Fitb.ee.

“We have tried to keep the app interactive for children by offering them points, badges and others which they can show off to their peers and classmates,” said Prathima Koppolu, cofounder Fitb.ee.

Neighbourhood gyms have remained closed for almost five weeks and are unlikely to be crowded even after the lockdown ends. Social distancing will be the norm, at least in the foreseeable future.

While dismantling traditional ways, the outbreak has opened up new avenues for fitness enthusiasts.

Change is here

Most online classes are for free, now. Many will go behind paywalls in future but by then, consumers will have an understanding of the regime best suited to them.

“For us, only one-on-one sessions are charged and they come with guaranteed results. For 12 sessions, you may be charged around Rs 4,000. We have a money-back offer in case customers are not satisfied,” said Chouksey. Demands for return was less than 5 percent of paid customers, he added.

CureFit, clocking more than 5 lakh live sessions a day, believes the five-time jump shows that many of the new app users will stick to online classes even after the lockdown ends.

Besides these startups, YouTube has multiple videos shot by individual trainers and fitness enthusiasts being consumed by thousands globally.

A top executive at one of the large startups said post-coronavirus, there will be a change in the way freelancers offer their services. India will see mushrooming of such training videos either through paid platforms or social media.

Geographical restrictions will disappear and video sessions will let them cater to their clients without moving places. It is just the beginning of a new fitness wave.