Survey Predicts Top 20 Fitness Trends For 2011

They were wrong before, they are wrong again.

This year's attention to nationwide health care reform has cemented the health and fitness industry's emphasis on the need for proper accreditation and certification, according to an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) survey of fitness trends published in the November/December issue of ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal®. The growing demand for educated and experienced fitness professionals claimed the top spot in the survey for the fourth consecutive year.

"As the market in this sluggish economy becomes even more crowded and competitive, the need for regulation, either from within the industry or from external sources, is growing," said the lead author of the survey, Walter R. Thompson, Ph.D., FACSM. "For example, a number of states and the District of Columbia are considering legislation to regulate personal trainers just as it does physicians, lawyers and pharmacists." Thompson, an exercise physiologist at Georgia State University and a Fellow of ACSM, is also spokesperson for the ACSM American Fitness IndexTM.

The survey, now in its fifth year, was distributed to ACSM-certified health and fitness professionals worldwide and was designed to reveal trends in various fitness environments. Respondents around the world returned more than 2,200 completed surveys. Thirty-one potential trends were given as choices, and the top 20 were ranked and published by ACSM.

The most surprising findings, experts say, are the trends that have fallen off the list for 2011 - balance training, stability balls and Pilates. Pilates suffered the worst fall, disappearing after a ninth place ranking in 2010.

The Number One trend - less fitness.

I am taking bets.