1. Hybrid Fitness Continues to Scale  

Legitimacy gains: Validation by incumbents like Puma × HYROX, Reebok × F45, Adidas × ATHX, LifeTime LT games and Hyrox’s pledge for Olympic-showcases signals that hybrid fitness is shifting from niche to institutionally validated.

In 2026: This category still has headroom, especially for formats that will activate communities and build identity beyond event days–borrowing from indie running brands’ playbook: cultural pull, strong aesthetics and emotional belonging.

2. Low-Tech Foundations Resurface 

Digital compression: Data-driven promises failed to prevent physical breakdown: in many ways, they accelerated it. Our postures have been compressed into a tech crunch, our movements reduced to swipes, and our gazes narrowed.

In 2026: Fundamental performance limiters will emerge as high-potential unlocks. Postural integrity, foot fitness, visual skills, and breathing mechanics will move from afterthoughts to intentional prerequisites. In a tech-saturated world, the next gains will come from standing tall and restoring the fundamentals. 

3. Breathing: From Ritual to Performance Metric

Fresh air: The growing adoption of breathwork, improved literacy around respiratory metrics, and advances in sensing technologies are converging. Once an invisible self-regulation practice, breathing is becoming a low-friction and entirely legible performance metric. 

In 2026: Breathing emerges as a first-order fundamental as advances in earables, smart rings, and breath trackers turn respiration rhythm and sounds trackable in real time.

4. Durability over Performance

Our take: Recovery moves beyond cryptic scores toward prescriptive durability systems, actively influencing training decisions. As aging athletes dominate participation and spending, performance is no longer just about peak output–it’s about preserving trainability. The defining question being: Can you train again tomorrow?

In 2026: Longevity finally enters sport performance–not as lifespan, but as repeatability. Recovery starts to be monitored and prescribed. The competitive edge shifts from peaking hardest to staying available longest.

5. Community Belonging Pays Dividends 

The recognition gap: Participation without recognition leads to fatigue. Unlike other industries, fitness community rarely reward their most engaged members, causing loyalty to dilute and leaving brands at risk of losing their most valuable ambassadors for the next big thing.

In 2026: A few leading brands and fitness community hubs are responding, signaling a shift where community retention becomes the real competitive edge. We expect an influx of loyalty systems designed to track participation and turn engagement into rewards, limited access, and badges–the infrastructure of durable communities.

6. Sexual Health Enters the Performance Conversation

The holistic shift: The GLP-1 revolution has acted as a primary catalyst, normalizing discussions about side effects, which include libido and sexual function.

In 2026: We are entering an era of radical transparency. Sexual health taboos are lifting and gets reframed into measurable and actionable levers of performance, well-being and healthspan. Sex hormone monitoring and replacement therapies will become normalized, pelvic floor strengthening will permeate training plans, male fertility will get supplemented, and sperm performance will even be gamified!

7. Sleep Fatigues. Make Room for Stress

Zzz: Sleep’s importance is undisputed—yet the market and consumers’ attention have reach saturation. Ubiquitous insights & optimized bedtime routines have stalled into platitudes.

Attention is shifting to physiological and emotional stress monitoring using cortisol and autonomic markers, addressing the blind spots of HR-based wearables.

In 2026: Stress replaces sleep as the master variable to track and manage. Autonomic-mapping becomes central, physiological and emotional stress is monitored using objective biomarkers like cortisol. The shift unlocks new categories, from vagus nerve stimulators, to light and sound waves interventions–closing the measure-to-improve continuum.

8. Nutritional Supplements Reset

Welcomed skepticism: In 2025, nutrition supplements hype outpaced evidence. Innovative formats like gummies and mouth strips flourished, but clever branding sometimes blurred the line between essentials and well-packaged placebos. Consumers are growing wary. 

In 2026: Strong scientific signal will outweigh brand signalling. Formats and branding support, rather than overshadow, evidence-backed staples–e.g. protein, creatine, and vitamin D–in a balanced, science-forward market.

9. Air Travel Optimized

Bumpy start: The bold announcement of questionable airport gym concept, sparked interest for air-travel wellness. 

In 2026: The concept will stay airborne, but is circling back to common-sense territory. Pragmatic innovations like jet-lag mitigation, circadian assistants and light exposure tools, supplements, flightwear, portable fitness and recovery equipment are emerging as enduring air-travel essentials.

10. Hyper Personalization

Spec’d-of-one: Inspired by spray-on shoes and custom-fit, 3D-printed protective gear, a parallel path to mass production is emerging—one where equipment is no longer designed for the masses, but shaped around each athlete.

Advances in on-demand manufacturing and digital fit make it possible ; a cultural shift that values identity and intent makes it inevitable.

In 2026: Premium, custom-fit equipment permeate the market as markers of commitment and belonging. One-off and limited-run items quietly signals commitment.