Top 20 Fitness and Weight Loss Trends for 2012

Strength training, core conditioning, yoga, pilates, pole dancing, Zumba, kettlebell, P90X, weight loss, TRX, boot camp, battling rope, abs machine? You name it. There always seems to be new gadgets, new exercises, new programs, new twists of the old stuff that promise rapid weight loss, muscle toning, flat abs, and magic body transformation results

It's particularly true around this time of the year where people are making New Year's resolutions to lose weight, eat healthy, exercise more, and get in better shape.

As consumers, people have to get educated to separate a fad from a trend before trying out.

Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

"A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior's being perceived as novel in some way.

A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.

Though the term trend may be used interchangeably with fad, a fad is generally considered a fleeting behavior whereas a trend is considered to be a behavior that evolves into a relatively permanent change."

Simply put, a fad is something hot for sometimes - a few years perhaps - then gone. A trend could start as a fad then develops into something so popular that stays for the long run.

As we're ringing in New Year 2012, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) conducted a worldwide survey by 2,620 fitness professionals who ranked their selections into a list of 20 trends they believed would be big in 2012.

Here is list of the top 20 fitness trends for 2012 according to ACSM survey:

1. Educated, certified and experienced fitness professionals

2. Strength training

3. Fitness programs for older adults

4. Exercise and weight loss

5. Children and obesity

6. Personal training

7. Core training

8. Group personal training

9. ZUMBA and other dance workouts

10. Functional fitness

11. Yoga

12. Comprehensive health promotion programming at the worksite

13. Boot camp

14. Outdoor activities

15. Reaching new markets

16. Spinning (indoor cycling)

17. Sport-specific training

18. Worker incentive programs

19. Wellness coaching

20. Physician referrals

"The survey attempts to show a distinction between fads and trends and is a good representation of what's occurring in the health and fitness industry worldwide," said Walter Thompson, Ph.D., the lead author of the survey.

Zumba dance workout has been gaining popularity in recent years and is strengthening its position. It's curious to see if it will follow Pilates' short run in the top 20 fitness trends. Pilates was ranked in the top 10 for three consecutive years, beginning in 2008, but dropped off in 2011.

There are always trends that won't change as they are the fundamentals no matter what you do such as the No.1, educated, certified and experienced fitness professionals and personal trainers, which has been ranked No. 1 for five years since the survey initiated.

I always educate my clients that these are just "tools" to get what you want. They can't replace the basic principles and ignore how our body works. Nothing can replace the education, knowledge and experience in any profession so is in fitness training profession.

A returning trend claiming No.3 spot for 2012 is the fitness program for older adults. As baby boomers are aging into their golden years, they still want to stay active, exercise, eat healthy and look and feel younger.

I can vouch for that from my personal clientele base. The median age of my personal training clients is 53. I have clients in their 60s who love to work out, learn new moves, stay healthy and feel good about their bodies.


Watch the slideshow video presentation:

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Latest Health Poll Results Announced for 2012 New Year's Resolutions

So what's on your list of New Year's resolutions?

When the New Year's parties end, a lot of us are left with some tough promises to keep.

The latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll is revealing what Americans are making their New Year's resolutions.

The telephone poll of more than 3,000 adults across the country was conducted during the first half of December. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Click here to read the questions and complete results.

How much did people want to lose? Almost half of people with dieting in mind wanted to drop 10 to 29 pounds. About 21 percent wanted to shed between 30 and 49 pounds.

Fifty one percent of all respondents  make a resolution to exercise more. Thirty five percent pledge to lose weight and 9% of smokers  make a resolution to quit smoking.

Some people have had a lot of practice with their vows to do better. A little more than a third of people have resolved to lose weight at least once in the past five years. Among those who have promised themselves they'd shed a few pounds, 38 percent made that resolution five years in a row.

Making a resolution is the easy part. How well do people actually do? Overall, 57 percent of respondents who wanted to lose weight in the past told us they'd reached their goal.

Quitting smoking is more challenging. Among people who had vowed to quit smoking at least once in the past five years, only 36 percent said they had succeeded.

Now, we have to admit that we wondered how accurate people's reports of success on their goals might be. The folks at Practice Fusion, a supplier of electronic medical record systems for doctors' offices, gave us another way of looking at things.

The company combed through a sample of real-world data from doctors' records, including the weights of more than 21,000 patients measured in 2010 and again in 2011. There's a lot of people who are losing some weight. Overall, about 46 percent of people lost some weight. On average, it was about 7 pounds from one year to the next.

Now the Practice Fusion data are from people who saw their doctors regularly, and we don't know how that lines up with respondents to our poll. After looking at the poll's findings and his own company's data, you might not reach your ambitious New Year's health goal, but it's still worth a try. You may lose a little weight, which is better than none at all.