India's hottest fitness trend isn't happening in gyms: How movement is becoming India's new third place

Something has shifted in how Indians think about fitness.

It's the growing realization that you can't exercise your way out of a sedentary life.

That movement and fitness are not the same thing, and confusing the two has been costing people more than they know.

Across Indian cities, this change is visible.

Pickleball courts are packed on weekday evenings.

Hyrox events are selling out months in advance.

Weekend cyclists are a regular fixture on roads that once belonged entirely to cars.

Morning walkers have become morning runners, and morning runners have become morning community.

The gym, for a long time the default setting of Indian fitness culture, is no longer the only game in town, and for many people, it's no longer the point.Hans Peter Jensen, Sports Director at Decathlon India, has had a ringside view of all of it.

In a role that puts him at the intersection of consumer behaviour, sporting trends and how Indians are actually living their physical lives, he's seen the transition from the aesthetics era, the decade of the six-pack and the before-and-after photo, toward something that's harder to photograph but considerably more useful: movement as a daily default, fitness as a function of how you live rather than a separate activity you schedule.

In this conversation, he talks about what's driving that shift, what this is really telling us about where Indian fitness culture is headed, and why the next ten years might look very different from everything that came before.Have we entered an era where movement matters more than exercise? What changes are you seeing in how people define fitness today?Hans Peter Jensen: Fitness and health are essential elements of life today.

We are not only seeing changes to how people are working out, but also to how they’re living.

Fitness is not only done at a gym or in a scheduled block of time in the morning; it’s a component of all daily activities and part of the overall feeling of well-being.

With more jobs that encourage sedentary behavior (sitting at a desk) and an increasing number of lifestyle-related illnesses (i.e., obesity) in India, people are beginning to understand that working out one hour cannot offset the effects of living a sedentary lifestyle for the other nine hours of the day.

Movement throughout the day (i.e., yoga in the morning, walking in the park or around the block, commuting by cycling, playing with children, playing badminton with friends on an evening or playing football on the weekend) is what contributes to this transformation.Fitness is becoming much more accessible to everyone.

The definition of fitness has changed from being only concerned with how someone appears physically to one that encompasses overall health, mental wellness and longevity.

The future of health in India is about incorporating movement into daily life as seamlessly as possible; it's about making activity enjoyable instead of following a structured approach.Which emerging sport or activity has surprised you the most in terms of growth and participation?Hans Peter Jensen: We have evidenced that while one force captures the massive growth of pickleball and paddle as a social sport with low barriers to entry, the other force creates an extraordinary and unprecedented excitement for the global fitness race known as Hyrox, which has overtaken urban India, with thousands of average gym participants cramming into large arenas in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi to participate in very demanding running and functional circuits.What role does community play in fitness today? Are people increasingly looking for connection, belonging and social interaction through movement?Hans Peter Jensen: Today, the fitness community is no longer a luxury.

It has become the primary glue that will keep participants engaged in fitness long-term.

Due to COVID-19 and the various ways it has pushed society into a virtual work-from-home mode, people are looking for authentic and genuine connections with each other.

Fitness and movement have emerged as the new "third place" that is replacing traditional social venues such as cafés and malls.

People are coming to understand that when they have a shared experience with others - such as running a 10K, surviving a Hyrox relay race, or competing against one another in a game of Pickleball - they provide themselves with a real sense of belonging to that community and a vulnerability that cannot be obtained through a virtual platform.Looking ahead, what do you think fitness will mean to the average Indian 10 years from now, and how different will that definition be from today?Hans Peter Jensen: Looking forward to the next decade, we believe the average Indian's definition of fitness will experience a tremendous systemic change.

The last decade represented 'aesthetics', the present is about 'wellness and community' while the next ten years will revolve around functional longevity and default movement.

Ten years from now, the average Indian will not see fitness as an isolated chore requiring a gym but rather as an integral part of his/her daily routine.

We anticipate three significant changes that will occur.Active living is a default behaviour, not a decision: Fitness will move from pre-planned exercise sessions to build into daily activities due to changing infrastructure in our cities and increased awareness about health-spans.

Active commuting such as cycling to transportation systems and using adapted walking or cycling paths will become completely normal, as will micro-activities from activity breaks at work.An onset of an increased amount of "Silver Fitness" types of activity: Ageism will no longer exist in fitness.

In 10 years there will be a culture of multi-generational sports.

Instead of being a rare occurrence to have a 60 year old competing in functional fitness competitions, trekking up a mountain on the weekend, or owning the Pickleball courts, having all of these individuals (who are 60 or older) engaged in some form of physical activity will become common.

The objective is to maintain functional independence and mobility throughout one's life.Using sport as pre-cognitive healthcare: Recognizing that physical movement is the key to preventing diseases associated with modern life, it will create a shift in governments' perspective on health policy from spending money on "curative" medicine to focusing on investing in people's well-being.

Sport will become synonymous with a life-long source of joy and asset protection.What Jensen is describing isn't a fitness trend.

It's a quiet restructuring of how a generation relates to its own body.

The gym-or-nothing mentality is losing ground, and in its place something more honest is emerging: movement that fits into real life, sport that builds real community.