The Future of the Gym Is Hybrid (Just Like the Office)

Every morning, Daniela Costanzo wakes up at 5, drinks a cup of coffee, feeds her two dogs, then heads to DFit, the Montclair, N.J.-based workout studio she’s owned for the past decade.

Last Wednesday was no different, except for one relatively new pre-class ritual Ms. Costanzo added to her routine during the pandemic. Before the early risers arrived for her first class, she powered on her laptop and started a Zoom meeting.

Two virtual clients popped on-screen, while eight students made their way into the studio. At 7:15 a.m., the crew started its full-body workout all together: a series of heart-pumping shoulder presses, squats, rows, lunges and core work.

In the Before Times, gyms and studios such as DFit were destinations—spaces with nice equipment, freshly laundered towels and, critically, no distractions from partners, kids or pets. Meanwhile, people who couldn’t get out used apps and connected platforms, such as Peloton, designed for home use. The pandemic forced the former to take a page from the latter, and many studios and gyms decided to continue providing home workouts, even after Covid restrictions lifted.

“I’m committed to it 100%,” Ms. Costanzo said. One reason, she says, is that going virtual is cost-effective. A Zoom business license costs about $20 a month. DFit currently offers six virtual classes a week, alongside indoor and outdoor workouts.

For now, the virtual classes are more of a necessity as the threat of the Delta variant looms large. While the studio is seeing more new clients looking to lose their pandemic pounds, attendance still isn’t at pre-Covid levels. Teaching over Zoom is also a drain on instructors, who typically draw energy from loud music and packed classes. Tracks have to be quiet, so students can hear the instructors.

“It feels like I taught four classes when it was just one. That’s how much energy it takes,” Ms. Costanzo said.

At the start of the pandemic, DFit instructors streamed live workouts free on Instagram. Some garnered over 100 participants—much more than a typical studio class. “For such a bad, uncertain time, the energy we felt through Instagram was phenomenal,” Ms. Costanzo said.

A week later, the studio began hosting Zoom classes for paying customers.

Clients can reserve classes through DFit’s online portal, which is operated by booking software Mindbody. About 12 hours before the class, a DFit employee manually emails each participant a Zoom link. Clients are charged normal prices—up to $25 a pop or unlimited access for up to $255 a month.

Ms. Costanzo’s regulars love the flexibility. “Right now, we’re in the heat of vacation season. But I have people joining us from Hawaii and from Germany.” One longtime client moved out of state to Philadelphia. “We’re thrilled we still have her as a client,” Ms. Costanzo said.

A Mindbody survey from February found that 65% of respondents intended to complete workouts both in person and at home in a post-Covid world. And in a survey from July, 86% of respondents who do virtual workouts said they continued to do them as much or more, even as studios are reopening.

Sunil Rajasekar, president of Mindbody, said that convenience is the push behind this consumer shift. “The experience is not the same as an in-person class, but it is way better than not taking the class at all,” he said. “It is also a great way for wellness businesses to expand their reach.”

During the height of the pandemic, Peloton and other at-home workout solutions soared, while gym operators struggled to survive. The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association estimates one in four gyms permanently closed in 2020. Nationwide fitness chains Flywheel and YogaWorks permanently closed all studios that year.

“The chaos of the pandemic forced us to innovate,” said Joey Gonzalez, chief executive of Barry’s Bootcamp, which has 70 locations around the world, offering combination strength-and-cardio workouts.

Before 2020, Mr. Gonzalez wasn’t considering digital fitness for the company. The studios tout perks that can’t be offered in an app: workout rooms drenched in a nightclubby red glow, high-end treadmills with shock-absorbing belts, salon-grade products in its locker rooms and a recovery smoothie bar.

But Barry’s did eventually transition to Zoom workouts during the pandemic, featuring instructors streaming from their living rooms, dealing with audio and Wi-Fi issues like the rest of us.

“One of the most surprising things for us was people were coming to us from places where Barry’s doesn’t exist, like Dublin and Hong Kong,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

To reduce its dependence on Zoom, the company recruited an external agency to create its own Barry’s-ified live video-enabled workout experience, with trainers in a dedicated studio. Earlier this month, it launched Barry’s X, which streams via an app, website or the Forme smart mirror. Live streams cost between $12 and $20 a piece, or can be accessed through a monthly membership, which also includes a library of prerecorded workouts.

There’s some indication that the at-home boom is starting to bust. Peloton recently lowered the price of its original bike by 20%, in anticipation of slowing growth. And at the end of July, Barry’s studios were at 86% of pre-Covid attendance. But Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges that the Delta variant is hampering a full in-person comeback.

Equinox, the luxury gym chain, launched an on-demand fitness mobile app in March 2020, right as the global quarantine began. The app, called Equinox+, includes workouts from SoulCycle, Solidcore and other Equinox subbrands. A subscription costs $40 a month, but for Equinox members, who often pay upward of $200 a month, access to the app is included as a perk.

According to the company, those who visit a club and use the Equinox+ app are the most active members, working out one or two more times a week than those using the club or app alone. What’s funny is that some people even use the Equinox+ app inside Equinox clubs.

So it seems our desk-sharing, partially work-from-home future won’t be the only hybrid model in our lives. Some might refer to the new exercise paradigm as the hybrid gym. Others might say it’s “gym as a service.” I’m just hoping no one will call it “GaaS.”

They call themselves TikTok refugees—and the app they are fleeing to is a lot more Chinese than the video-sharing app whose U.S. fate now hangs in the balance.

After Supreme Court justices Friday seemed inclined to let stand a law that would shut down TikTok in the U.S., the Chinese social-media platform Xiaohongshu , translated in English as Little Red Book, has received a flood of American TikTok users. They are looking for a sanctuary or a way to protest the potentially imminent TikTok ban—never mind that they don’t speak Chinese.

Charlotte Silverstein, a 32-year-old publicist in Los Angeles, downloaded Xiaohongshu on Sunday night after seeing videos on TikTok about migrating to the app, which Americans dubbed “RedNote.” She described the move as a “last act of defiance” in her frustration about the potential TikTok ban.

“Everyone has been super welcoming and sweet,” said Silverstein, who has made three posts so far. “I love the sense of community that I’m seeing already.”

By Monday, TikTok refugees had pushed Xiaohongshu to the top of the free-app chart on Apple ’s App Store.

“I’m really nervous to be on this app, but I also find it to be really exciting and thrilling that we’re all doing this,” one new Xiaohongshu user said in a video clip on Sunday. “I’m sad that TikTok might actually go, but if this is where we’re gonna be hanging out, welcome to my page!” Within a day, the video had more than 3,000 comments and 6,000 likes. And the user had amassed 24,000 followers.

Neither Xiaohongshu nor TikTok responded to requests for comment.

The flow of refugees, while serving as a symbolic dissent against TikTok’s possible shutdown, doesn’t mean Xiaohongshu can easily serve as a replacement for Americans. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the U.S., and it has drawn many creators who take advantage of the app’s features to advertise and sell their products.

Most of the content on Xiaohongshu is in Chinese and the app doesn’t have a simple way to auto-translate the posts into English.

At a time of a strained U.S.-China relationship, some new Chinese-American friendships are budding on an app that until now has had few international users.

“I like that two countries are coming together,” said Sarah Grathwohl, a 32-year-old marketing manager in Seattle, who made a Xiaohongshu account on Sunday night. “We’re bonding over this experience.”

Granthwohl doesn’t speak Chinese, so she has been using Google Translate for help. She said she isn’t concerned about data privacy and would rather try a new Chinese app than shift her screentime to Instagram Reels.

Another opportunity for bonding was a photo of English practice questions from a Chinese textbook, with the caption, “American please.” American Xiaohongshu users helped answer the questions in the comments, receiving a “thank u Honey,” from the person who posted the questions.

By Monday evening, there have been more than 72,000 posts with the hashtag #tiktokrefugee on Xiaohongshu, racking up some 34 million views.

In an English-language post titled “Welcome TikTok refugees,” posted by a Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu user, an American user responded in Chinese with a cat photo and the words, “Thank you for your warm welcome. Everyone is so cute. My cat says thanks, too.” The user added, “I hope this is the correct translation.”

Some Chinese users are also using the livestreaming function to invite TikTok migrants to chat. One chat room hosted by a Chinese English tutor had more than 179,900 visits with several Americans exchanging cultural views with Chinese users.

ByteDance-owned TikTok isn’t available in China but has a Chinese sister app, Douyin. American users can’t download Douyin, though; unlike Xiaohongshu, it is only accessible from Chinese app stores.

On Xiaohongshu, Chinese users have been sharing tutorials and tips in English for American users on how to use the app. Meanwhile, on TikTok, video clips have also multiplied over the past two days teaching users the correct pronunciation of Xiaohongshu—shau-hong-SHOO—and its culture.

Xiaohongshu may be new to most Americans, but in China, it is one of the most-used social-media apps. Backed by investors like Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group , Xiaohongshu is perhaps best described as a Chinese mix of Instagram and Reddit and its users increasingly treat it as a search engine for practical information.

Despite its Little Red Book name, Xiaohongshu has little in common with the compilation of Mao Zedong ’s political writings and speeches. In fact, the app aspires to be a guidebook about anything but politics.

Conceived as a shopping guide for affluent urbanites in 2013, Xiaohongshu has morphed into a one-stop shop for lifestyle and shopping recommendations. Every day, its more than 300 million users, who skew toward educated young women, create, share and search for posts about anything from makeup tutorials to career-development lessons, game strategies or camping skills.

Over the years, Xiaohongshu users have developed a punchy writing style, with posts accompanied by images and videos for an Instagram feel.

Chinese social-media platforms are required to watch political content closely. Xiaohongshu’s focus on lifestyle content, eschewing anything that might seem political, makes it less of a regulatory target than a site like Weibo , which in 2021 was fined at least $2.2 million by China’s cyberspace watchdog for disseminating “illegal information.”

“I don’t expect to read news or discussion of serious issues on Xiaohongshu,” said Lin Ying, a 26-year-old game designer in Beijing.

The American frenzy over a Chinese app is the reverse of a migration in recent years by Chinese social-media users seeking refuge from censorship on Western platforms , such as X, formerly known as Twitter, or, more recently, BlueSky.

Just like TikTok users who turn to the app for fun, Xiaohongshu users also seek entertainment through livestreams and short video clips as well as photos and text-posts on the platform.

Xiaohongshu had roughly 1.3 million U.S. mobile users in December, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which estimates that U.S. downloads of the app in the week ending Sunday almost tripled compared with the week before.

Sensor Tower data indicates that Xiaohongshu became the top-ranked social-networking and overall free app on Apple’s App Store and the 8th top-ranked social app on the Google Play Store on Monday, “a feat it has never achieved before,” said Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.

Run by Shanghai-based Xingin Information Technology, Xiaohongshu makes money primarily from advertising, according to a Xiaohongshu spokeswoman. The company was valued at $17 billion after its latest round of private-equity investment in the summer, according to research firm PitchBook Data.

Not everyone is singing kumbaya. Some Chinese Xiaohongshu users are worried about the language barrier. And some American TikTok users are concerned about data safety on the Chinese app.

But many are hoping to build bridges between the two countries.

“Y’all might think Americans are hateful because of how our politicians are, but I promise you not all of us are like that,” one American woman said on a Sunday video she posted on Xiaohongshu with Chinese subtitles.

She went on to show how to make cheese quesadillas using a waffle maker.

The video collected more than 11,000 likes and 3,000 comments within 24 hours. “It’s so kind of you to use Chinese subtitles,” read one popular comment posted by a user from Sichuan province.

Another Guangdong-based user commented with a bilingual “friendly reminder”: “On Chinese social-media platforms please do not mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs!!!”

The Future of the Gym Is Hybrid (Just Like the Office)

Fitness studios are combining virtual and in-person classes.

Chinese users of Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, welcome Americans fleeing a feared TikTok ban