As social distancing and other health protocols that prevent most people from going to the gym remain in place, premiere global nutrition company Herbalife Nutrition leveraged digital technology to bring fitness to people through videos, virtual events, and other interactive platforms. One such platform is its Fitness Portal, which features workout videos that range from beginner routines to advanced workouts – making fitness an achievable goal for everyone. All videos can be accessed for free.
“Three years ago, we started to work on our digital platform for fitness. It’s a free resource that’s for everybody,” said Samantha Clayton, Vice President, Worldwide Sports Performance and Fitness, and Chairwoman of the Fitness Advisory Board of Herbalife Nutrition.
Clayton spoke before members of the media and the blogging community during the Virtual Wellness Tour of Herbalife Nutrition Philippines. The forum was held in line with Herbalife Nutrition’s Get Moving with Good Nutrition, a campaign that aims at breaking health inertia and fostering communities to support one another on their healthy living journey. It was launched as part of Herbalife Nutrition’s 40th anniversary celebration.
“Digital has been driving fitness for a long time. It really amplified the average everyday fitness professional’s voice. If you see a lot of the content that’s on YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, the content that gets the most amounts of likes tend to be fitness-based content, so the digital transformation of the fitness world has been happening for a long time. It has always been supported hand in hand with going to a location to exercise, but as this year has gone on, the physical getting together piece has gone down a little, which has made the digital transformation of fitness move at a more rapid pace,” Clayton said.
She added that even when gyms start to open and people get back outside, people have realized the convenience of online workouts and that they could do it in their own time and in the comfort of their own home.
For companies that create content, the challenge lies in making it interesting enough for people to consumer.
“When the sports world kind of stopped this year, we really had a challenge to put out a really interesting and engaging content with our athletes to meet our consumers in their homes, meet our distributors, and people in the community in a space that we know,” Clayton said.
To address this challenge, Clayton and her team came up with a 2020 Quarantine Sports and Fitness Content that comprised of athlete cook-off contests, social media workout videos, sports nutrition blog series, Facebook live workout series, and social media workout graphics.
A former Olympic athlete, Clayton added that the audience for fitness and sports nutrition has never been wider until today.
“For many years, the fitness industry and the sports nutrition industry, in particular, was all about the athlete. Everything was geared towards speaking to the athlete, a person that was really striving to be the best at their sport. What’s exciting for me today is to share with you that the audience not for fitness and sports nutrition has really expanded,” she said. “People are truly inspired and interested in what good nutrition has to offer.”
Citing data gathered by Herbalife Nutrition between February 23 – March 25, 2020, Clayton shared that key categories of conversation in Sports Nutrition International Online listening are: health (37%), market growth (28%), food (15%), science (10%), and nutrition (10%).
When it comes to what gets people moving, running and endurance training ranked highest at 26%, followed by bodybuilding/weightlifting at 23%, cycling at 13%, and plyometrics at 12%.
“I believe that it’s important that people subscribe to a healthy active lifestyle, which is not necessarily striving to be the best athlete in the world. It’s not about reaching peak performance; it’s about having simple daily habits each and every day so that you could be at your best. So whether that’s having a healthy breakfast or getting your minimum amount of exercise, a healthy active lifestyle is about sustainable healthy habits that last a lifetime. Your body is your one vehicle that will last you for the rest of your days. A lot of how that vehicle operates relies on you,” Clayton said.
A mother of four, including a set of triplets, Clayton holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health with a concentration on Nutrition and Wellness. She has competed in the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and is an Athletics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA)-certified personal trainer and group exercise specialist and International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA)-certified personal trainer, group exercise specialist, and youth fitness specialist.