![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!1rQh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa6939f6d-3fae-4634-9293-2555cbe7af04_1320x30.heic\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFor me, September will always mean the start of the year. It\u2019s been awhile since I stepped foot in a classroom, but there\u2019s something about the nip in the air and everyone coming back from sojourns in Europe that tells me it\u2019s time to get serious. About work, about that bag of clothes I\u2019ve been meaning to donate for months\u2014and about working out. Let\u2019s be honest, there\u2019s really no time for exercise in the summer months, between eating ice cream and eating soft-serve ice cream. Another good excuse: It\u2019s too hot to go for a jog in July.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The good news is that when I finally lace up my sneakers, I\u2019ll be joining a thriving cohort. We\u2019re in a fitness boom, according to Derek Thompson<\/a>, who dug into the numbers for his excellent, must-read Substack and found that Americans, especially young ones and older women, are working out more than ever. And they prefer low-impact exercises like yoga and Pilates. Lately, it\u2019s not about doing a high-intensity group class that leaves you panting over a spin bike after getting David Guetta music<\/a> piped into your eardrums for an hour, all to burn some calories\u2014calories are so 2023. Instead the focus is on building muscle, and, I think, having more fun. Thompson credits the pandemic for this health boom, since it \u201cmade people more aware of their mortality in ways both healthy and neurotic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Whatever the reason, we seem to be in an era of exercise where you might hit the reformer<\/a> for 20 minutes before grabbing a matcha with friends, followed by a long walk home. And the woman who sold this exact lifestyle, and the clothes to wear for it, has reemerged to provide the oversize striped button-down<\/a> in guava to tie around your waist.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back! This week we\u2019re talking about back-to-school season. Because whoever decided that the New Year starts in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-119149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}