Active Overwatch 045

Here’s your weekly roundup of news, trends, and stories in the health & fitness space. A list of what’s happening, new innovations, interesting finds, and more.

Recent Headlines

Ladder’s marketing team shines with new Severance campaign. Based on the popular TV show, and featuring a busy mom as the “outie“ who doesn’t want to think about her workouts. So her “innie“ uses Ladder to plan workouts for her.

• Ladder just delivers home run after home run in the marketing department. Their Peloton feud campaign. Their Quitter’s Day campaign featuring Stavros Halkias. And now this Severance campaign. They move extremely quickly, have overflowing creativity, and produce at a high quality. This combination of strengths is exactly why they saw roughly 200% growth in 2024. Props to them.

Velara unveils wellness development in Costa Rica. A biologically optimized resort and residences that will include over 70 condos & villas. And includes wellness components such as biometric assessments, cell restoration, Ammortal chambers, and more.

• I’ve talked about the trend of resorts and travel becoming more wellness focused. On the chain side of the spectrum we’ve seen Hilton partner with Calm and Peloton. Then more in the middle we’ve seen Equinox Hotels roll out Sleep Lab experiences. And lastly, on the luxury side of things, we have entire resorts & residences being built that are focusing on wellness and longevity, such as The Estate by Tony Robbins and now Velara by Kevin Wathey. I think this trend is going to continue to grow as consumers become more health conscious, but honestly what intrigues me most is the real estate aspect of this. It is setting up to be the next frontier of wellness. Selling not only a house, but also better sleep, fewer toxins, optimized circadian rhythm, and more - all baked into the architecture.

Cadence unveils new Cola electrolyte drink. Adding to their Core 500 canned electrolyte drink collection that previously only came in Citrus flavor.

• First off, I am extremely excited to try this. Salty coke sounds delicious. Second off, I really think this is a smart move. The hydration space is quite saturated and the market is entirely stuck in a loop of lemon, berry, watermelon, tropical punch, repeat. Cola is flavor differentiation. Cola is nostalgic, familiar, and cuts through the noise without trying too hard. It plays on the fact that cola is one of the most beloved flavor profiles ever, but now it’s functional. I think this could kickstart a wave of non-fruit flavors across the electrolyte space.

NordicTrack unveils new premium treadmill. The Ultra 1 Treadmill, featuring a decoupled running deck for a smoother ride. And is designed like a piece of art, with people calling it the Rolls Royce of treadmills.

• Again, I’ve talked about the trend of high design in fitness equipment. Just last week TrueForm unveiled a slick new treadmill. I think there are 2 sides to this though. On one side, fitness & wellness is just as much about design and aesthetic as it is about function. Consumers want wellness investments to feel premium and elevate spaces. But on the other side, this is largely catering to the top end of the market. The average consumer is still grabbing the $999 treadmill at Costco. Overall, I think luxury equipment continues to rise, but we are a ways out from mass market.

OpenAI introduces 4o Image Generation. A new image generator feature in ChatGPT that allows users to create any images they want through prompting.

• I know this isn’t health & fitness news, but let me explain. This is kinda the point I was making in my CPG video a couple weeks ago. Tech is not as massive a moat as it used to be. There has to be more to your company than just AI wrappers and vibe coders. New AI releases can wipe out that operation overnight. I am more bullish on companies doing things that are hard to replicate and take time + dirty work that lazy people won’t do. And the companies that seem to be doing this are typically involved in hardware, physical products, and community.

ICYMI On Social

• Run clubs getting acquired.
• The trend of portable saunas.
• From breast milk to Muscle Milk.
• “This week in fitness” video featuring Whoop, Poppi, and TrueForm.