‘We saw more women working out during the pandemic’: Fittr Co-founder Sonal Singh

The digital revolution taking over the fitness industry during the pandemic has helped close the gender gap between men and women wanting to prioritise health and fitness in their lifestyle.

According to fitness app Strava’s ‘Year in Sport’ report, between April and September 2020, women aged 18–29 tracked 45.2 percent more fitness activities than they did during the same period last year, compared with a 27.3 percent increase among their male counterparts.

Sonal Singh, Co-founder of Fittr, also agrees to have seen a similar trend at Fittr. “In terms of fitness, we’ve seen more women working out during the pandemic and availing our services,” she said at HerStory’s Women on a Mission summit 2022.

“Being at home and having more time to focus and prioritise one's health is why this has been possible. So we've seen that over 60 percent of our personal training clients are women, and over 70 percent live overseas. But having said that, a lot of these clients are NRI so there's still that Indian connection,” se added.

The digital revolution really impacted every sector but more so the fitness industry during COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Technology has always been an enabler and we've been digital from day one and it just made sense because it's the fastest way to reach out to as many people as possible and further our goal of democratising fitness. But it’s also true that there was some reluctance on the part of end users to avail fitness online, because there were several options. But COVID just forced everyone to have no other option. More than that, people actually took some time to realise that they need to prioritise their health because there's no other option. So I think that has been a catalyst in moving people towards a digital fitness solution,” shared Sonal.

Apart from pushing more women to take their fitness seriously, the digital revolution has also generated income sources for women fitness trainers through services like Fittr.

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Sonal noted that since the majority of users are women, they demand female coaches.

“So we've seen the demand for female coaches completely escalate and some of our top performers are female coaches earning up to five to $6,000 a month. They're able to do this from their home and juggle this with their other responsibilities and just become the breadwinners of their family.

“The fact that this is possible and that we are actually enabling more women to enter the workforce is just something that we are so proud of and at Fittr, it remains one of our top mandates right now.”

Sonal was climbing the corporate ladder, working as a strategy and ops consultant at Deloitte when she gave it up to join Fittr as its co-founder. Her logic was simple, she wanted to create something of value for people. However, this journey has not been short of challenges.

“I find entrepreneurship to be a roller coaster ride which is often scary and challenging but definitely women face more challenges. The key challenge is representation. I can't tell you how many times we have been in a room or an online boardroom, or meeting where I'm the only woman present, and I feel something is wrong with this. To inspire younger women that this is a viable option, we need to have greater representation.”