Photo: LES MILLS / Kristian Frires

This is the biggest brand partnership Les Mills has embarked on and we have bold ambitions for what can be achieved.

Our aim is to shape the future of training and inspire a new generation to embrace exercise as an integral aspect of their lives.

We see it as Adidas and Les Mills – two iconic brands with shared values and strong heritage – coming together to celebrate training and cement it as the biggest sport in the world.

Driven by our focus on innovation, connection and motivation, we’ll elevate training by combining the best of live and digital experiences to meet people where, when and how they want.

To achieve this, we’re planning to combine tech such as VR with live fitness experiences to change the way our two communities experience workouts, unlocking exciting synergies between our brands.

The partnership will connect AdiClub (Adidas’s free global membership club) and our digital Les Mills+ fitness-on-demand platform to offer immersive and personalised solutions to over 300m AdiClub members, incentivising them with rewards for working out and introducing them to a new world of training possibilities.

A big focus will be on helping more people experience the thrill of live workouts. To this end, we’ll be staging Les Mills Live fitness festivals (www.lesmills.com/live) in major cities around the world throughout 2023 to engage these audiences.

Our ambition to get millions moving through this partnership will mean growing the training category for consumers and getting more people into health clubs.

A rising tide lifts all boats and if the pandemic has been defined by health clubs operators’ use of technology to keep members moving, the next phase of industry growth will be driven by operators’ ability to win their share of Gen Z and millennial customers – often dubbed ‘Generation Active’.

This group makes up over 80 per cent of the fitness market and there’s potential for fitness brands to engage this demographic on a deeper level, inspiring a lifelong love of training.

A key focus will be inspiring the next generation to embrace training by offering enhanced experiences. Throughout 2023 and beyond, we’ll be rolling out new workouts specifically crafted to appeal to Gen Z that will engage them in live and digital.

We launched the first workout – Les Mills Strength Development – in February and there are nine more being refined in the Les Mills Living Lab, which we’ll be rolling out during 2023 and beyond.

We also want to use our collective strengths to engage Gen Z in new and exciting ways. When you factor in elements such as Adidas's roster of top athletes, the reach of AdiClub, the world-class content and talent of Les Mills and the game-changing innovation of Les Mills Bodycombat VR (the world’s number one-selling VR fitness game), there’s exciting potential for where we can take this partnership.

In many ways. In a world of infinite content, authenticity is an important currency, particularly among younger generations who can smell bullshit a mile off.

Adidas recognises the crucial role Les Mills instructors play in inspiring communities, so it’s working alongside us to put instructors at the heart of everything we do.

Expect to see them showing up in a wide range of channels, rocking out on stage at Adidas and Les Mills live events, providing feedback on the latest Adidas footwear and apparel and sharing their perspectives on what’s happening in the world of fitness.

Because building communities and celebrating the thrill of live workouts will be key components of the partnership, instructors will take centre stage as we put them in the spotlight and help them reach broader audiences.

As the industry enters this new growth phase, clubs that can attract and nurture great instructors will be ideally placed to meet the demands of Gen Z for community and social connection. The Les Mills Global Fitness Report [www.lesmills.com/global-fitness-report], which surveyed over 12,000 fitness consumers across 15 countries, found two-thirds of gym members (67 per cent) prefer working out in groups, with group exercise classes the single most popular gym activity, outstripping both strength and cardio training.

Quality instructors were identified as the most important factor for gym goers when choosing a live class, so rockstars really are the lynchpin of successful clubs, as well as our partnership with Adidas.

Both brands believe the partnership will propel us towards our shared ambitions, whether it’s Adidas's goal to change lives through sport or our aim to create a fitter planet and inspire millions more people to embrace active lifestyles.

How we’re going to achieve that is by meeting people on their terms and creating life-changing fitness experiences that inspire them to move more. That means health clubs will play the most significant role, as that’s where people find community, forge friendships and get the best results – all the things that motivate you to stick with your training. Home and outdoor workouts will also be important.

The partnership goes beyond fitness. Adidas has led the way in sustainability in the market, embracing new technology to transform plastic waste into performance materials used in their collections.

Through our work with Unicef and Trees for the Future, we have long standing commitments to environmental projects – we’re on course to plant over a million trees this year, for example. Working alongside Adidas, we’re pumped by how much impact we can make towards a healthier planet.

Something we’re seeing that I can relate to through my own training is a more holistic approach and a greater focus on the mental benefits as much as the physical.

With the recent past still fresh in our minds, it’s no surprise this trend continues to take hold and become a key motivator for movers.

Pre-pandemic, the top workout driver was to control weight, but with 45 per cent of consumers feeling stressed ‘on a regular basis’, reducing stress is now the number one reason for working out, according to a recent Mindbody report [www.hcmmag.com/mindbody23], suggesting significant demand for these offerings.

As many operators will attest, strength training is back and Gen Z is driving this trend, with strength training identified as their favourite way to work out [www.hcmmag.com/civicscience], followed by cardio and yoga/Pilates. For a generation that grew up on social media and has a passion for inclusivity, it’s no surprise hashtags such as #girlswholift are inspiring young women to take up strength training.

We also know consumers expect a connected training experience as standard. They want to do their favourite workouts wherever, whenever and to be able to track this across modalities to provide a holistic overview of their activity levels and wider wellbeing.

It’s having a massive impact. As the new fitness landscape evolves, we’ve entered the age of omnifitness, where live in-club and at-home workouts co-exist and complement each other.

The majority of consumers now favour a 60:40 blend between live and digital workouts according to the Les Mills Global Report, with McKinsey reporting the number of consumers with hybrid fitness routines grew 41 per cent between 2020 and 2022 [www.hcmmag.com/McKinseyFitSummitEricFalardeau]. This paper also found these consumers observing significantly better results from their hybrid training.

Not at all. Rather than cannibalising the in-club experience, digital can help clubs win new fans online, build brand affinity and convert them into full members. Mindbody’s 2022 Fitness Report [www.hcmmag.com/Mindbody22] found 35 per cent of Americans started going to a live fitness class they discovered through digital. The ability of digital to funnel more people into live workouts was also fully evident at our recent Les Mills Live London event, where over 5,000 people joined us for a thrilling weekend of fitness that was the first to be filmed in VR.

photo: LES MILLS / Kristian Frires

At Adidas we’ve been focusing on training as a sport versus training for sport and this partnership with Les Mills marks an exciting milestone for that approach and mission.

We want to inspire the next generation of exercise enthusiasts by supporting them with fitness programmes that align with their habits and lifestyles.

Collaborating with Les Mills offers an exciting opportunity to connect our two communities and offer the members of our AdiClub (Adidas’s free global membership club) exclusive access to the world of Les Mills – including new and bespoke training solutions and benefits – while offering the Les Mills’ tribe access to Adidas innovations that support the types of training available to Les Mills instructors and communities.

Our brands will focus on providing products and services to enhance the training experience for all – whether it’s the Les Mills Lab, where they put each workout through scientific testing to ensure every session is safe and delivers results, or the creation of high-performance sportswear products at Adidas. It’s a powerful and exciting combination.

For both brands, community is at the heart of what we do. Les Mills currently delivers over three million workouts a year through a 130,000-strong global network of instructors, while our AdiClub has 300 million members.

The partnership will provide exclusive benefits for these communities. We also have a shared commitment to discovering new ways to speed up action for people and the planet. By 2024, Adidas aims to replace all virgin polyester with recycled where possible – our training apparel is currently made in part with recycled materials. Les Mills is also committed to a range of environmental programmes.

We see them coming together in the ways we’re innovating solutions.

For example, in the sport world, inclusivity and accessibility remains a huge focus and in the fitness space, our communities are looking for more individual solutions for their training activity of choice.

For our latest collection we partnered with leading experts in the fields of exercise science, athlete physiology and breast health to unearth issues that were acting as barriers when it comes to women’s workout apparel and participation.

92 per cent of women reported finding it difficult to focus on their workout when their apparel was uncomfortable, with baggy leggings and ‘skin marks’ identified as pain points, so we focused on designing solutions specific to the female form to tackle these issues.

The collections were created to provide tailored support for specific exercise types so people could choose apparel based on their activity requirements, from low-impact yoga sessions to HIIT or strength training.

Tapping into our network of experts and athletes also allowed us to develop solutions that cater to the community’s needs and complement the Les Mills portfolio of workouts.

We think it’s vital to build from a foundation of community insight and then deliver on that in everything we do.

Fitness training offers many of the same benefits as traditional sport, whether it’s finding a community through a shared passion, the powerful and positive effects on mental health or a spot of healthy competition (whether with yourself or others!).

However, it’s the tailored approach to training which enables people to fit exercise into their life and the advent of increasingly personalised experiences will see this become more widespread.

Our collaboration will open a new world of training to our Adidas community via both the Les Mills + app, which offers fitness on demand and Les Mills Live events where we’ll push the boundaries of live training.

We’ve seen the popularity of training as a sport increase in all generations and as the digital landscape continues to progress, the world of fitness is evolving, becoming more accessible to a wider audience and creating more demand for personalised solutions.

Our partnership will be focusing on bringing training solutions to our Gen Z community. As Clive has explained, this year, we’re launching a new series of Gen Z-inspired workouts designed to tap into their workout behaviours under our three training pillars HIIT, yoga and strength, with all workouts being designed and tested in the Les Mills Lab.

Training has such a positive effect on mental and physical health, there are no rules, just a wide variety of activities and movements for everyone, depending on their preferences and ability to achieve their own personal goals.

At Adidas our focus is on making sure as many communities as possible can enjoy sport without facing barriers to participation. We believe sport should be a place for everyone, which is why we continue to innovate – from period-proof activewear to our inclusive sizing collaboration with size-inclusive clothing brand 11 Honoré.

We also invest in grassroots projects and initiatives focused on inclusivity for sport’s marginalised communities [www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/social-impacts/communities].

Our partnership with Les Mills will allow us to extend the positive effects of training further via the reach of our platform, supporting an ever-wider community in achieving their personal goals through science-based fitness programmes – from beginners to seasoned experts.

Our Adidas x Les Mills edit is a selection of our latest training apparel, footwear and accessories.

Worn by the Les Mills global athlete network and available for instructors and the community, the training pieces are designed to support HIIT, yoga and strength.

Examples include the Designed 4 Training Series [www.adidas.co.uk/designed4training] that’s been specified for intense workouts such as Les Mills Grit and also our Dropset trainers [www.adidas.co.uk/dropset-trainer-shoes] which offer stability for strength workouts such as Bodypump.

The Adidas bra and leggings collections continue to support all forms of training, from Les Mills Bodybalance to Bodycombat.

The Les Mills edit is available at www.adidas.co.uk/gym_training