Hot girl walkers and Hoka runners: The next generation of fitspo girls
Renee Noes’ Newport run club, June 11 2022. Source: @reneenoe Instagram
We’ve had all kinds of fitspo girls from SoulCycler’s back when the Sister Squad was in its prime to Chloe Ting girlies doing crunches to that soul-crushing soundtrack during lockdown. Thep[re was the 12-2-30 walking trend that took over everyone’s TikTok feed and half the treadmills at the gym. Phases of StepFit and DanceFit dominated the fitness class scene, invigorating old popular formats of Zumba and Jazzercise.
And of most of these trends, the main demographic is women.
Since the 1970s when Jazzercise first appeared, aerobic exercise classes became extremely popular amongst women. That golden era was fuelled by Jane Fonda with step aerobics, leg warmers and tights becoming an iconic symbol of the 70s and 80s. But the 90s to the 2000s is where women's fitness trends really began to emerge with step aerobics, spin classes, barre, kickboxing, Tae Bo (a martial arts dance fusion class) and the ThighMaster defining women’s fitness.
So, it’s no surprise that fitspo girls in 2023 are typically turning to reformer Pilates and hot girl walks.
Yoga and Pilates have always been a typically female dominated realm of the fitness world, since its initial emergence in the late 80s. Back in YouTubes’ prime, Casey Ho of Blogilates popularised the at-home Pilates workout and it’s a form of exercise that transcends into the online space particularly well.
But the latest variation of Pilates, known as reformer Pilates, means you can only do it in a studio. It’s ludicrously expensive to go to a reformer Pilates class, setting you back around $25 per session if you’re looking at a studio in Christchurch. Buying an actual reformer machine isn’t a more cost-effective option either unless you want to be paying upwards of $2000. Still, the promise of toned arms and the posture of a ballerina keeps people coming back to the reformer.
Reformer Pilates is very fitspo girl coded. People turn up in their Lululemon clothes with special grippy socks to get their sweat on with 20 other people. But it is a very effective and low impact form of exercise that even gym bros would struggle with.
And then there’s the hot girl walkers and Hoka runners of fitspo girls.
One of the very few forms of exercise that require little to no financial loss, and yet these fitness trends find a way to market women’s deepest insecurities into tangible products. Because of course every runner needs Hoka running shoes, even though they’re hitting the $300 per pair mark. But wait - you only have Hokas? Oh, so you’re telling me you don’t have a smart watch tracking your run? What’s the point in running if you can’t post your run summary to your story?
And on and on the conversation goes.
And yeah, you don’t have to have all these things to go on a walk or a run, but tell me why every viral video of a ‘GRWM to go on a Hot Girl Walk’ or ‘OOTD for my run’ features at least one, if not all, of those products listed above? It’s real.
Running in general has been gaining popularity since the pandemic, with a report from Run Repeat claiming a 205% increase in runs per week in 2020. There are so many benefits to running beyond just physical fitness, with a large-scale study conducted by Asics confirming that 65% of runners felt running had a greater positive effect on their psyche than any other form of exercise.
‘Hoka Runners’ is a group popularised by model and TikTok darling, Renee Noe. She started out posting the classic GRWM TikToks where she’d typically wear Oakley sunglasses, brightly coloured Nike Aeroswift shorts with a matching tank top and of course, Hoka running shoes. Her account’s rapid popularity has morphed into over 830k followers and 135 million likes on TikTok, with her outfits becoming a uniform amongst her running fans.
Renee Noes’ Boston Run Club, August 13, 2022. Source: @reneenoe Instagram
Internet trends and fan culture can be difficult to view outside of the online realm, but not for Hokarunners. Noe created a girls-only, private Instagram account, @noebadvibes, to promote run clubs. Every few weeks, Noe posts a time and location for her next run club, where girls from all over America run 5 miles together. Noe even gets brands to partner with her and provide free gift bags for every runner, with brands like First Aid Beauty and Clean Simple Eats getting in on the run club action. With over 45k followers on @noebadvibes, anywhere from around 50 to 200 girls turn up for each run club, looking like Renee Noe mini-me’s in brightly coloured tank tops, shorts and Hoka shoes. In Noe’s ‘Run Club Recap’ videos, it’s easy to see how internet trends have amassed into tangible things.
Renee Noe re-posting run club participants. Source: @noebadvibes Instagram
Hot girl walks, which also started on TikTok, has less of a rigid look than Hoka Runners. The hot girl walk is essentially when you go on a long walk, listen to a podcast, and think about only positive things. What started out as a fun trend on TikTok has been redefined and launched into an enter website that sells HGW merchandise from hoodies, tote bags and tank tops. Like Noes’ run club, the official hot girl walk website has walking clubs that meet in different cities.
Homepage of HotGirlWalk.com Source: hotgirlwalk.com
These fitness trends are targeted at women, and even though the influencers who started them aren’t always intentionally advertising products, it’s just the way it ends up being. TikTok is a sea of trend and influence, each video a new wave of subtle marketing that becomes internalised and ultimately actualises in product purchases.
But in all honesty, what’s wrong with that?
Yes, capitalism is bad blah blah, and we shouldn’t be buying things just because other people are or whatever. But at least fitness trends are keeping us healthy and inspired but more so, they’re keeping us connected.
That’s one thing a lot of plain gyms don’t have is that sense of community. You go to the gym, you work out, you leave. A Pilates class though?
You go to class, you say hi to the instructor, you make a few jokes with the person next to you about how squished hot yoga was yesterday, you exercise, you say bye, and you leave. Sure, the connection may be small but it’s there.
Perhaps a part of the reason why women are targeted by fitness trends isn’t so much about our ability to girl math our way around any financial loss, but about our innate craving for some semblance of connection. All in all, being a fitspo girl maybe isn’t the worst thing in the world.
