Straight to the Bar

Batou (Ghost in the Shell).

We’ve looked at the possible future of both health & fitness many times over the years – Workout Clothing, Virtual Training Partners, various medical discoveries and of course the Gymchats. Particularly 176 and 224.
Continuing those thoughts, here are a few items that may make an appearance over the next year or so. Health & Fitness Predictions for 2021.
NB : I always receive some wonderful feedback on these ‘peer into the future‘ posts – greatly appreciated. If you’d like to drop me a line, just point me to a tweet or leave a comment on the relevant Straight to the Bar post. Cheers.


Several ageing-related clinical trials begin. I suspect that we’ll see the end of ‘death from old age‘ by the end of this decade, with some wonderful advancements between now and then.
Neuralink begins human trials (Initially looking at restoring movement in tetraplegics and paraplegics). Other BCI products such as Paradromics Inc’s ‘Argo‘ and Synchron Inc’s ‘Stentrode‘ launch publically.
3D-printed temporary hospitals begin appearing. Initially as tests, with emergency uses coming shortly afterward.
Many more electric cars are launched, and EV chargers will seem to appear regularly. If you’re in a position to, this is a great time to install a couple at your place of business.
At the same time, several ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle bans begin, and many more are heavily discussed. The ability to train outdoors gets a little easier as a result, and many of the pollution-related health impacts continue to decline.
SpaceX’s global satelite internet constellation ‘Starlink’ is available in most countries worldwide, with other areas being gradually filled in. Although ideal in many situations, it’s the emergency use that I’m most excited about (think of the ability to communicate in a town which has just been hit by fire/flood/hurricane etc).
NB : Amazon’s ‘Kuiper‘ service (same idea) will follow shortly afterward, with launches beginning at the end of the year.
Autonomous driving gets a whole lot closer. Tesla’s FSD builds are fairly solid, and rolled out to a global fleet of testers in order to find edge cases.
Incredible potential for those who can not (or should not) drive.
Autonomous delivery of food & medicine tested in several locations, prior to their commercial roll-outs. Small, electric and wonderfully convenient.
Intelligent home air-conditioning systems (with inbuilt water and air filtration in many cases) begin to appear. Healthier homes, and much less expensive to run. Perfect.
Gene sequencing becomes much, much cheaper over the year; and is used more and more broadly. In many cases, genetic modification follows close behind, and the diseases solved impact larger and larger groups of people.

Incidentally – if you’re wondering how we’ve done in the past, here are all of the previous futurism articles.


Over to you. What are your thoughts on the various predictions above – both the content and the timeframes? Anything you’d change, or add?
And what are your own predictions for next year, both for the fitness and medical worlds? Drop a comment below, or over on Twitter.