The best home workouts for 2021 Last year working out in your living room became a necessity. Now, innovative new tech means you may never set foot in a gym again 16 January 2021 • 6:00am With new tech such as Apple Fitness+ makes it feel like you are in a class (even when you're in your living room) Stuck in isolation, with work to do, children to look after and mental health to sustain, there was nothing else for it. In the first UK lockdown last March the home fitness market, which had been steadily on the up for the previous five years, boomed. Gym equipment got a makeover – no longer was it just big, bulky machines that turned into expensive coat hangers. Now you could buy ‘smart’ bikes, treadmills and rowers with built-in digital screens to follow workouts, and there were live classes and virtual communities to join. Peloton, the brand behind that ubiquitous £1,750 bike, posted a 172 per cent rise in sales year-on-year between July and September.