April Fools’ Day 2016

If you’re anything like me then you have spent the whole morning being completely skeptical in regards to everything that you have been told today. Simply put, even if your mother tells you that she loves you on April Fools’ Day, get a second opinion. What all this means is that if you hear about a fitness trend today that is just too ridiculous to believe then the chances are it’s an April Fools’. 

Doing this job means that I read about a whole load of wacky ideas on pretty much every day of the year but thankfully at least some of them are jokes today! If you haven’t seen any and you have a spare five minutes, I strongly recommend having a quick Google; some of them are truly hilarious.

But to save you the effort of endless searching, I’m going to talk about a few of my personal favourites from this year. If there is one thing that April Fools’ Day should teach you about humans, and in particular Brits, it is that we really are a gullible bunch and therefore there isn’t a lot that we wouldn’t believe if we think the source is credible. And if you think I am joking, just click here to see how in 1957 the British public were fooled into thinking that spaghetti was grown on bushes in Switzerland!

Let’s look at some of the crazy fitness ones of 2016 then. One of the trends for this year is the introduction of standing desks in the workplace for professionals and even our children in schools. So it isn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination to think of trampolines at your desk as well. And that is one of the April Fools’ jokes that I read this morning. Trampoline desks would be supposedly installed to ensure that people working mundane office jobs would still get the recommended amount of exercise everyday.

Dates with Weights was one of the more believable falsities this year and I had to take a closer look just to make sure it was an April Fools’. The idea of combining romance with health and fitness is something that a lot of time and money is going into, whether it is fitness breaks for two or just going for a regular run with your other half. So imagining dates to the gym wasn’t that hard either. Unfortunately the catchy name hasn’t actually been adopted yet and we are still waiting for someone to pick this up. Maybe it could be that business venture that you have been hunting for?

The other side of the coin is those fitness fads that we hope are April Fools’ pranks that turn out to be genuine and there are some absolute crackers this year for them too. The best one I have heard is without a doubt using colour-tinted glasses to trick your mind into not wanting to eat certain foods. And no, I’m not trying to start my own April Fools’ here. The idea sounds quite simple: humans have evolved to believing that blue is associated with mould, so if your food has a bluish tinge then you will be less likely to eat as much. There is some debate as to which colour has he best effect though, with some studies showing red helps us assume there is danger and that might encourage us to eat a little less. Either way, these are a genuine product that you can get your hands on if you truly feel the urge.

So remember, don’t believe everything you read on the internet and especially don’t believe it today. And don’t forget to visit this blog again this evening to see David Beckham, Prince William and Peter Andre all compete to win our very own fitness challenge!