Chris Hemsworth and Kayla Itsines are riding the fitness boom, as Australians workout from home

At a Kmart in Perth, the shelves that were once filled with coloured dumb-bells and kettlebells are now empty.

Welcome to the second wave of pandemic buying: at-home gym gear.

The beneficiaries of this new buying boom include a few Financial Review Young Rich Listers who have built fitness apps filled with at-home workouts.

Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth launched his fitness and meal planning app Centr just over a year ago. In the past fortnight, subscriptions have surged more than 300 per cent, aided by a decision to offer it free for six weeks. In Australia, it is the second-most-downloaded health and fitness app behind the Australian government’s official coronavirus app.

"We are seeing incredible growth at the moment," says Zsofi Paterson, general manager at Centr co-owner Loup.

Centr began noticing a spike in use even before the Australian government banned gyms three weeks ago. Its users in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US had begun posting in its Facebook group about restrictions forcing them to work out at home. And Centr pivoted quickly.

"Our program is for people to do at home or the gym but we started focusing on at home using low amounts of equipment and producing a bit more content on how to stay sane in a time like this," Ms Paterson said.

It began doing blog posts on what to eat to boost your immunity (tip: get some zinc) and releasing recipes geared to using kitchen staples such as a coleslaw with spiced (canned) chickpeas.

Physical and mental benefits

Young Rich Lister Tobi Pearce and fiancee Kayla Itsines have built a fitness empire with their at-home workout app Sweat, which branched out to offer programs for gym users. They sit at 10th spot on the Young Rich List with an estimated fortune of $486 million.

Their Sweat app, launched five years ago and downloaded by more than 30 million people, still sits in Apple's top 10 most downloaded fitness apps.

It, too, is experiencing growth and has offered its app free for one month. But the freebie comes with a request for users to donate $5 to the World Health Organisation's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Sweat has committed $US100,000 ($160,000) to the fund.

"During the hard times we want to make sure our focus is on figuring out the ways, with what we have access to, to help people," Mr Pearce said.

He thinks more people will join an already growing trend for at-home workouts.

"It's not an unknown fact that consumer behaviour globally has been and will continue to change as it relates to the uses of technology. Email almost seems old school. The world is definitely pivoting and accelerating.

"As it relates to fitness I think this trend is no different. The use of technology in general is definitely on the up but also people working out on home has been on the rise."

Sweat has adapted many of its programs to better cater to at-home-only fitness regimes. For instance Ms Itsines' 28-minute BBG workout program has been modified to suit smaller spaces, with modifications including walking lunges replaced with static lunges. Sweat trainer Chontel Duncan launched an at-home version of her gym-based Fierce program.

Mr Hemsworth's trainer Luke Zocchi, who provides fitness programs for Centr, was working to "bulk up" Mr Hemsworth for the Thor 4 movie to be shot in Sydney in August. That's now given way to a maintenance plan until new production dates are set.

Mr Zocchi says his at-home workout advice is to not overcomplicate things and remember the benefits for mental, not just physical, health.

"I'm a big believer that you only need 20 minutes a day. If you are training at high intensity you can get a great workout in and get great results in 10 minutes to 20 minutes," Mr Zocchi said.

"People think of training as the physical side of things but I think the mental side of things from being physically active is so valuable."

Asked if AFR Weekend readers could use this period of home isolation to get Thor-fit, Mr Zocchi said: "If you are going really hard you can get a really good transformation in three months. I'm not going to go on record saying you will look like Chris, but you will be the best version of yourself in three months."

The best equipment to buy? Dumb-bells, if you can find any.

And if you're a beginner, Mr Zocchi says to simply exercise one day on, one day off until you build up a routine.

This story originally appeared in the Australian Financial Review. Read the original story here.