Transcript of Episode 524: Liron Kayvan: How to Make Fitness Goals Stick And The Top Fitness Trends This Year

Hi, guys.

It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle.

Crush it. In today's episode of Fitness Friday, I'm joined by my dear friend and fitness expert, Lerun Khaivan, to break down the New Year's cycle around training and health, and of course, share our perspective on the top three trends shaping 2026. We get into why most New Year's goals fall apart by mid-January and how too much daily decision-making sabotages long-term habits, and what it actually means to build non-negotiables. If you're tired of the start over loop and want daily habits that actually support your lifestyle, this episode gives you clear ways to build consistency that lasts. Enjoy this episode, and let me know always your thoughts.

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Okay, welcome to 2026. Here we go again. I'm joined by my dear friend, Lerun. Hello. Thank you for coming on again. We do a lot of... We rift back and forth on fitness all the time, so that's why I love having you, because it's an easy conversation. And I'm sure if you guys have listened to this podcast, you are very familiar with who Liron is. He's been on a few times talking fitness, health, wellness. So anyway, thanks for being on the show. My pleasure. Again, everybody, welcome to 2026. And here we go again, right? All the New Year resolutions, new year, new year, blah, blah, blah. I'm not a humongous fan of New Year's resolutions. I feel like I know it gives people a clean slate to start over again, but that's also the problem. I think that people should be doing things every single day, lifestyle-wise, and not just wait until January first. And this is what I found interesting. Did you know that the second Friday of January is when the majority of people start falling off? I think it was like 80 % of people start falling off of their New Year's resolutions.

That makes sense. When they make the New Year's resolution for starting in the New Year versus like, Hey, you know what? I want to make this life change. I'm going to start tomorrow or right now.

And fitness is also the number one New Year's resolution, right?

Fitness is the number one. Health, fitness. That's why when you go to the gym, it's packed for the first two weeks.

My gym is.

And then- My gym is. Well, there you go, right? Well, you know you're a gym owner. So what happens?

You just get a flood of people, especially now with companies like ClassPass and stuff. They offer people like New Year's deals and stuff like that. So it now has become this self-perpetuating thing where everyone just thinks, Okay, I'll start in January. And they're thinking about that from probably October, November. So December is empty because people are like, Oh, I'm going to start in January. And that's problem with the New Year's resolution is you're basically just kicking the can down the road.

A hundred %. And then that's the problem. And then they let themselves be probably more gluttonous and do all these things that they would otherwise not do. Okay, so I want to go over a couple of things. I research the top three fitness trends for 2026. And what I found was, well, not that, that unique, but what I found people search for the most. Are you ready? Okay. Okay, and then I want you to compare it to what you see. Okay? All right. The first one, I'm not that surprised, but well, actually, the first major one is low impact training. So the biggest trend right now in fitness is interval walking. Have you heard of this?

I have not heard of this. This is brand new information.

It's brand new information. I'm glad that I'm the one to tell you. Interval walking has been the number one searched fitness trend for 2026. So it used to be Pilates. Pilates is still up there because it's low impact. But walking has now... Interval walking, especially, for many reasons. Number one, it's for people. Anyone can do it. Anybody can participate. I do believe, I know that you're not going to agree with me, I believe walking is- How do you know? Because I can see you're smirking. I just smuck. I think walking is by far the number one fitness, the The number one thing you can do for overall health, wellness, mental health, focus, productivity. Walking, I think beats out everything. It's also great for insulin sensitivity. Your VO2 max, like I said, your mental health, big one. You're shaking your head. I'm not shaking my head. Also for fat loss.

I'm not shaking my head at all. Actually, funnily enough, I do agree with you.

Really? Okay. I also think the barrier to entry is so low that there's no excuse not to do it. You can just walk out of your house and start doing the thing. So that's the number one. But interval walking, there's been a lot of different forms.

How do you define that? What makes it an interval?

Okay, so interval walking is basically walking at different paces. So you can do a three-minute basic walk, I guess, at a moderate pace, and then you can fast walk for a minute to two minutes. So you're basically changing the speed of your walking. And you can do 20 minutes 30 minutes, and that's how they define it. And the other thing is it used to be... Well, there's a whole trend with the... Do you remember this? 12, the incline?

Yeah. Yeah. 12, 30.

Walking on a 12 incline at three miles for 30 minutes, which I mean, yeah, that that works. Any form of walking, in my opinion, works. You know what?

I actually tried this. I'm not someone who buys into trends in general. So whenever there's a trend, that's why I'm smirking.

I know.

But I did try that workout because one of the girls at my gym was talking about it from TikTok or whatever. And so I tried it. It was actually not easy. It actually wasn't. Trying to keep that pace and that incline for 30 minutes was challenging.

Well, I think it all depends on what your baseline is, right?

But I walk a lot. I walk an hour a day.

You walk an hour a day. So what I do is I walk whenever I'm on the phone. I walk whenever I am walking from point A to point B. I've said this before, but my non-negotiable is if there's anything that I have to do or go that is under two miles, I will walk it. I don't care if it's a business meeting, a lunch, a dinner.

I will not get into a car. That's amazing, and it's rare, too, especially for busy people like yourself. I know you, you're extremely busy. The fact that you do it means that really anyone can do it. And it's very rare that people choose to do that.

Well, this is what I think. Thank you. Well, I do it because I believe so much in giving yourself non-negotiables and parameters that you work within.

Like bulls for life.

Rules of life. I believe in giving yourself particular rules of life to keep you accountable. I agree. Or else you can just go haywire, especially for personality types like mine that left to my own devices. I would eat five bowls of pasta. I would be gluttonous in every possible way. So I gave myself, and I think people should give themselves parameters and boundaries, so to speak, to be the most effective, optimized version of themselves.

I call it hard lines. Having a hard line, which is another way of saying non-negotiable, they're just rules that you just follow and you go on autopilot and you just don't think about it anymore. This is what is It's happening. Exactly. Most people have brushing their teeth twice a day. It's just hard lines around that. You just do it. You can do the same thing with fitness easily. And if you do, you'll find it actually quite easy to stick to.

I think it's with anything in life. Absolutely. Fitness, of course. But I think giving yourself hard lines or ways to be accountable to yourself is very, very important. But I think what comes before that is having the self-awareness to know where your triggers where you will fall and then plan accordingly. Because I know myself and I know how I would basically flail or how I would get myself into a problem, that's why I have these hard lines.

I think people would learn that through the process of having those hard lines, learning themselves and where they start making excuses. If you're committed to it, then you have to make that choice. Am I going to make an excuse or am I going to to follow through on my non-negotiables.

Another one I want to say is for me, one of my hard lines or non-negotiables is that I will not take a meeting, do a podcast, or schedule something that is work-related until I exercise first. That's a non-negotiable for me.

Again, knowing how busy you are. It's very important. I don't know if people at home know this, but I know how busy you are. The fact that you do that means really anyone can do Well, not necessarily anybody.

I mean, fortunately, I'm in a situation where I can make my own schedule. I have pretty much autonomy, and I work for myself. However, with that, I also eat what I kill, right? So if I don't work, then I just don't make money, or I'm not able to do what I do. But that's why why I do it for me is twofold. Number one, it actually makes me more productive when I exercise before I work or do a podcast. Test because it turns on my brain. It's the best form of brain training. Exercise to me, is the number one best form of brain training you can give yourself. You will be more productive, more efficient, more effective, smarter. I can go on and on and on. So why I give myself that parameter is if I do not exercise before I work, I'll just be sluggish. And now I've trained myself and my brain has been now trained where It just doesn't turn on until I get that done. And I will be probably 10 times more productive if I worked out before. So I don't even give myself that option. So that's the first part.

The second reason is that makes me like, okay, it's like habit stacking. If I wake up, I eat my breakfast, I have my water, blah, blah, blah, then I work out, then I go to work, that's my stack, right? So it's, again, the habit stacking is, again, what keeps people accountable and keeps them successful.

Do you look forward to working out?

No.

Do you look forward to the feeling you get after you work out?

Yes. I never do anything based on how I feel in the moment. I do things based on how I feel after the fact.

I think that's one of the things I've noticed about fit people versus non-fit people. Almost every person I know who's fit has an unconscious shift of their attention to how they're going to feel when they leave the gym or finish their workout, rather than how they're going to feel going into the gym or starting the workout.

Well, yeah. I always say that your emotions is information. It's not factual. I think that don't ever do something based on how you feel. That's not fact, it's feelings, and that can shift and change. So I won't do that. I will do it anyways. I say these things, these four words, I do it anyways, those four words. The mantra. No matter what. If I'm sick, not totally sick, but if I have a little snuffy nose, if I'm sad, if I'm mad, if I'm low, if whatever it is, I will do it anyways.

Do you apply that to non-fitness things, too?

Yes. Well, it depends. I think what I love about it is fitness is a microcosm for everything else in life. What you do in one area of life is how you do something in every other area of life. So how you do one thing is how you do everything. But fitness has really trained my brain to really have a level of discipline and really just a self-a sense of standard, where then I apply it to everything else in life. So that's why, to me, I really deep dive into or I became super interested in the business and area of fitness because I think it's so much more than just lifting a weight and putting it down. I I think the skills and the foundation that you get from building a fitness routine and lifestyle is unsurmountable and will basically one million extra life in every other area. So that's why. How's that for an answer?

That is great.

Now, with that being said, let's go into... Okay, so walking. Walking is number one. Walking is good.

Walking is number one.

The other thing I found very interesting is recovery is the other thing that's become number two on the list in terms of top searches, like cold plunging, saunas.

Massive right now, yeah.

But I feel it's been massive for a long time. But I feel it's been massive for a long time. I don't know why now it's becoming- Probably because it's becoming an industry. But wasn't it an industry before?

I think more and more now you're getting these companies that are recovery-based companies with recovery-based products.

But they were always around, Hyperice, Therabody.

Yeah, they were early. But I'm saying you get loads now. Everyone wants a piece of that pie. And a lot of it's really good stuff. In general, I would say that recovery is something that people still, no matter how much they know that they need to prioritize it, like people who have any experience in the fitness world, it's still underappreciated by most people.

Okay, I have a question for you. In the space of recovery, what is What's your number one modality?

Sleep.

In recovery? Sleep.

Number one. Yeah.

Okay.

Good long sleep. Really? Yeah, I got it with my life. Someone was telling me today that Matthew McCartney is the same. Random.

But like- Well, if Matthew McCartney. He says it.

I mean, the guy is not only a hyper successful actor, but he's also extremely fit. So he has this really well balanced approach to life, I I think most people err on the side of one or the other. Their professional life and then their fitness life are two separate things. But a guy like him- Okay, well, let's come with this.

Great. Matthew McConahe is fit. He's always been fit. He's got great genetics. I love Matthew McConahey. He's been on the show. What about in terms of recovery, though, what do you think? You say sleep is the number one modality. What would you say is number two?

It's closely related to sleep, I think. I don't know, it's 1. 5. I can go as a more separate, but just relaxation/napping, specifically, I think yoga Nidra. That's sleep. Yeah, but yoga Nidra is actually technically non-sleep deep rest. Basically, I think that people should not only be sleeping, but taking time in the middle of their day to just switch off. But it is an asterisk on sleep. It's a form of just general rest. I think that stuff is more important than... Just rest in general is more important than things like jumping in a nice bath. I think cold therapy definitely works. I use hot therapy and cold therapy, both. But I think if you're prioritizing that over things like napping or just taking time in the middle of the day, And definitely, if you're trying to ice your way to recovery without getting really good night's sleep, then I think you've got putting the cart before the horse.

Okay, I like that. I think that at the end of the day, Well, the research actually says that people are trying to work out smarter, not harder. So that's why recovery has really hockey-pucked. People want to work out less time, of course, but not even to do hit training, but just more smarter ways of working out.

That's great.

But I do think sleep, obviously.

Personally- How much do you sleep, Jen?

Not very much. Okay, I can tell. This is the Okay. First of all, I think that not that I don't... I want to sleep eight hours. I think I try to sleep... Well, not try. I try to sleep eight hours, but if I get six hours, I'm happy. I've been waking up a lot lately just because I think that when your brain doesn't shut off, that's why. But I definitely, I know I very much value sleep, obviously. I mean, but what I was going to say is besides sleep, the other recovery that I think is I think the best one is just sauna. I think it's my favorite one. I do not like a cold plunge. I think it's terrible for your hormones, for women. I think it's good for men. I don't think it's great for women. And I just don't like it. I just don't like it.

I remember when cold showers came out and everyone was doing it because of Wim Hof and stuff. And again, there is a place for it. I'm not saying it's throw the baby out in the bath. But all it did for me personally was make me not look forward to showers because I was cold showers.

Well, also, I think at the Stress of having that angst every time. To me, that to me is not appealing. And there's other things you can do. The other thing is not everything is for everybody. Know thyself. This is the issue. Everything could be just because something works for you doesn't mean it's going to be working for me. And then what we try to do is we see an influencer or someone that says, Oh, this is the best thing since slice bread, but it doesn't really work for you. And then you feel guilty or bad about yourself because you're not doing it. That's So I think going into the new year, pick one thing in that area, in that space, and try to do that. You don't have to do everything.

And the nice thing about that is you get momentum as well. If you can start with one thing rather than having ADD about it, start with one thing and just master it and get successful at it. It will give you the momentum and the confidence to then start adding other things rather than starting with four, five, six, seven different things and just not having anything stick.

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It's like two opposite things. Yeah, which is really interesting.

Well, the extremes often polarize each other and they feed each other. There are more people probably wanting to be home, especially after COVID. It still has that Some people really liked being on their own, and then some people it was torture for them.

Yeah, but I do find it interesting, like home gyms, AI, tech-assisted workouts.

Are you talking about tonals and mirrors and things like that?

I'm talking... Yeah. First of all, I'm a humongous fan of something called Amp Fitness. Have you seen this thing?

I have heard of it peripherally. You can tell me about it.

Oh my God. It will blow you away. First of all, it looks like an iPhone, but just a little bigger. It's really intuitive, but more than that, it gives you three different levels of resistant training. So you can do like, eccentric, you can do regular, you could do band, and it's super small and it's esthetically nice, but I've been using it super easy to use. And I'm not just saying that because, I'm saying it because legit, it's amazing. So companies like that, I think, are going to have a real big uptick because it's because of the fact that home gym stuff is becoming popular again. I just don't understand why. Why? I know why. I don't know why, but I'm guessing, is because everything, so much, there's been so much focus and emphasis on AI in general. Anything that has an AI element in it, right? It's very, very... People are very curious. And so like an app, it's basically it's It's helping you with your workouts. It's tracking your workouts. It's doing everything in terms of telling you when you should progress or progressing it for you. It's very intuitive. So maybe that's why.

It's easy to follow, yeah.

But you're okay. I want to ask you because, again, you're a gym owner. Are you noticing, besides, we talked about the January, have you noticed that even in the last year, people have been showing up more or less?

Showing up to the physical gym? Yeah.

If you do boxing classes.

Yeah, no. My The business is growing for sure, and it's continuing to grow. But I think what you have to do with a gym is you have to realize that you are competing with home gyms, you are competing with apps. People do want to stay home. They want to work from home, they want to work out from home. There's the convenience factor, and you just have to accept that. And then you have to focus on what you offer. And really, the biggest thing that you offer with a physical brick and mortar location is two related things. One is your own energy as the trainer, the coach, et cetera, et cetera, the gym owner, what you're bringing almost really physically to people. I do believe that there's something that we can't put our finger on, which is energy that people get, they feed off it. Two is the community, so the other members of the gym. Those two things which are related, you cannot replace with AI, you cannot replace with a home gym. I think that maybe there's some type of hybrid model where people do a few workouts from home for the sake of speed and convenience, because convenience is a A huge factor in fitness.

Nobody wants to drive 45 minutes to their gym, right? There's nothing demotivating them that.

Well, you know what I've noticed also is I'm a member of, let's say, Equinox, right? I have all access to all the gyms and blah, blah, blah. All the bells and whistles. All the locations, let's say, right?

Do you get laundry as well?

Do I get laundry? No, I don't think I do. You know what? I might. I don't even know. Because honestly, this is the thing. I have to have a lot of time to go to the gym. Does that make sense? Because I got to get to the gym. I got to walk up the stairs. I got to do all the things. And then by the time I'm there, I'm like, oh, my God, now I could start. So there is definitely that convenience factor of working out at home. So my point is, here I am spending all this money on a membership to all of these gyms, and yet I work out at home, quite honestly, 75% of the time. Because by the time I go to do all the whole thing, it's like two hours a lot of times, right? That's why I think that people are priding themselves on being so busy these days. That's like a badge of honor where they're getting more bang for their buck in their time by just working out at home. Yeah. And a lot of these things that are popular, like vibrational plates, are very popular. Yeah.

That's under, I guess, would that be a recovery thing? I think so.

I don't know what that is, to be honest.

You stand on it. I don't know what they are.

I just don't know what the point of it is, but yeah.

But that's the thing. A lot of these things are very like, again, I think what does a vibrational plate do? I should look it up.

Do you want to look it up? I'm sure it'll have all sorts of claims.

No, I mean, no, I think...

Suffice to say, I'm not.

Okay, what? I'm going to write, okay, what does a vibrational plate do? Benefits. Okay, let's see. I don't know. It says it's great for your nervous system. It works harder to maintain. It's For balance, helps with the balance. Stabilization, all those things I understand. I don't know. I guess for balance and stabilization, it's very helpful.

Yeah, maybe.

Being generous. I think it's also... No, I think it's good for your circulation, for lymphatic drainage, bone density support.

I don't know. We could get into it, but this is pretty much a perfect symbol of- Core engagement. The type of thing that we're talking about here about trends and stuff When you compare, what are these things? Like a couple grand or something. When you compare a vibrational plate to just... I bet there are almost no benefits of a vibrational plate above walking for half an hour.

Okay, here are Okay.

Lymphatic grades, I understand because of the shaking. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. You get that from walking.

Okay, it says here, who vibrational plays are best for? Vibrational plays are best for beginners who need low impact movement, people with joint pain or limited mobility, older adults focusing on Balance and Bone Health, Busy People, Adding Short Movement Snacks, says that, Recovery-Focused Athletes. Okay, and how do you use it? You use it for 5 or 10 minutes, Blah, blah, blah. Also, you can do squats and you can actually work out on the vibrational play. If you are someone who's more of an intermediate workout person.

Let me ask you this. Have you heard of those electric body suits?

Yes, of course. That's also It's so popular.

I've actually heard those are awesome.

It's very, very popular.

From people I trust. I haven't used it, but I know people, actually, a friend of mine is a trainer who uses it, and she sings the praises to heaven and back. Maybe some of this stuff works. I don't know.

This is what I think, right? I think anything is better than nothing, number one. I agree with that. I think anything is better than nothing. Secondly, I think that also a lot of these things have their place, but there's nothing. I don't care. You can give me a vibrational plate to stand on to do my stability work and my core work and my lymphatic drainage and all the other things. It's not going to take the place of lifting weights as you age. I don't care. The vibrational plate, the Pilates, whatever it is, nothing is going to be as effective. Plane and simple, there's nothing else to say about it. All of these things are very fun trends, and yeah, they can Like uptick or like, move your baseline, maybe a couple of % here and there. But like the tried and true, people don't want to hear what actually works because it's not sexy and fun. Like, no one cares. If I say to you walk 30, 45 minutes a day and like, lift heavy. People yawn because it's boring. They're like, oh, no, I'm going to go sit on a vibrational plate. I'm going to go do this hybrid with a bunch of bracelets that are weighted.

And Whatever's like, cooking fun. Okay, you can do whatever you want. You're not going to get the results, but you can do it. Or if you do that, great. It's better than doing zero. But sometimes it's like, just do what actually works. And then I wanted to... Okay, I just want to say one more thing while I'm on my high horse here. But the funny thing is, and I said this before, and I talk about this all the time, that when I wrote my first book ever was called No Jim Required. No Jim Required. And that book was before its time. It's before people thought of working out with basically body weight and blah, blah, blah. It wasn't as popular and trendy. Okay, whatever. So it was very basic. I talked about the main principles of how you can go and become go from average or not healthy to basically really becoming the most healthy, fit version of yourself without going to the gym. It was very basic, and these things actually work. No one gave a shit. The other books that were coming out at the same time were very kitschy, super trendy workouts, blah, blah, blah.

And those outsold my book because mine was like, yeah, that's like, nobody cares. It's boring. Boring to hear about doing your own body weight and push-ups or squats.

But now calisthenics are huge.

True, but it's not sexy.

You should see in Europe, places like Europe, places like Israel, calisthenics, they have these calisthenics parks everywhere in Europe, everywhere. Everyone does it.

Everyone does it. But that's the thing. I think that not everyone does it, by the way. People do it that you... You're more honed into it because that's what you do.

No, I'm talking about in Europe. I'm talking about when I go back to England.

Well, we're going to get into it. But my point is that book, I was written whatever, how many years ago, many, many. People don't care about things that are not sexy and fun. It doesn't sell.

Yeah, I'm still going to talk about it, though, because it's true.

Right. I'm going to keep on beating that dead horse because that's what I do. It's true. Okay. So anyway, thank you for coming on. Thank you. I hope we gave people some information. Lira and I always love having you on. I love being here. Good. Well, we're going to keep the fun going here. Guys, let me say this, too. Thank you for everybody who has subscribed. If you have not subscribed, I would appreciate if you do. It makes a big difference with how we track on the algorithm. If you have any particular topics, questions, and things you want me to cover, I would love to hear from you. With that being said, have a great Happy New Year. Have a good 2026, and we'll see you soon.