Home, sweat home

Hi-Lefit has encouraged all of its personal trainers to make videos that offer online tutoring and answer queries from people who exercise at home through any platform, including WeChat groups.

To date, those training videos have been displayed on popular short-video sharing platforms, including Kuaishou and Douyin, known as Tik-Tok overseas.

Such training videos have been well-received by more and more people.

"We've seen a good public response and a high level of public participation," Yang says.

Those videos have gathered more than 40 million hits on Kuaishou and more than 20 million hits on Douyin, according to Yang.

Since Feb 5, Hi-Lefit has also picked 25 popular "star trainers" to offer live exercise routines on the two platforms.

"Our goal is to deliver quality broadcasts to our users."

Now, several TV stations and sports bureaus have joined Hi-Lefit's campaign, and Yang says it is likely to reach more than 100 million people, who will work out by following the online training videos.

The increasing public attention to fitness has also been reflected by the rise in search requests for the Keep app on the Chinese search engine Baidu.

Searches for the app since Jan 25 have grown by about 38 percent compared with the same period last year, Baidu's results show.

"We've seen a significant increase in user registration and exercise participation online," says Zheng Qingyang, a marketing officer with Keep.

There's also a growing focus on scientific fitness on various social medial platforms, according to Zheng.

The app now has about 200 million followers and has developed a stay-in exercise program with the General Administration of Sport.

Live broadcast training is also offered to get the public moving.

So far, Long has strictly abided by his recommended regime every day.

"All the sweating after the exercise somehow makes me feel better during my isolation at home," he says.

"Even if the club opens, my friends and I have all agreed to wait for a while, since it will be safer not to go to a crowded place and it's the responsible thing to do for the safety of both others and ourselves."