Covid-19 coronavirus: A landslide of Kiwis are turning on the TV to keep fit

Ish Cheyne said they have had positive feedback from members and non-members for digital classes. Photo / Getty Images

While many Kiwis are streaming another flick to Netflix and Chill to, a Kiwi gym franchise is seeing an online boom.

Nearly 400,000 people have watched Monday's Les Mills Body Balance class on TVNZ, the programme also had the highest TVNZ OnDemand reach of any show that day.

On top of this, Les Mills head of fitness Ish Cheyne said 62,000 people had also watched their Born to Move kids programme on TVNZ's site.

"It tends to be the Body Balance, Body Attack and the Grit Cardios, well anything that you don't need equipment for is really popular."

Cheyne told the Herald it was hard to quantify how many people were signing up to their Les Mills OnDemand site because they'd been so overwhelmed with people using it their international site had to turn off the recording software.

The company was forced to shut down it's New Zealand gyms when the nation introduced social distancing rules.

Les Mills is hosting fitness classes at 9am each day during the lockdown on TVNZ's One channel which are then uploaded to the TVNZ website.

The group fitness classes vary in intensity on the different days, giving viewers a taste of the workouts usually exclusive to Les Mills members.

"The awareness of having to move and exercise right now is really high, I mean you only need to open your Instagram feed and everyone is doing a workout."

Cheyne said it was really important that people were getting the right information from professionals.

"Just because you've got a six-pack and an Instagram account doesn't mean you're a fitness professional."

He said their workouts were scientifically proven and often you don't see some fitness influencers' warm-ups and cool-downs on their videos.

"You're more likely to get a great workout [with Les Mills] than just copying a random online."

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Doing some form of exercise each day should be a priority said Cheyne, but that could be anything from going for a walk, doing yoga or a bike ride.

Cheyne said people can get a great workout just using their body weight, so you don't need to have really fancy equipment to get a full body workout.

With Kiwis settling into their second week of lockdown- there's many more workouts for the fitness-inclined to sink their teeth into.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website