Year in Review 2021 (And What’s in Store for 2022?)

2021 is officially over.

And it’s been another wild year.

I don’t think anyone thought the pandemic would still be going on, and with the rise of a new variant, it’s currently crushing health care systems, forcing countries to take lockdown measures again.

And as a self-employed small business owner, it’s been another tough year.

For 2021, gyms in Ontario have been shut for about 5 months.

The pandemic has been going on for nearly 2 years, roughly 20.5 months, in which gyms have been closed for 10.5 months.

That’s over 50% of the time that gyms in Ontario have been forced to shut down during the pandemic!

And that doesn’t include additional capacity limits placed on months open.

Absolutely crazy to think. And it’s no surprise that 42% of fitness businesses in Canada have closed, according to the Fitness Industry of Canada. That means over roughly 4 in 10 gyms have closed in your local area.

Talk about an industry that has been completely gutted.

While I’ve been doing my best to survive, I’m very fortunate to have pivoted to a virtual personal training service… Or else I would have been toast.

Now, with the state of the industry still in limbo and mightly struggling, it wasn’t all bad for me.

Many positive changes occurred, and through the beginning of this post, I’m going to share the top 4 changes.

1. 30 Days of Low Back Pain: A strength Coach’s Guide to Eliminating Low Back Pain – In 2021, I published my first digital product (eBook), which has been successfully sold in over 20 countries.

2. Published Researcher – It’s been years in the making, but with extra time from the shutdowns, I finally got the abstract of my research study published, “Physiological Effects of Adding a Percentage of Bodyweight During a 7 Week Stair Climbing Sprint Interval Training Program” in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.

3. Limitless Training Centre – During 2021, I had to make some tough decisions as JS Fitness was going in a different direction. I decided to move on and pursue a different direction with my personal training business. Since July I’ve been renting space out of Limitless Training Centre. So far, it’s been going great!

4. University of Windsor Women’s Basketball Head Strength & Conditioning Coach – With all the changes that occurred during 2021, I found myself back in the athletics world. The University of Windsor hired me to be the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Women’s Basketball team.

While I’d consider myself an optimist, I can say there was a lot of good in 2021, but also a lot of bad, you can say.

I’m not sure where the fitness industry is headed for 2022, but I can say everyone is exhausted and tired from this pandemic.

With all that being said, I’m now going to direct you to the most to the most popular content of the past 12 months at remisovran.com. According to my hosting statistics and YouTube Analytics, these are the pieces that received the most traffic:

Video Stats

The YouTube channel grew in 2021, but the growth was stagnant.

Here are 2021 statistics: (Note: You can find 2020 statistics in this post – 2020: Year in Review (And What’s in Store for 2021)

Total of about 13,000 hours of watch time. That’s the same as the previous year of 13,000 hours.
Total of about 180,000 video views. That’s down about 8,000 video views (188k views) of the prior year.
1250 new subscribers. That’s down about 50 (1300 subscribers) of the prior year.
27 new videos. That’s down 14 from the prior year (41 total).

In 2021, I had set three goals:

Achieve 10K subscribers
Develop Quality Content
Develop Relevant Content

I can say we fell short of 150 subscribers from achieving goal 1. And I do believe if I had been more consistent with video production in the latter half of the year, I would have accomplished this goal. As for goals 2 and 3, I would say based on the quality of content put out (invested in lights, backdrop, and a video editor) and relevancy (back pain-specific), we were able to achieve these goals.

Image Licensed from “TymonOziemblewski/canva.com”

What’s to Come in 2022?

For 2022, I’ve set 3 specific goals.

1. Focus On Growing The YouTube Channel Through Collaborations And Partnerships – While continuing to create relevant content is essential, I find the only way this YouTube Channel will explode or see a significant bump is through a collaboration. That will be a focus of mine in 2022.

2. Expand Content – In 2022, I would like to put more content focused on domains outside of back pain. I would like to share more of my knowledge in the fitness and sports realm (specific to basketball) with all of you. Expanding the content could open up the channel to potential growth.

3. Become McGill Method Certified – In 2021, I finished all the McGill courses and workshops, which means I am now eligible to take the examination. I’m hoping that by becoming McGill Certified, I can provide a better back pain service and experience to my existing clients and have access to a more extensive network of referral systems.

Those are my 3 top goals for 2022! If you have any ideas or suggestions for channel growth, feel free to comment below! I would be too happy to hear 🙂

Cheers to the end of 2021, and hopefully, we can have some more enjoyment in 2022!

Salute,

Remi

Thumbnail Image Licensed from “inga/canva.com”

Year in Review 2021 (And What’s in Store for 2022?)