Fitness consumer statistics span two related but different populations: people using U.S. fitness facilities and U.S. adults reporting physical activity. In 2024, an estimated 77 million Americans aged 6 and older held facility memberships, while 2020–2024 federal measures show how activity varies by age, sex, education, and income.
Key Fitness Consumer Statistics
The most useful headline measures are:
- In 2024, 77 million people aged 6 and older held U.S. fitness-facility memberships.
- In 2024, nearly 96 million U.S. people aged 6 and older were fitness-facility customers under the broader customer definition.
- In 2024, 24.9% of Americans aged 6 and older held a fitness-facility membership.
- In 2024, 31.0% of Americans aged 6 and older had fitness-facility customer penetration when non-members and program users were included.
- In 2024, 43.4% of U.S. facility members used treadmills.
- In 2024, 32.1% of U.S. facility members trained with dumbbells or free weights.
- From 2021 to 2024, resistance-machine use among U.S. facility members declined from 31.4% to 26.6%.
- From 2021 to 2024, pickleball participation among U.S. facility members rose from 3.3% to 8.1%.
- In 2024, 22.6% of U.S. facility members worked with a personal trainer.
- In 2024, 32.3% of U.S. facility members took part in small-group training.
- In 2024, the average U.S. facility member completed 21 personal-training sessions.
- In 2020, 24.2% of U.S. adults aged 18 and older met both federal activity guidelines.
- In 2020, 46.3% of U.S. adults met neither the aerobic nor muscle-strengthening guideline.
- In 2022, 33.6% of U.S. adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher met both guidelines.
- In 2022, 12.2% of U.S. adults aged 25 and older with a high-school education or less met both guidelines.
- In 2020, 32.4% of men at 200% or more of the federal poverty level met both guidelines.
- In 2020, 9.9% of women below the federal poverty level met both guidelines.
- The age-adjusted Healthy People measure rose from 25.2% of adults meeting both guidelines in 2020 to 26.4% in 2024.
Contents
- Key Fitness Consumer Statistics
- U.S. Fitness Consumer Participation and Facility Membership
- Fitness Consumer Equipment and Workout-Format Data
- Gym Attendance, Coaching, and Training Engagement
- Fitness Consumer Statistics by Age, Sex, Race, and Education
- Income, Access, and the Physical-Activity Participation Gap
- Fitness Activity Outcomes and Guideline-Adherence Trends
U.S. Fitness Consumer Participation and Facility Membership
The Health & Fitness Association (HFA) describes facility consumers using both membership and broader customer measures. Its 2024 results cover the rolling 12 months and represent the full U.S. population aged 6 and older, based on a nationally representative survey of 18,000 U.S. residents.
- U.S. fitness facilities had 77 million members in 2024.
- U.S. fitness facilities served nearly 96 million total customers in 2024.
- Fitness-facility membership rose 5.6% in 2024 year over year, following a 5.8% increase in 2023.
- 24.9% of Americans aged 6 and older held a fitness-facility membership in 2024, or about one in four people in that population.
- Total fitness-facility customer penetration reached 31.0% in 2024.
- Nearly 19 million additional people used fitness facilities as non-members in 2024.
The membership and customer figures should not be added together. HFA’s broader customer definition includes aggregator, pay-as-you-go, insurance, and employer-program users, while membership is not the same as unique annual users. HFA, “How 77 Million Fitness Members Work Out”
Fitness Consumer Equipment and Workout-Format Data
HFA’s equipment figures measure reported use among U.S. facility members in 2024, not equipment ownership or workout frequency. The comparison series is useful for identifying changing format preferences, but it does not establish why participation moved.
| Equipment or format | Member participation | Period or comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Treadmills | 43.4% | 2024 |
| Dumbbells or free weights | 32.1% | 2024 |
| Resistance machines | 26.6% | 2024; 31.4% in 2021 |
| Ellipticals | 18.8% | 2024; 23.2% in 2021 |
| Yoga | 21.8% | 2024; 20.2% in 2023 |
| Pilates | 8.1% | 2024 |
| Pickleball | 8.1% | 2024; 3.3% in 2021 |
Resistance-machine use fell from 31.4% in 2021 to 26.6% in 2024, while elliptical use fell from 23.2% to 18.8%. These are endpoint comparisons from HFA’s member-use series, not causal findings.
Yoga participation rose from 20.2% to 21.8% in the HFA year-over-year comparison. Pickleball rose from 3.3% in 2021 to 8.1% in 2024, a 4.8-percentage-point derived difference; HFA also described the participation measure as more than doubled, without establishing causation. HFA, “How 77 Million Fitness Members Work Out”
Gym Attendance, Coaching, and Training Engagement
Training engagement shows how facility members use structured support as well as equipment. HFA’s measures do not specify whether coaching was paid separately or included in another offering.
- 22.6% of U.S. facility members worked with a personal trainer in 2024.
- Women’s personal-training participation increased 15.9% year over year in HFA’s 2024 comparison, and women represented 7.3 million personal-training participants in 2024.
- 32.3% of U.S. facility members took part in small-group training in 2024, a reported historic high in HFA’s series.
- Small-group training averaged 23 sessions per member in the 2024 report.
Average personal-training activity was lower than the historical comparison point: the average facility member completed 21 personal-training sessions in 2024, compared with 28 in 2019. The difference is 7 sessions per member, calculated from HFA’s reported averages; the figures do not explain the reason for the decline. HFA, “How 77 Million Fitness Members Work Out”
Fitness Consumer Statistics by Age, Sex, Race, and Education
CDC/NCHS data describe the broader civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. adult population, not fitness-facility membership. The 2020 NHIS measures rely on self-reported activity and classify adults against both aerobic and muscle-strengthening thresholds.
| Population | Met both guidelines, 2020 |
|---|---|
| Adults aged 18+ | 24.2% |
| Men aged 18+ | 28.3% |
| Women aged 18+ | 20.4% |
| Men aged 18–34 | 41.3% |
| Men aged 65+ | 15.3% |
| Women aged 18–34 | 28.7% |
| Women aged 65+ | 10.8% |
In 2020, 46.9% of adults met the aerobic guideline with or without meeting the strengthening guideline, while 31.0% met the muscle-strengthening guideline with or without meeting the aerobic guideline. By contrast, 46.3% met neither guideline, so these measures are not interchangeable with facility membership or attendance.
Education differences were also visible in the 2022 NHIS measure for adults aged 25 and older. 22.5% met both guidelines overall, compared with 12.2% among adults with a high-school education or less and 33.6% among those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. CDC, “Physical Activity Among Adults Aged 18 and Over: United States, 2020” CDC MMWR, “Percentage of Adults Aged ≥25 Years…”
Income, Access, and the Physical-Activity Participation Gap
Income-group results reinforce that activity participation is uneven across the broader adult population. The 2020 NHIS income measures are age-adjusted, use prior-year family income and family size for the federal poverty-level classification, and report the share meeting both guidelines.
| Income group | Men, 2020 | Women, 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Below 100% of federal poverty level | 16.2% | 9.9% |
| 100%–199% of federal poverty level | 20.0% | 13.6% |
| 200% or more of federal poverty level | 32.4% | 25.9% |
HFA reported a different but related access indicator: households earning over $75,000 represented just over half of U.S. fitness-facility memberships in 2024. Because that measure is household-income segmentation of memberships, it should not be treated as an individual-income participation rate or directly compared with the NHIS poverty-level estimates. CDC, “Physical Activity Among Adults Aged 18 and Over: United States, 2020” HFA, “How 77 Million Fitness Members Work Out”
Fitness Activity Outcomes and Guideline-Adherence Trends
Federal activity statistics use explicit thresholds. For adults, the aerobic guideline is 150–300 minutes of moderate activity per week, 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity, or an equivalent combination, while the muscle-strengthening guideline requires activity involving all major muscle groups on at least two days per week.
Healthy People 2030 reports an age-adjusted measure that differs from the CDC Data Brief’s separate unadjusted 2020 estimate. The Healthy People series recorded 25.2% of adults aged 18 and older meeting both guidelines in 2020 and 26.4% in 2024, against a 29.7% national target; the endpoint difference is a 1.2-percentage-point derived increase, not a causal trend.
| Measure | Result | Status or period |
|---|---|---|
| Adults meeting both guidelines | 25.2% | Healthy People age-adjusted baseline, 2020 |
| Adults meeting both guidelines | 26.4% | Healthy People age-adjusted value, 2024 |
| Adults meeting both guidelines | 29.7% | Healthy People national target |
The federal Physical Activity Guidelines, 2nd edition, summarized earlier evidence as showing that nearly 80% of adults did not meet both key guidelines and estimated that about 117 million American adults had at least one preventable chronic disease. Those are historical contextual estimates presented in the 2018 guideline document, not current 2024 participation results. Healthy People 2030, PA-05 CDC, “Physical Activity Among Adults Aged 18 and Over: United States, 2020” Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition
The central measurement distinction is scope: HFA describes facility consumers aged 6 and older over a rolling 12-month period, whereas CDC and Healthy People describe self-reported physical activity among adult populations and use guideline definitions. Reading the figures together helps separate facility-market scale from population-level activity adherence without treating either measure as a substitute for the other.