Fitness operators have long championed the idea of “community.” It appears in brand decks, on walls and in class descriptions, often positioned as something that enhances the member experience, a natural by-product of great programming, strong coaching or a well-designed space.
But the term ‘community,’ as it’s often used today, has become a shorthand for a space where people happen to train together. However proximity alone isn’t a motivator.
Myzone, the motivation technology brand, says social fitness is much more powerful. Rather than passive, it’s active and visible. It creates interaction, reinforces consistency, recognizes achievement and gives members a defined role in the experience rather than simply a place within it.
New data from Myzone’s report, The State of Global Exercise Behaviour 2025, suggests the distinction matters more than we think. Social fitness has the ability to build, maintain and strengthen relationships in fitness-oriented environments. It acts as a key predictor of happiness, longevity and resilience.
Myzone’s report draws on aggregated user behavior across gyms, homes, outdoor training and everyday activity to examine how people actually move, how often they return, what keeps them engaged and crucially, what sustains that behavior long term.
Effects of Active Social Fitness
Myzone’s report highlighted an abundantly positive impact on performance via social connection. Myzone measures performance in the gym with Myzone Effort Points (MEPs), which are calculated and awarded as heart rate increases. The brand found that those with more than 10 friend connections in its app generate 47% more MEPs than those with fewer.
Rather than access, ability or programming, Myzone attributes this uplift to connection itself and the interactions it breeds. There’s a big difference between that and a passive community where members merely recognize each other, attend the same sessions and share the same space. Those factors don’t necessarily influence behavior.
From a behavioral science perspective, this aligns closely with one of the most powerful drivers of sustained motivation: relatedness.
“People are more likely to repeat behaviors when they feel connected to others while doing them,” explained Dr. Heather McKee, Myzone’s motivation science advisor. “That connection adds meaning, reinforces effort and creates a sense of accountability that is difficult to replicate through programming alone. When effort is seen and acknowledged, the reward becomes immediate, making the behavior easier to repeat.”
This dynamic also doubles in importance when it comes to establishing consistency. Globally, Myzone users average 3.5 workouts per week. That’s widely considered the point at which exercise becomes habitual rather than occasional, and getting there often comes down to whether members have a reason to return that goes beyond their own internal motivation.
Myzone believes making friend connections, setting up team-based challenges and its other social features provides that reason — embedding feedback and recognition into the experience, where effort is noticed in real time, progress is visible and participation is shared.
Social Fitness in Action
For one Anytime Fitness franchise group with 19 clubs across Connecticut and Wisconsin, shifting the focus from measurement to motivation is resulting in a more connected membership base, higher coaching uptake and stronger retention driven by sustained behaviour change.
Rather than layering on more programming, the Anytime Fitness group embedded Myzone across every club and made member effort, measured through MEPs, a core KPI. Myzone reports that setting a goal to achieve 10 million MEPs across all clubs in one year galvanised staff and members around a shared goal of consistent movement. Effort became visible, shared and recognized, and members were no longer training in isolation but contributing to a collective goal.
Challenges became a central part of the experience, not simply as competitions, but as a way to bring members together. Some were long-term, while others responded to real-world moments. During a snowstorm, for example, Anytime Fitness launched a same-day challenge encouraging members to stay active however they could, whether at home, outdoors or in the gym. Myzone reports that participation didn’t decline, but adapted, and members remained connected to the experience regardless of location.
Myzone also reports that across the Anytime Fitness franchise, coaching penetration sits well above industry norms, reaching 15% on average. Myzone attributes that metric to the location’s focus on social fitness. In a few other locations, coaching penetration even reached 30%.
Commercial Impact
A clear relationship between engagement and retention also exists. Myzone users show a 20–25% longer length of stay compared to non-users. These outcomes match broader behavioral patterns seen in Myzone’s report as well, with nearly 60% of workouts taking place before midday, indicating that consistent exercisers tend to build movement into their routine rather than fit it around competing demands.
Myzone also claims more than 50% of activity occurs in lower intensity zones, including walking, light cardio and steady-state movement, reinforcing the idea that sustainable engagement is built on repeatable behavior rather than sporadic high-intensity effort.
While the industry has invested heavily in programming, equipment and data for years, that doesn’t solve the core challenge of maintaining engagement over time. The key question remains whether or not members will continue to show up once initial extrinsic motivation fades. Engagement is behavioural, and people repeat actions that feel rewarding, visible and socially reinforced. Community in its traditional form does not always achieve this, but social fitness does.
The term ‘community’ still has value, but it is no longer precise enough to describe what drives engagement in modern fitness. What matters is not simply being part of a group but actively playing a role within it. Operators who understand this distinction and design experiences that prioritize connection will not only build stronger communities, but more sustainable businesses.
To explore the full dataset and insights, The State of Global Exercise Behavior 2025 is available at Myzone.org/global_exercise_behaviour2025
