Fitness facilities in the United States are getting significantly younger, according to a new report from the Health & Fitness Association (HFA), a development that comes as Gen Z continues to assert its power as the “wellness generation.”
Facilities are also skewing more male, HFA found, an interesting post-pandemic shift given the rise in women’s interest in strength training and the proliferation of social media content from female fitness influencers.
Those under 25 years of age – Gen Z and the older portion of Generation Alpha – accounted for 30.8% of all fitness facility members in the U.S. in 2024. That’s up nearly 10 percentage points from 2015, when just 22.9% of all American fitness members were younger than 25.
The results – courtesy of HFA’s recently released 2025 U.S. Health & Fitness Consumer Report – add more credence to the theory that Gen Z is the most wellness-obsessed generation in history. In a pair of recent notes, Bank of America analysts have suggested that Gen Z (and Millenials) are leading a “generational shift” in spending toward healthy habits, with fitness spending on the rise and bar/pub sales trending down.
Per HFA, the shift has been also aided by the rise of low-price gyms like Planet Fitness, Crunch, EōS and others, which have been successful in winning over large swaths of the Gen Z cohort thanks to investments in strength training equipment and wellness/recovery modalities.
“This shift has been influenced by the growth in both the number of facilities and membership levels at high-volume, low-priced (HVLP) and HVLP 2.0 clubs, which continue to resonate with younger Americans,” HFA wrote in the report.
Those between the ages of 25 to 44 (primarily Millennials) continue to make up the largest segment of the fitness market, accounting for 33.8% of all American fitness facility members in the U.S., down slightly from 36.2% in 2015. Those in the 45 to 54-year-old age range (primarily Gen X) made up 12.3% of all U.S. members in 2024, down slightly from 2015, while those aged 55 and above (Boomers and older) also fell slightly to 22.9%.
Men Keep Joining Gyms, Outpacing Women
In another noteworthy development, memberships at American gyms, clubs and studios are also trending more male in recent years.
In 2024, males made up 51.5% of all U.S. fitness facility members, which is a 1.9% increase since 2019 when men accounted for 49.6% of all memberships. In America, Males overtook females when it comes to fitness memberships in 2021, and they’ve been slowly but surely building on that lead ever since.
“This marks the widest gap between male and female membership shares in at least a decade, signaling a meaningful demographic shift in facility usage patterns,” HFA noted in the report.
While the exact reasons for this demographic shift are unknown, data collected by HFA suggests that it’s due to men joining fitness facilities at a higher rate, rather than women abandoning the gym or studio.
“Between 2015 and 2019, male and female membership grew at an equal compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8%,” the report noted. “However, while female membership maintained the same growth rate between 2019 and 2024, male membership growth accelerated to a 6.2% CAGR over the same period.”
To view the HFA’s 2025 U.S. Health & Fitness Consumer Report in full, see here.
