IRL Fitness Is Back, Baby

That’s not how it turned out. Today, industry statistics bear out that in-person fitness is making a comeback. People aren’t ditching their home set-ups completely, but they’re heading back to the gym for things they can’t get at home—so much so that experts think 2023 will be a breakthrough year. 

“The pandemic impacted most industries, and few were as hard hit as the wellness industry—but the pandemic did not kill in-person fitness,” Fritz Lanman, the CEO of Mindbody (which also owns ClassPass), says. “In fact, it highlighted just how much we missed those in-person experiences.”

“We've seen a lot of people coming out of [the pandemic] with a renewed commitment to their old exercise habits, but also people who are coming for the first time saying, ‘Well, I really had been under-prioritizing my health, and I now understand how important it is.’” Joey Gonzalez, CEO of Barry's

While global fitness industry revenue remains lower than it was pre-pandemic, it’s gained back more than $4 billion in losses over the last two years, according to a report from data and insights firm IBIS World. According to data collected by MindBody, 35 percent of fitness businesses were back at pre-pandemic levels as of July 2022, versus 21 percent in December of 2021. While that may not sound like a huge upturn, Lanman says it’s significant: “If you zoom in on just the last six months, you can see recovery beginning to happen.”

And Lanman believes it’s only going to grow. Traditionally, the biggest uptick in fitness class attendance is in January. But the second largest happens around back-to-school time—and the size of those two spikes tend to correlate. Lanman shares that back-to-school 2022 was the biggest swell Mindbody has seen in around five years, and so he expects New Year’s 2023 to be booming. That tracks with the IBIS World report, which predicts that the fitness industry will continue to grow by $3 billion over the next five years.

“We've seen a lot of people coming out of [the pandemic] with a renewed commitment to their old exercise habits, but also people who are coming for the first time saying, ‘Well, I really had been under-prioritizing my health, and I now understand how important it is,’” says Barry’s CEO Joey Gonzalez. 

Not all the players doing better today are the same ones that were thriving before COVID. Mindbody’s data shows that the types of classes that have weathered the pandemic best are for modalities it’s difficult to do at home, like bootcamp classes that require machines and weights, while cycling and yoga have been hit the hardest. Case in point: Bootcamp-style class F45 reports that in 2022, studio visits in the U.S. increased 15 percent (compared to the same period in 2021) to 3.3 million. And Barry’s had 140,000 in-person attendees per week globally pre-pandemic, and is now back up to 130,000 globally; domestically, it’s exceeded pre-pandemic numbers.

Pam Kufahl, the editor of trade publication Club Industry, says that the growing popularity of strength training is also driving people back to the gym. “Strength training with equipment has become really hot—especially for women,” she says. “A lot of people don’t have room in their homes for strength equipment, so they have to go to the gym.”

In particular, IBIS World found that “budget gyms” have become increasingly popular. That includes affordable options such as Planet Fitness and Crunch, both of which have memberships that cost $10 per month. In fact, Crunch never took the same hit other gyms did, which Crunch Franchise CEO Ben Midgley attributes to the affordable price-point and the gym offering its virtual classes to members for that same price during the height of the pandemic. “Our membership ramp never went down, even one month,” Midgley says. “It has grown for the last 31 months in a row.”

Many barre and Pilates studios are reporting full classes, too. Boutique chain New York Pilates says that it surpassed its 2019 numbers in June, and has since continued that momentum. Pure Barre, the largest barre chain with more than 600 locations, has seen its members actively switching from virtual classes to in-person—including some who never before participated in group exercise, says Danielle Cote, director of training operations.

What’s bringing people back may vary from studio to studio. Natalie Kuhn, co-CEO of The Class, says, “Ultimately, I think people are coming to our studios because of how good it feels to practice together,” she says. “This practice is one in which the energy of other students in the room serves to inspire and uplift everyone present, so we all leave feeling lighter, clearer, and more connected to ourselves and the world around us.” Kuhn also mentions the crystals and springs placed underneath studio floorboards that members say give them an extra boost during the workout—it’s hard to recreate that experience at home.

Even if not all workouts are as focused on communal energy as The Class, leaders across the industry attribute the sense of community as a driving factor for the return to IRL sweat sessions. Michael Stack, who owns three Advanced Fitness Solutions gyms in Michigan, points out that people are “craving connection, they're craving that in-person experience, they want to be around a like-minded community.”