Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How many Americans exercise and for how long, how many fitness trainers and gyms there are and what trainers earn, how many people pay for gyms, connected fitness and workout streaming, how many track workouts with apps and wearables, what the biggest fitness channels on YouTube post (our own measurement), the rules for fitness creators who promote products, how other countries compare, and where the popular fitness numbers came from.
Shorts were 909 of the 1,694 uploads ten big fitness channels posted in the year to October 2026, and drew 74.6% of the views those uploads had when we read them. (Our count from the YouTube Data API)See details
On four follow-along workout channels, 102 of the 120 videos with a length in the title ran longer than it; the median video titled 20 minutes ran 21.1 minutes. (Our count)See details
The fitness channels' regular videos drew a median 22.4 likes per 1,000 views over the year, but 9.5 on regular videos posted since August 24, 2026, when YouTube began counting a view the moment any video starts to play. (Our calculation)See details
The U.S. had about 388,400 fitness trainer and instructor jobs in 2025, counting the self-employed; the median wage on payrolls was $47,160 in May 2025. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)See details
BLS counted 46,015 private fitness and recreational sports centers in 2025, 17.2% more than in 2019. (BLS; our calculation)See details
81 million Americans belonged to a gym, studio or other fitness facility in 2025, according to the industry's trade association. (Health & Fitness Association)See details
23.4% of Americans 15 and older exercised or played sports on an average day in 2025, and 47.2% of adults met the aerobic activity guideline in 2024. (BLS; CDC NCHS)See details
Peloton had 2.553 million paid Connected Fitness subscriptions in June 2026, and its paid app subscriptions had fallen at least 49% from June 2022. (Peloton 10-K; our calculation)See details
41% of U.S. adults used a wearable to track their health or activity in 2024. (National Cancer Institute)See details
'67% of gym memberships go unused' traces to a 2012 Statistic Brain page with no survey behind it; the study usually meant found members paying over $70 a month went 4.3 times a month, more than $17 a visit. (Statistic Brain; DellaVigna and Malmendier)See details
'80% of resolutions fail by February' comes from a 2015 opinion column with no study; in the study that measured it, 46% of resolvers were still succeeding at six months. (U.S. News; Norcross et al.)See details
What do the biggest fitness channels on YouTube post?
Mostly Shorts, which drew three-quarters of the views across the sample, though the typical channel leans on them less. We read every upload that ten active fitness channels posted in the 12 months to October 29, 2026, through the YouTube Data API on October 30, 2026: 1,694 uploads in all. The channels are the active ones among the 30 articles in Wikipedia's "Health and fitness YouTubers" category: each had to post at least 12 uploads in the year, and YouTube had to tag at least half of them with its "Physical fitness" topic. That left Chloe Ting, Anna McNulty, Yoga With Adriene, MadFit, Jesse James West, Jeff Nippard, Sam Sulek, Renaissance Periodization, Yoga with Kassandra and Amotti. Both files are public: channels.csv and videos.csv.
Shorts were 909 of the 1,694 uploads and drew 74.6% of the views those uploads had when we read them. 9 of the 10 channels posted Shorts; only Sam Sulek, who posts long gym vlogs almost daily, did not. Counting each channel once, the median channel made 42% of its uploads Shorts, and Shorts brought it 32% of its views. The median channel posted 1.6 uploads a week, from 0.6 (Jeff Nippard) to 14.7 (Renaissance Periodization).
The long videos are long. The median channel's regular (non-Short) videos ran a median 20 minutes. On the four follow-along workout channels (Chloe Ting, MadFit, Yoga With Adriene and Yoga with Kassandra), where the title promises a session length, the video usually runs past it: 102 of the 120 videos with a length in minutes in the title ran longer than that length, by a median 1.2 minutes (7%), the warm-up, intro and cool-down around the timed workout.
Stated and actual length of follow-along workout videos, four channels, Oct 2025 to Oct 2026 (our measurement)
Length in the title
Median actual length
Videos longer than stated
10 minutes
11.7 minutes
27 of 28
20 minutes
21.1 minutes
22 of 27
30 minutes
32.0 minutes
15 of 19
Fitness audiences react, though a year's average flatters them. Counting each channel once, the channels' regular videos at least a week old drew a median 22.4 likes per 1,000 views. Most of those videos went up before August 24, 2026, when YouTube began counting a view the moment any video starts to play, which adds views without adding likes. On regular videos posted since then, the same channels drew a median 9.5, still a little above the most-subscribed YouTube channels' October 2026 uploads in our YouTube engagement rate study.
Few of the channels use the tools that help a long video get found and followed. Only 58 of the 783 regular videos had a caption track uploaded by the channel; the rest rely on YouTube's automatic captions. 168 of the 783 had chapters, and 160 of those came from one channel, Renaissance Periodization. 36 of the 1,694 uploads carried YouTube's paid promotion label, from four channels; Jesse James West accounted for 24 of them.
What does YouTube say about fitness viewing?
YouTube's own numbers stop in 2020, at the lockdown peak. In January 2020 YouTube counted more than 8,000 channels in its fitness community YouTube. Their views rose 27% in 2019 YouTube and uploads 18%YouTube, and total viewership had grown more than 5x over the five years before YouTube. In the U.S., daily views and uploads from the fitness community both hit their 2020 high on March 18Think with Google.
YouTube's published home-workout figures, 2016 to 2020 (each measures something different)
Figure
What was counted
Period
Source
200%+
Rise in global average daily views of videos with "workout at home" in the title
The often quoted "200%" and "515%" are title searches: they count only videos with those exact words in the title, so they say nothing about fitness viewing as a whole. Six of the 20 biggest YouTube live streams of early 2020, by peak concurrent viewers, were Joe Wicks' "PE With Joe" workouts YouTube. Fitness also behaves differently on TV screens: in 2016 the peak day for watching YouTube fitness videos on a TV was Tuesdays, when most categories peak at weekends Think with Google.
Shorts change the arithmetic. Pilates creator Cassey Ho (Blogilates) gained more than half of her channel's lifetime views after she started posting Shorts at the start of 2022, Google says Think with Google. Shorts can run up to 3 minutes since October 15, 2024 YouTube Help, long enough for a short follow-along routine.
YouTube also limits how fitness reaches some viewers. Since November 2023 it has limited repeated recommendations to teenagers of videos that idealize specific fitness levels or body weights, while still letting teens search for and watch them YouTube. Its health features, the panels and shelves that flag videos from licensed health sources, require a channel with more than 1,500 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months or 1.5 million valid public Shorts views in the past 90 days, and only licensed doctors, nurses, psychologists, therapists and clinical social workers can apply, not trainers YouTube Help. A channel can join the expanded YouTube Partner Program, with fan funding and Shopping, at 500 subscribers plus 3 public uploads in 90 days and either 3,000 watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days YouTube Help.
How many people pay for workout video and connected fitness?
Fewer than at the 2021-2022 peak, by the companies' own filings. Peloton had 2.553 million paid Connected Fitness subscriptions (bike, tread and rower owners paying for classes) on June 30, 2026, down from 2.800 million a year earlier Peloton 10-K, and 0.503 million paid subscriptions to its app alone Peloton 10-K. Its paid app subscriptions had been 979,817 in June 2022 Peloton 10-K, so they have fallen at least 49% in four years: the 2026 count also includes Peloton's newer Strength+ and Breathwrk apps, which the 2022 count did not. Peloton counts about 5.5 million Members, people with a paid account who worked out at least once in the past year Peloton 10-K.
At its peak, Peloton reported 3,077,779 Connected Fitness subscriptions at June 30, 2023 Peloton 10-K and 2,965,677 a year before Peloton 10-K. Those older counts included paused subscriptions, so they are not directly comparable with the paid counts above. In fiscal 2022 its Members completed 540.0 million workouts Peloton 10-K and it counted 6.9 million Members under an older, looser definition Peloton 10-K.
Churn is now the measure to watch. Peloton's average net monthly churn on paid Connected Fitness subscriptions was 1.7% in fiscal 2026, up from 1.6% Peloton 10-K. Its advertising spending fell from $637.3 million in fiscal 2022 Peloton 10-K to $224.2 million in fiscal 2026 Peloton 10-K, down 65%; total sales and marketing was $400.4 million, 16.4% of revenue Peloton 10-K.
The Beachbody Company, which streams follow-along programs under the BODi name, had 0.87 million digital subscriptions at the end of 2025, down from 1.07 million Beachbody 10-K, a fall of 19%. Its subscribers watched 72.5 million streams in 2025, down from 87.4 million Beachbody 10-K, counting a stream when at least a quarter of the video plays. Its library holds over 11,000 streaming videos Beachbody 10-K, and it kept about 96.9% of digital subscribers from one month to the next Beachbody 10-K. That is the scale of video a subscription workout business has to produce and keep fresh.
How many people work out with apps, wearables and online video?
About two in five U.S. adults track their activity with a wearable, but far fewer use one daily. In the National Cancer Institute's Health Information National Trends Survey, 41% of adults had used a wearable device to track their health or activity in the past 12 months in 2024 National Cancer Institute, HINTS; the survey collected 7,278 responses between March and September 2024 NCI. Researchers at Yale who analyzed the same survey found use rose from 30.2% in 2020 to 41.1% in 2024, but daily use stayed at 18.5%Pedroso et al., and only 19.2% shared their wearable's data with a health care provider Pedroso et al..
U.S. wearable and fitness-app use, by survey
Measure
When
Share
Source
Used a wearable to track health or activity in the past year, adults
The answers differ because the questions do: ever used in a year, connected to the internet, currently worn, or owned. Rock Health, which invests in digital health companies, also found that 83% of wearable owners wear theirs five or more days a week Rock Health. Pew's 2019 figure is its latest on the question; the NTIA figure covers ages 15 and up and counts only devices connected to the internet.
Online workout video had its moment in spring 2020. With gyms closed, 18% of U.S. adults told Pew Research Center in April 2020 that they had taken an online fitness class or done an online workout video at home because of the outbreak Pew Research Center: 22% of women and 13% of men Pew.
The platforms' own data show strength training growing fastest. Garmin Connect users logged 8% more activities in 2025 than in 2024 Garmin, strength training rose 29%, its fourth straight year above 20% Garmin, and Pilates rose 46%Garmin. Strava, which says it has more than 200 million users Strava, reports that 54% of its users tracked more than one kind of activity in 2025 Strava, that women were 21% more likely than men to log weight training Strava, and that Gen Z respondents were 2x as likely as Gen X to call weight training their main sport Strava. 72% of Strava users recorded workouts in the Strava app itself Strava. The smart-ring maker Oura had about 5.0 million paid members in June 2026 and sold 3.6 million rings in the previous 12 months, according to its IPO filing Oura S-1.
Fitness professionals see the same shift. The American College of Sports Medicine's survey of more than 1,400 fitness professionals ACSM ranked wearable technology the No. 1 trend for 2027, for the tenth time ACSM, and moved mobile exercise apps up to No. 2ACSM. Programs led by influencers and fitness creators came back onto the list at No. 10ACSM. The 2026 edition drew on a survey of 2,000 clinicians, researchers and exercise professionals ACSM. These rankings record what professionals expect, not what consumers do.
How many Americans exercise, and for how long?
About one American in four exercises on a given day, and fewer than half meet the federal aerobic guideline. In the American Time Use Survey, 23.4% of people aged 15 and older took part in sports, exercise or recreation on an average day in 2025 BLS American Time Use Survey: 25.7% of men BLS and 21.1% of women BLS. Spread over everyone, that came to 0.34 hours a day, or 20 minutesBLS; people who did exercise that day spent an average 1.47 hours on it, about 88 minutes BLS. Teenagers aged 15 to 19 spent the most time, 0.75 hours a day BLS, and people aged 55 to 64 the least, 0.25 hours BLS. The survey asks about 6,100 people a year to record one day and counts only main activities.
The federal Physical Activity Guidelines ask adults for at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week HHS, plus muscle-strengthening on at least 2 days a week HHS. HHS plans a supplement on steps and strength training in 2027HHS.
Share of U.S. adults who exercise, by who asked and what they asked
Measure
Year
Share
Source
Met the aerobic guideline in leisure time, adults 18+
The spread is the point: the share depends on whether people are asked about leisure time or any activity, about a typical week or the past seven days, and on whether the figure is age adjusted. The states' telephone survey (BRFSS) found 7 states plus Puerto Rico with adult inactivity of 30% or more in combined 2017-2020 data CDC, and 14 more states plus Guam between 25% and 30% CDC.
Walking and yoga are the common forms. In 2022, 58.7% of adults walked for leisure in the past week NCHS and 16.9% had practiced yoga in the past year NCHS. Counting any of 126 sports, fitness and leisure activities, the industry's trade association found 250 million Americans aged six and older took part in at least one in 2025 SFIA, and 81.3% in the 12 months to June 2026 SFIA. SFIA's members sell sporting goods and fitness equipment.
Young people fall short too. In 2023, 25% of U.S. high school students were active for 60 minutes on all of the past seven days CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 16% met both the aerobic and strength guidelines CDC, and 27% had physical education every school day CDC. Among children aged 6 to 17, 54.6 percent played on a sports team or took sports lessons in 2022-23 HHS Healthy People 2030.
How many fitness trainers are there in the U.S., and what do they earn?
About 388,400, counting the self-employed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number of fitness trainers and instructors at 388,400 jobs in 2025 in its Employment Projections, which add self-employed workers to its employer surveys BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. Its employer survey alone, the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, counted 322,930 wage-and-salary exercise trainers and group fitness instructors in May 2025 BLS OEWS. The gap of some 65,470 jobs is mostly people working for themselves: BLS puts the self-employed at 14.8 percent of the occupation BLS Employment Projections.
Most trainers work in gyms. Fitness and recreational sports centers employed 55% of all fitness trainers and instructors in 2025, with the self-employed the next largest group BLS. Among wage earners only, fitness centers employed 210,830 trainers in May 2025 BLS OEWS, or 65% of the OEWS count.
Pay of U.S. exercise trainers and group fitness instructors, May 2025 (wage and salary jobs; BLS OEWS)
The OEWS wage figures cover employees only, so they leave out trainers who run their own business and set their own rates. BLS also cautions against comparing OEWS estimates from year to year.
California has the most trainers on payrolls, with 43,600 in May 2025 BLS OEWS, followed by New York with 20,140BLS OEWS, Illinois with 19,830BLS OEWS and Texas with 19,260BLS OEWS.
BLS expects the occupation to grow faster than the economy. It projects employment of 416,900 in 2035 BLS, growth of 7.3 percent over 2025 to 2035 BLS Employment Projections, against 3.5 percent for all occupations BLS Employment Projections, and about 68,000 openings a year, most of them to replace trainers who leave the work BLS.
How many gyms and gym members are there in the U.S.?
Government counts put the number of gyms at roughly 40,000 to 46,000, depending on the survey, and the industry's trade group puts members at 81 million. BLS's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages counted 46,015 private fitness and recreational sports center establishments on average in 2025 BLS QCEW. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 41,556 such establishments with paid employees in 2023 U.S. Census Bureau. The category, NAICS 713940, covers gyms, health clubs, yoga and Pilates studios with employees and also recreational sports centers such as ice rinks and swimming clubs, so it is wider than "gyms".
The number of fitness businesses grew faster than their payrolls. Establishments rose 17.2% from 2019, when QCEW counted 39,272BLS QCEW, to 2025. Jobs at those centers, all occupations together, rose only 2.3%, from 664,318 in 2019 BLS QCEW to 679,921 in 2025 BLS QCEW. The average center had 14.8 employees in 2025, down from about 17 in 2019: more, smaller studios. Average annual pay per job at these centers was $22,592 in 2025 BLS QCEW, low because most gym jobs are part-time front-desk, cleaning and instructor shifts.
The money is growing too. The 2022 Economic Census recorded $36,042,321 thousand (about $36.0 billion) in revenue for fitness and recreational sports centers U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey put employer firms' revenue at $43,559,523 thousand (about $43.6 billion) in 2024 U.S. Census Bureau, up 9.9 percent from 2023 U.S. Census Bureau. Sports and recreation instruction businesses, which include many independent coaching and training firms, had another $12,732,040 thousand (about $12.7 billion) in revenue in 2024 U.S. Census Bureau.
On membership, the only national count comes from the Health & Fitness Association (HFA, formerly IHRSA), the trade association of gym operators. It reports that 81 million Americans belonged to a gym, studio or other fitness facility in 2025, a record Health & Fitness Association, equal to 26.1% of the population aged six and older HFA. Counting day passes and guest visits, more than 100 million people used a facility HFA, and they made an estimated 7 billion visits HFA. HFA's release cites a tracking survey of about 18,000 people but gives no field dates. Set against BLS's trainer count, that is roughly 209 members for every fitness trainer and instructor.
The biggest listed gym and studio operators, by their own year-end 2025 counts (SEC Form 10-K filings)
Planet Fitness counts members in all its countries; Life Time's members per center counts individuals, and one membership can cover a household. Life Time's revenue was $2,995,255 thousand (about $3.0 billion) in 2025 Life Time 10-K. Xponential's system-wide sales in North America were $1,746,134 thousand (about $1.75 billion) Xponential 10-K, and its studios logged 59.2 million in-studio and live-stream visits Xponential 10-K.
The chains spend heavily on marketing through pooled funds. Planet Fitness franchisees pay about 2% of membership dues into national advertising funds Planet Fitness 10-K, rising to 3% in 2026 after a franchisee vote Planet Fitness 10-K; the funds spent $98.1 million in 2025 on national campaigns, social media and local ad materials Planet Fitness 10-K. Xponential's brand funds spent about $40.5 million Xponential 10-K. Planet Fitness also offers more than 500 workouts in its free app Planet Fitness 10-K.
What rules apply when fitness creators promote products?
In the U.S., the FTC's Endorsement Guides, last revised on July 26, 2023eCFR, 16 CFR Part 255, require a clear disclosure of any paid or material connection. When an endorsement is made in a video, through both pictures and sound, the disclosure should be made in the video's visual and audible portionsFTC, and FTC staff guidance says it belongs in the video and not just in the descriptionFTC, Disclosures 101. YouTube's paid promotion label, which only 36 of the 1,694 uploads in our sample carried, is one way to make that disclosure on screen.
Weight-loss claims draw the closest attention. The Guides' own example says a six-month before-and-after testimonial is not fixed by adding "Average weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week", because that does not tell viewers what to expect over six months FTC. On TikTok, ads for weight management products may only reach users aged 18+, and ads for fasting apps and weight-loss supplements are banned TikTok; Meta requires ads for dietary, health, weight loss or weight gain products on Facebook and Instagram to target people at least 18Meta.
FTC actions on endorsements in health and fitness marketing
When
Action
Figure
Source
March 2020
Settlement with detox-tea marketer Teami over health claims and undisclosed influencer posts: judgment
Penalties apply to companies and people who have received a Notice of Penalty Offenses. This section summarizes the rules as published in October 2026; it is not legal advice.
How active are people outside the U.S., and how many use gyms?
About a third of the world's adults do not get enough exercise. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.8 billion adults, nearly a third, fell short of 150 minutes of moderate activity a week in 2022 WHO, and projects the share will reach 35% by 2030 if the trend holds WHO, against a global target of cutting inactivity by 15% from 2010 WHO. Women were more often inactive than men, 34% against 29% WHO. The study behind the estimate puts the share at 31.3% in 2022, up from 23.4% in 2000 Strain et al., The Lancet Global Health. By region, inactivity was highest in high-income Asia Pacific, at 48%WHO.
Meeting the activity guidelines, by country (each survey defines it differently)
Country
Measure
Period
Share
Source
United States
Adults meeting the aerobic guideline in leisure time (self-reported)
Canada's figure is the only one measured by a device worn on the body rather than by asking; self-reports run higher. In England, 24.7% of adults were inactive, under 30 minutes a week Sport England, and 49.1% of children aged 5 to 16 averaged 60 minutes of activity a day Sport England. Strength training is common: 39% of Canadian adults did it on at least two days in the past week Statistics Canada, and 30.5% of Australians 15 and older did strength or toning exercise, yoga or Pilates in 2022 Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Gyms are gaining in Europe. In the European Commission's 2026 survey, 39% of EU residents aged 15 and older said they never exercise or play sport, down from 45% in 2022 European Commission, Eurobarometer, and 38% said they do several times a week European Commission. Among those who are active, 19% exercise at a gym or fitness centre European Commission, 21% are members of one European Commission, and 33% exercise at home European Commission. In England, 15.3 million adults did fitness activities such as gym sessions and classes at least twice in 28 days Sport England. Gym-based personal exercise was Ireland's most popular activity in 2025, done weekly by 1 in 5 adults Sport Ireland, and 48% of Irish adults played sport regularly Sport Ireland. In Australia, fitness/gym ranked second to recreational walking in AusPlay's 2024-25 results Australian Sports Commission.
By the European industry's own count, health and fitness clubs had 75.5 million members at the end of 2025 EuropeActive and Deloitte, 9.3% of the population EuropeActive and Deloitte, across 67,515 clubs EuropeActive and Deloitte, with revenue of EUR 39.1 billionEuropeActive and Deloitte. The UK had 12.2 million members EuropeActive and Deloitte. Across the countries in the Health & Fitness Association's global report, industry revenue grew an average 8% from 2023 to 2024 HFA. EuropeActive represents the European fitness sector, and Deloitte prepares the report with it.
What the popular fitness numbers really say
These figures recur in gym-software blogs, fitness-marketing guides and January news stories. Each was traced to the organization that first published it.
"67% of gym memberships go unused"
The earliest printing we found is Statistic Brain's gym page, captured in May 2012, which listed 67% as the "percent of people with gym memberships that never use them" and credited Club Industry Statistic Brain, 2012 capture. We found no such figure from Club Industry, and the page gave no survey. A gym-software vendor's 2026 roundup still says 67% of members never use their membership, with no source WodGuru. The research the line is usually meant to summarize says something different. DellaVigna and Malmendier followed 7,752 memberships at three New England clubs from 1997 to 2001: members who paid a flat fee of over $70 a month attended an average 4.3 times a month DellaVigna and Malmendier, American Economic Review 2006, so they paid more than $17 per visit when a 10-visit pass cost $10 a visit DellaVigna and Malmendier, and forwent $600 in savings over a membership DellaVigna and Malmendier. In their first six months, 80 percent of monthly members would have saved money paying per visit DellaVigna and Malmendier, and members paid an average $187 for months with no visits before they cancelled DellaVigna and Malmendier. Older articles quote 4.8 visits and $700 from the 2004 working-paper draft, which the published article revised NBER working paper, 2004. Use instead: people under-use memberships and overpay per visit, by the published study's numbers; no study shows two-thirds never go.
"80% of New Year's resolutions fail by February"
The line comes from a December 2015 U.S. News & World Report opinion column by a psychologist, which says "some 80 percent" of resolvers are back home by the second week of February, without citing any study U.S. News, 2015 column. The studies that measured it found better odds. In Norcross and colleagues' 2002 study, 46% of resolvers were still succeeding at six months, against 4% of people who wanted to change but made no resolution Norcross et al., Journal of Clinical Psychology 2002. An earlier two-year study of 200 resolvers found 77% kept their pledge for a week and 19% for two years Norcross and Vangarelli, 1988. In a Swedish experiment with 1,066 participants, 55% of those who answered the one-year follow-up said they had kept their resolution Oscarsson et al., PLOS ONE 2020. A calendar site now credits the 80% to Strava research from 2019 National Today; Strava never published such a share.
"Only 8% of people keep their New Year's resolutions"
Statistic Brain's 2012 page listed 8% as the share "successful in achieving their resolution" and credited the University of Scranton study Statistic Brain, 2012 capture, which does not contain it. The numbers match a survey run for consultant Stephen Shapiro's book, which found 8% of Americans are "always successful" at their resolutions Stephen Shapiro: a question about every year, not about keeping one year's resolution.
"50% of new gym members quit within six months"
Fitness blogs credit this to IHRSA, the gym industry's trade group WodGuru, but we found no IHRSA publication that says it. The 50% comes from exercise-adherence research on supervised exercise programs: Rod Dishman wrote in 1986 that such programs "typically have dropout rates of 50%" Dishman, The Physician and Sportsmedicine 1986. IHRSA's own retention study of about 1.5 million North American club members found that 67.2 per cent kept their membership for at least 12 months and 44.4 per cent for at least 24 IHRSA, reported in Health Club Management. Use instead: 32.8% of members gone within a year, by IHRSA's own data, a different measure from a six-month dropout rate.
"80% of January gym joiners quit within five months"
A gym-software blog says "research suggests" it, with no source ABC Glofox. It traces to a December 2012 Harris Interactive online survey for the coupon site CouponCabin: 11 percent of U.S. adults said they had joined a gym as a New Year's resolution and quit within the year CouponCabin, and of those quitters, Eighty percent said they quit within five months CouponCabin. The 80% describes the quitters only, a group under a tenth of adults, not everyone who joins in January.
"Quitter's Day: most people give up their fitness resolutions by mid-January"
Strava's "Quitter's Day" is the day its data showed the biggest dip in logged activities against the usual level for that weekday. The first, January 12, 2018, came from 31.5 million January activities Strava, via Canadian Running; for January 17, 2019, Strava analyzed 108,286,060 U.S. activities Strava, via GearJunkie; and in 2020 it named Sunday, January 19th, 2020Strava, via endurance.biz, so the day has not always been the second Friday. Strava measured a dip in activity, never a share of people who quit.
"The virtual fitness market will be worth $X billion"
These numbers are market-research firms' forecasts for markets they define themselves, sold behind paywalls with no public method. For the same label and year, they disagree by a factor of 20.5:
Published forecasts for the "virtual fitness" market
Market Research Future's own 2026 page says the market was already USD 33.40 billion in 2025, more than six times what the same firm forecast for 2030 three years earlier. Use instead: what companies report, such as Peloton's 2.553 million paid Connected Fitness subscriptions or Beachbody's 0.87 million digital subscriptions.
"Fitness is a $96.7 billion industry"
That is IHRSA's estimate of worldwide health club revenue, US$96.7 billion, for 2019, the year before the pandemic IHRSA, 2020 Global Report release. Its successor, the Health & Fitness Association, has published growth rates since but no newer worldwide total. A related figure, the American College of Sports Medicine's line that an estimated 540 million people used fitness apps in 2025, has no survey or platform owner behind it that we could find ACSM. Use instead: a dated count with a stated source, such as the U.S. Census Bureau's $43,559,523 thousand in 2024 revenue for U.S. fitness centers.
"About one in four adults meets the exercise guidelines"
Close, but usually dated. CDC's FastStats page still gives 24.2%, a figure from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey, as the share of adults meeting both the aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines NCHS FastStats. The latest figure is 26.4% for 2024, age adjusted, and 47.2% of adults met the aerobic guideline alone.
We started from the questions people search for about fitness video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 245 figures from 48 publishers.
On October 30, 2026, each of the 212 sourced figures on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: 13 BLS wage-survey figures through the BLS data API and the rest against the publisher's page or file or a dated Internet Archive capture. Three figures from a 9.3 MB CDC report did not finish downloading in the main pass and matched in a second pass with a longer download limit the same day. 60 figures cite Internet Archive captures, because bls.gov, cdc.gov, ftc.gov, the Health & Fitness Association, Think with Google and several older pages refused automated requests or have moved. We left out what we could not read or check: SFIA's paid participation reports, Sport England's chart-only breakdowns of gym and class participation, TikTok hashtag counts, which only load in a browser, the Health & Fitness Association's full reports, and Strava's own Quitter's Day releases, which we could not find (trade press that reported them at the time is cited instead). The 33 figures marked as our calculations are listed with their formulas below; 18 of them come from our own reading of ten fitness channels through the YouTube Data API on October 30, 2026, published as channels.csv and videos.csv.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
median over channels of each channel's median regular-video length in minutes (13.65, 15.99, 17.18, 19.07, 19.37, 20.73, 22.82, 23.27, 25.61, 29.24) = 20.050
median over 9 channels of each channel's median 1000*likes/views for regular rows with published_utc >= 2026-08-24, views > 0 and age_days_when_read >= 7 = 9.49; / 7.6 (median of median_video_likes_per_1000_views over 43 channels in the engagement rate study) = 1.248
regular rows with chapters_in_description = 1 (168); of them Renaissance Periodization (160 of its 162 regular videos). Chapters = a description line starting 0:00 plus at least 3 timestamp lines
388,400 jobs in Employment Projections, including the self-employed (JOB-014) - 322,930 wage-and-salary jobs in OEWS May 2025 (JOB-001) = 65,470; the two counts use different sources and reference periods
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Our YouTube sample is small and not random. It covers the 10 active fitness channels among the 30 articles in Wikipedia's 'Health and fitness YouTubers' category, so it leans toward channels famous enough for a Wikipedia article and misses many large ones. Two well-known channels, Blogilates and Emi Wong, fell out because YouTube tags most of their recent uploads with topics other than fitness; Fitness Blender's article links no channel, and Caroline Girvan posted nothing in the year. View counts are what each upload had on October 30, 2026, so recent uploads have had less time to collect views.
Trainer counts differ by source. BLS's employer survey (OEWS) leaves out the self-employed, and its wage figures describe employees only; the Employment Projections count includes the self-employed. The Census and BLS gym counts use NAICS 713940, which also covers ice rinks, swimming clubs and other recreational sports centers.
Membership counts come from the industry. The 81 million figure is the Health & Fitness Association's, a trade association of gym operators; company counts follow each company's own definition, and Peloton changed its subscription definitions in 2024.
Activity figures are self-reports and differ with the question: leisure time or any activity, the past week or a typical one, crude or age adjusted. They cannot be compared directly.
Several sources sell into this market. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Health & Fitness Association represent the industry; Rock Health invests in digital health; Strava, Garmin, Oura, Peloton, Beachbody and the gym chains report on their own customers. Each is labeled where it appears.
No government survey measures home workout video. The newest national figure on online workout classes or videos is Pew Research Center's from April 2020.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics#DRV-011. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Fitness Video Statistics." Last verified Oct 30, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, October 30). Fitness video statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics
MLA
“Fitness Video Statistics.” Mark Studios, 30 Oct. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “Fitness Video Statistics.” Last modified October 30, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_fitness_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Fitness Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/fitness-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-10-30}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is January 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Oct 30, 2026: First published with 245 figures from 48 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Oct 30, 2026: Corrected the same day: YouTube's health features also accept 1.5 million valid public Shorts views in 90 days, and the expanded YouTube Partner Program 3 million Shorts views in 90 days, in place of the watch-hour thresholds; the page had given only the watch-hour routes.
Oct 30, 2026: Removed two change-log entries and a first-publish count that had been copied by mistake from our wedding video statistics page.
Oct 30, 2026: Clarified the same day: Peloton's paid app subscriptions have fallen at least 49% since June 2022 (the 2026 count also includes its newer Strength+ and Breathwrk apps), Xponential's system-wide sales are its North American figure, and the fitness channels' likes per view are compared with the most-subscribed channels on videos posted since August 24, 2026 (9.5 against 7.6), since most of the year's videos were counted before YouTube changed how it counts views.
Frequently asked questions
How many fitness trainers are there in the U.S.?
About 388,400 fitness trainer and instructor jobs in 2025, counting the self-employed, according to BLS Employment Projections. BLS's employer survey counted 322,930 wage-and-salary exercise trainers and group fitness instructors in May 2025, and BLS projects 416,900 jobs by 2035.
How much do personal trainers make?
The median annual wage for exercise trainers and group fitness instructors on U.S. payrolls was $47,160 in May 2025, and the mean was $52,420, according to BLS. The lowest-paid 10% earned less than $28,800 and the highest-paid 10% more than $83,100. These figures exclude self-employed trainers.
How many Americans have a gym membership?
81 million Americans belonged to a gym, studio or other fitness facility in 2025, 26.1% of people aged six and older, according to the Health & Fitness Association, the industry's trade group. Planet Fitness alone reported about 20.8 million members at the end of 2025.
What percentage of Americans exercise?
On an average day in 2025, 23.4% of Americans aged 15 and older took part in sports, exercise or recreation, according to BLS. In 2024, 47.2% of adults met the federal aerobic activity guideline in their leisure time, and 25.2% did no leisure-time physical activity at all.
How long are workout videos on YouTube?
On the ten big fitness channels we measured, the median channel's regular videos ran a median 20 minutes in the year to October 2026. Follow-along workouts usually run past the length in the title: the median video titled 20 minutes ran 21.1 minutes, and those titled 10 minutes ran 11.7.
Do fitness creators post more Shorts or long videos?
More Shorts. Shorts were 909 of the 1,694 uploads ten big fitness channels posted in the year to October 2026 and drew 74.6% of their views; 9 of the 10 channels posted Shorts. Counting each channel once, the median channel made 42% of its uploads Shorts.
Do most gym memberships go unused?
No study shows that. The earliest printing we found of the widely repeated 67% is a 2012 Statistic Brain page with no survey behind it. The study of three New England clubs usually cited found members paying over $70 a month attended 4.3 times a month, paying more than $17 a visit, and that 80 percent of monthly members would have saved by paying per visit in their first six months.
