Growing up, Britt Taylor would go to a studio every day after school. When she wasn’t dancing competitively, she was a cheerleader and participated in track and field. Now, at 20 years old and a college student, Taylor belongs to two gyms in her hometown of Boca Raton, Florida, and goes five or six times a week. Despite her busy schedule as a communications student, fitness remains one of her top priorities.
In a 2023 McKinsey survey, more than half of Gen Z respondents said that fitness is a very high priority for them, compared to 40% of all respondents who said the same.
Like Taylor, these young people aren’t just working out at home; they’re also helping to boost gym attendance: The percentage of adults who say they go to a gym rose from 27% in 2013 to 32% in 2019, according to a survey by fitness group Les Mills. Placer.ai ABC Fitness similarly suggests that more people are going to gyms than they were a few years ago, and membership at chains like Planet Fitness has exploded, with the brand adding more than 4 million new members between 2019 and the end of 2023.
“We think our country has an epidemic of obesity and poor health, but we also have people who are passionate about fitness,” Taylor said. “My generation is taking it to the next step.”
Gen Z, in particular, loves weightlifting. In a 2022 CivicScience survey, strength training was the most common workout cited by Gen Z respondents. And in a 2023 survey in the Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, strength training ranked as the second most popular fitness trend of the year. Taylor said strength training now makes up 90% of her routine. “It’s changed from my mom, who was obsessed with cardio and being skinny and lean,” Taylor said. “Now girls want big butts and big biceps.”
The desire to build muscle is one reason young people are flocking to gyms in droves. Weightlifting requires specialized equipment that’s hard to fit into small apartments. But there’s another draw: At a time when meeting people is hard, the gym is an easy way to put yourself out there and make friends. Gyms are quickly becoming Gen Z’s favorite hangout spot, but there’s just one problem with the fitness craze: Chains like Planet Fitness are counting on members not showing up: Gyms just aren’t built for Gen Z.
Much of Gen Z’s enthusiasm for exercise comes from social media, with gym influencers becoming increasingly popular. YouTube says the number of fitness videos on the platform is It has grown more than five-fold Its popularity doesn’t seem to be slowing down in 2020. Hundreds of personal trainers, amateur bodybuilders, and fitness class instructors, like Kayla Itsines (16 million followers) and Christian Guzman (1 million followers), have built loyal fanbases online by sharing their workout routines, swapping exercise tips, and showing off their tanned, toned muscles.
While fitness influencer culture is generally positive and aimed at educating people about health, it can also veer to extremes. There has also been an explosion of “grindset” influencers whose content blends the manosphere, a male-dominated online sphere, with fitness-related hustle-and-grind culture. Their mission is to self-optimize with routines that involve waking up at 4am, running 18 miles on black coffee, and listening to business podcasts at triple speed.
At the other end of the influencer spectrum, there are trainers like Whitney Simmons (4 million followers) and Simeon Panda (8 million followers), who have helped bust the myths that weightlifting is just for men, or that it only makes women fat. “When we think of the default approach to exercise, it almost always involves some kind of cardio, whether that’s walking, running, elliptical, spinning, or cycling,” fitness influencer Casey Johnston writes in her popular newsletter. She’s a beast“Now, emerging evidence suggests that these movement paradigms may soon be reversed,” they added.
Mom’s obsession with cardio and a slim, slender figure led girls to desire big butts and big biceps.
Johnston thought a low-calorie, cardio-heavy lifestyle was the right choice, but ultimately became frustrated when she wasn’t seeing the physical results she hoped for. Weightlifting helped her feel and look stronger without sacrificing her diet.
Sarah Ryan, a personal trainer at fitness app Ladder, believes the weightlifting boom is simply due to people learning that it’s good for them. “Building muscle leads to a healthier body composition,” Ryan says. “The more muscle mass you have, which is metabolically active tissue, the healthier you are.”
That’s part of what inspired Amrita Bhasin to try weightlifting. The 23-year-old first stepped foot in a gym when she moved from California to Portland, Maine, at the end of 2023. Previously, Bhasin played tennis, pickleball and field hockey. But after moving to a colder climate, she couldn’t rely on her usual outdoor exercise routine. “It didn’t make sense for me to go to the gym just to run on the treadmill,” she says. That would be boring. So, inspired and encouraged by her male friends who started strength training during the pandemic, Bhasin started trying weightlifting. “I knew it was good for bone density, but I don’t have many female friends who do weightlifting,” she says.
Maine’s winters gave her the opportunity to train, and as she watched her weight numbers go up, she was hooked: “The people who are most mobile at 80 are the ones who strength trained when they were younger,” she says.
“There has never been any education about this, especially for women,” she said, adding, “More women need to practice this.”
Taylor has also become passionate about weightlifting after giving it a try during the pandemic. When asked why she loves it, she said, “Strength training is the best bang for your buck,” and “it requires consistent commitment to see results.”
As her biceps grew and her posture improved, Taylor began documenting her workouts on private Snapchat stories for friends. “A lot of people wanted to know what I was doing and what I was eating, so I thought maybe I should show this more,” she said. Now, Taylor posts her workouts and other fitness-related content on Instagram, where she has more than 30,000 followers. She also writes about health and wellness on her blog, Biceps By Britt. “My goal is to educate girls my age that lifting heavy weights is good and eating a high-protein diet is good,” she said.
It’s not just the health perks that draw young people to gyms; they’re also one of the few places people can return regularly and meet new people. “Gyms are where friends gather, and there’s a sense of community,” says Jim Thomas, founder and president of Fitness Management USA, a management consulting firm that specializes in the fitness and health club industry.
A 2021 McKinsey survey found that 70% of fitness consumers Many people said they missed their fitness clubs as much as their friends and family during lockdown, and Les Mills’ 2023 research found that two-thirds of Gen Z said it was the social aspect they wanted most from the gym.
Gen Z’s love of the gym may encourage more gyms to rethink their business models.
“I almost never go to the gym alone anymore,” Bhasin says. “I always meet other people there or go with other people.” In Portland, where she lives, it’s hard to find places to go with friends. “You go to a coffee shop and you spend $8 and there’s a sign that says you can stay for a maximum of two hours,” she says. Restaurants in her neighborhood also close early in the winter. “My gym is open 24 hours, so I don’t feel pressured to leave.” She and her friends hang out together after training, catch up, or use the gym as a meeting point before heading off to other activities.
Many gyms are responding to this demand by redesigning their spaces to better accommodate gatherings. “Gyms are realizing that members are looking for a social aspect to their gym experience,” says Lenell Scarlett, co-owner of The Works Health Club, an independent gym with a focus on building community. “That could be running clubs, coffee and energy bar areas where people can sit and chat before class or after their workout.”
National health club chain Life Time has leaned into this model in recent years. When membership numbers dipped during the pandemic, it pivoted to a business model that prioritized lavish social amenities like co-working spaces and pickleball courts, and raised prices for members. The chain has added about 65,000 new members since 2021 and increased revenue by more than 20% in 2023.
In some ways, this is a return to roots. Fitness and socializing have long been intertwined. Country clubs, with their original amenities like tennis courts, polo fields, racetracks, and baseball diamonds, played a key role in American social life in the 20th century. And local sports leagues and clubs have long filled the void left by the decline of other kinds of social groups. The only problem is that some gyms aren’t prepared for the influx of regulars. In fact, many gyms depend on membership. do not have appear.
Planet Fitness, the most popular gym franchise in the U.S., has an average of 6,500 members per gym. But most gyms only have a capacity of around 300. In 2022, the company told CNN that 60% of its members hadn’t shown up to the gym in 30 days. But they kept paying. The low monthly fee means there’s no incentive to cancel, and those who don’t show up subsidize the costs of those who do.
But this model is reaching its limits. Ameli Desai, a fitness and lifestyle influencer in California, goes to her local gym six times a week. “Over the past three years, I’ve noticed a significant increase in gym-going, especially among young people,” Desai said. “The weight section and treadmills are always crowded, but no one is using the other machines, like the bikes,” she said.
I was waiting 30 minutes for the barbell and just wasting time.
Scarlett, co-owner of Works Health Club, said most gyms he knows are expanding their weight-training areas to meet demand. “I think gyms change their operational layout every five to 10 years depending on trends,” he said.
But even with the new layout, the low-cost, high-value gym model breaks down when too many people start coming to the gym regularly. Can you imagine what would happen if 6,500 people tried to come to one Planet Fitness location at once? Taylor became so frustrated with how crowded her previous gym was that she switched to a larger facility. “I was waiting 30 minutes for a barbell and just wasting my time,” she says.
A Health & Fitness Association report found that gyms with membership numbers above optimal capacity saw a 20% drop in member satisfaction from 2022 to 2023. “Cancelation rates for low-cost gyms can be as high as 40% per year,” said Bassem Mostafa, principal market analyst covering the gym and fitness industry and owner of Globemonitor market research firm, citing his company’s research.
Sometimes the math just doesn’t add up. That may explain why Planet Fitness is raising its prices for the first time in 30 years. This summer, the chain increased its fees from $10 to $15 per month after reporting lower-than-expected first-quarter revenue. Gen Z’s gym-going ways may encourage more gyms to rethink their business models.
For this generation, the gym isn’t just a place to lose weight; it’s a hub for improving their mental health, physical fitness and social connections. “It’s not about how you look, it’s about how you feel,” says Desai.
Now the fitness industry needs to catch up.
Eve Upton Clark Feature writer covering culture and society.
