Total Fitness has released new research revealing how the expectations and motivations of health club members have changed in the five years since the sector emerged from lockdown.
The Great Reset? compares responses from 770 new Total Fitness members in 2026 with those of 750 new joiners surveyed in 2021. It found consumers are increasingly prioritising long-term health, mental wellbeing and quality of life, while wellness facilities, swimming pools, staff expertise and a sense of community are playing a greater role in the choice of club.
To explore the findings and their implications for the sector, Total Fitness CEO Sophie Lawler and chief commercial officer Kerry Curtis convened a roundtable of industry leaders, moderated by the report’s author-in-chief, Steve Leigh of Sensu Insight.
Lawler was joined by UK Active chair, Dave Stalker; Foundry CEO, Jean-Claude Vacassin; Cunard vice president of global marketing and EMEA sales, David Jones, and partner at CIL Management Consultants, Liam McGuinness. The roundtable was moderated by the report’s author-in-chief, Steve Leigh, who is managing director at Sensu Insight, with Kath Hudson reporting for HCM.
The Great Reset?
During the pandemic there was fear in the sector that members wouldn’t come back. While there was the tailwind of the government advising the nation to exercise and confirming that healthy people were more resilient when it came to dealing with the virus, the mainstream media kept rolling with the unhelpful narrative that gyms would be redundant because everyone was exercising outside and at home online.
Online workouts and apps had already been bubbling under as a trend, so it seemed a natural move for operators to take the plunge into digital fitness. It was a challenging time for operators who had to decide which direction to take and for investors.
“Looking into the fitness space it was confusing to see what the situation was and whether the winner would be physical or digital,” says McGuinness. “But the houses in the UK are not really set up to accommodate home gyms so we’ve seen certain home equipment brands peak and then trough.”
Lawler said there was a lot of peer pressure on Total Fitness to go digital: “I was confident people would return to the gym, but as resources dwindled, shareholder pressure mounted in regards to the best way forward, because of the sense that everything was going to change.”
We now know that health clubs didn’t get replaced and a boom has followed, but the report carried out in 2021 found that it wasn’t just because of COVID – more than 60 per cent of joiners didn’t even reference the pandemic. “There was simply a lot of pent up demand, especially from young people who were reaching membership age,” says Lawler. “But in some ways even the boom was unhelpful, because loads of us had maturing financing facilities to be renegotiated and it was made harder because even three years later the boom in membership was still being attributed to a post-COVID bounce.”
Consumers have changed
Coming out of lockdown, joiners were primarily concerned with rebuilding routines and confidence; now they’re more discerning and appear to be evaluating how well a health club supports their needs. As an aspiration, the six-pack has been replaced by a desire for long-term health and longevity.
A broad range of demographics are joining health clubs for a variety of reasons, including long-term health, mental wellbeing, confidence and quality of life. One size never did fit all, but that’s even less the case now.
“I think this is exactly what the industry would have asked for as an outcome,” said Stalker. “Good operators have grabbed the opportunity and said ‘we can deliver meaningful results for people’. It’s a sign of an industry that’s growing up.
“I didn’t see the post-pandemic period as a reset, I saw it as more of an acceleration. In my view members were always going to go back to gyms – people are community-driven. They’ve just gone back with more curiosity about themselves.”
Jones believes there’s been a shift from selling access to a space, to selling an investment in life, saying: “We’re now in a membership economy and the subscriptions people purchase show something about them as a person and their personal brand,” he explained.
“Increasingly gym membership is about identity and community. It’s important for people to be able to identify with the brand of the gym they belong to.”
Lawler said today’s young people are the first generation to choose gym-going as part of their identity, and that 20 years ago that concept would have been considered way outside the norm. McGuinness said the fitness racing boom has amplified this trend and that people like to portray themselves as fit on social media.
Switching gyms is a trend
The Great Reset? says many new members are arriving with an existing relationship with fitness, as well as clear motivations and expectations and an understanding of the role fitness can play in their lives – a key difference when compared to the class of 2021.
“We’re seeing a lot more ‘switchers’,” says Lawler. “There used to be more novices in our joiner mix, but recent data shows there are fewer first-timers among our new members.”
Many of the new joiners, especially the older ones, are attracted by swimming pools and other wellness facilities. Atmosphere, staff and overall experience also have an impact on decision making.
Lawler says pool usage is strong and she believes watching athletic swimmers from the vantage point of the sauna is encouraging people to get into the pool. She also says memberships are easier to sell now: “We’re finding that people have made the decision to join before they come to us, so there’s far less ‘selling’ than there used to be.
“New joiners are coming through more quickly, because they’ve already made changes to their wellbeing habits and they’ve built up the self-assurance to come into the gym. The normalisation of exercise means people are more confident to join and the decision-making process is quicker. The attrition rate has been ticking down for a long time and more engaged cohorts are coming more often.”
McGuinness says supply will need to catch up: “The industry needs more investment and more gyms – there have been around 7,000 gyms in the UK for a long time, penetration rates are rising, there are gaps in provision, especially in smaller market towns, and an upswell of thinking about how beneficial health and fitness can be to a wider cross-section of society.”
Investors are looking for resilient businesses where they can be confident they won’t lose their money. “They’re looking for areas in which to invest that aren’t leaning too heavily into the trends, while also providing for them,” says McGuinness. “The most successful operators I’ve seen are the ones who are confidently reacting to trends, rather than pivoting away from the core operating model.”
The mid-market is back
With the research showing that wellness, recovery facilities and swimming pools are increasing in demand, Leigh asked whether the situation has evolved away from the strong pre-COVID trend of the sector being dominated by low-cost clubs.
“We had that period of extreme polarisation with the mid-market squeezed out, but it’s fascinating to see now how the broader wellbeing facilities, such as saunas and swimming pools, are becoming more important in the decision-making process,” said McGuinness. “This is at odds with what we’ve seen over the last 20 years with the prior scaling back of the generic gym facility.”
McGuinness highlighted that in the US, the high-value, low-price operators, such as EoS Fitness and Crunch Fitness, keep adding to their offering with reformer Pilates and recovery facilities, which is pushing the price point back to mid-market or even premium levels.
Leigh pointed out that The Great Reset? examined the market from a Total Fitness perspective commenting that Foundry – for example – has a very different, stripped-back model, both geographically and in size, and posed the question of whether different operators are tackling needs in different ways.
“We don’t have a pool and we don’t have contrast therapy. We do training,” he said. “What we do is throw all our resources at our team instead, so we can offer the best personal training team in the country.
“We describe ourselves as home-cooked food and people can have their dirty takeaways elsewhere!”
Leigh said this illustrates the point made in The Great Reset? that people are looking for direct connection and accountability.
People – the most valuable asset
“Members – especially women – appreciate staff presence for cleanliness, safety and comfort,” says Lawler. “We’re also finding high demand for one-to-one programming.”
“Don’t we love that staff are so important?” said Stalker. “The workforce is the most important part of the product and operators must make them feel that. If the staff are happy the club will reflect that.”
McGuinness made the point that the post-COVID shift towards employing PTs rather than contracting with self-employed PTs who paid to work out of the gym creates a better culture on the gym floor, as they represent the club rather than themselves.
Lawler said it was difficult to recruit after the pandemic, as the self-employed talent disappeared off to more stable workplaces, but Vacassin believes this situation is improving: “I’m buoyed up by the number of people coming into the sector and also by the talent. I think it’s partly down to the professionalisation of the sector and the fact there are more opportunities and avenues that are enabling people to build careers.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Stalker. “But my worry is that at the other end of the spectrum, people can do an online course and then go to work in a club without ever having set foot in one.
“When I look at some of the courses and training providers, it’s making my job harder when speaking with the medical community on behalf of the sector.”
McGuinness said AI is likely to bring more people into the industry to work, as fitness is considered a more AI-proof industry.
Vacassin said Foundry is looking to use AI to scale right back on marketing and accounting people costs, so PTs can be paid more: “We employ four or five PTs per site and pay well above the market rate to attract the best in London. We’d rather pay more and have fewer people,” he explained.
Leigh flagged that people coming to gyms to gain long-term health benefits will lead to increased levels of responsibility for the staff and a need to upskill them.
Stalker agreed that if the sector wants to save the NHS, professionalisation of staff is the way forward and that the opportunity is enormous.
Going forward
The time after the pandemic didn’t pan out as many expected – members came back and health clubs weren’t replaced, they were prioritised. Overall fitness, quality of life, mental wellbeing and longevity are now given as reasons for joining health clubs. Fitness now occupies a wider role in people’s lives and health clubs are part of a more diverse ecosystem.
Leigh summed the discussion up: “In 2021 we were asking ‘will people come back?’ In 2026 we’re asking ‘what are they coming for and how can we keep them?’”
Lawler said: “Looking back five years, the theories we had were wrong. As a sector, we didn’t look around the corner.
“That’s where I’m always trying to be as a CEO – looking around the corner at where the customer will be going next."
Find out more: The full report and an edit of the roundtable can be found here.
The Numbers
Total Fitness is a mid-market operator and its clubs serve a wide range of age groups and communities across the North of England and Wales, which means the surveys are reflective of various life stages and different regions.
Table 1: Consumer priorities
More people want to get fit and are trying more experiences
77 per cent of new members say fitness is more important to them than five years ago
87 per cent think about long-term health more than they used to
76 per cent place greater emphasis on mental wellbeing
61 per cent combine different types of fitness activity
59 per cent are trying new fitness experiences more often
45 per cent are exercising outdoors more frequently
Source: The Great Reset?
Table 2: Joiners and switchers
There are now more switchers than five years ago
11 per cent of new joiners are new to the industry (vs 22 per cent in 2021)
57 per cent of new joiners are switchers (vs 44 per cent in 2021)
Switchers are most concentrated among 25- to 44-year-olds
Switchers are less likely than new joiners to report a lifestyle shift
Returners tend to be 55+ and their relationship with gyms has often been interrupted
Returners are the group most likely to be drawn to the pool
Women account for two-thirds of newcomers
87 per cent of newcomers say fitness has become more important in their lives
Newcomers want to feel comfortable and supported
Time, cost and motivation had been the barriers to joining previously
Source: The Great Reset?
Table 3: What joiners want
Many new joiners want more than the gym
68 per cent were motivated to join because of the swimming pool
48 per cent joined for the sauna and steam facilities
51 per cent joined for hydrotherapy
Source: The Great Reset?
Table 4: Digital vs physical
Digital fitness didn’t take over
10 per cent regularly use fitness apps
21 per cent use home workouts or home fitness equipment
2 per cent participate in online fitness classes
Source: The Great Reset?
Table 5: Spending priorities
Wellness spend is protected – value is more important than price
78 per cent treat membership as essential and would cut back on spending elsewhere
73 per cent spend more on fitness and wellbeing than previously
22 per cent say it’s a luxury
Source: The Great Reset?
Table 6: Demographics
It’s not just a Gen Z story
Percentage agreeing that fitness is more important to them than it was in 2021
77 per cent of 45- to 54-year-olds
70 per cent of 55- to 64-year-olds
73 per cent over the age of 65
Source: The Great Reset?
