They’re Not Joining Your Gym for a New Year’s Resolution: They’re Joining Because Fitness Is Their Healthcare

By Lee Robinson

I played D1 football. I’ve been in gyms my entire life. And I’ve been in the fitness industry for 20 years. So when I tell you that what I’m seeing right now in terms of consumer behavior is unlike anything I’ve experienced, I need you to hear me on this. 

The generation walking through your front door right now doesn’t think about fitness the way we did. They don’t see the gym as a luxury, a New Year’s resolution, or something they’ll cancel when money gets tight. They see it as a fundamental part of who they are. And the data is backing that up in ways that should make every gym owner pay attention — especially around their gym membership management software, club management systems, and recurring billing platforms. 

📝 Check Out: Year in Review Wellness Watch Report to learn more about what’s impacting the fitness industry.

The Numbers Are Staggering  

The Health & Fitness Association projects Americans will spend $60 billion on fitness in 2026. Average monthly spending jumped 19% in a single year to $101.80. The U.S. wellness market — the broader category — is now $500 billion and growing 10% annually. The global fitness market is projected to reach $125 billion by 2030. 

But the number that really got me: when asked what they’d cut from their budget during tough economic times, only 23% of consumers said fitness. Dining out? 44% would cut that. Travel? 36%. Entertainment? 29%. Your gym membership? Last on the list. 

That’s not a preference. That’s a reclassification. Fitness has moved from the “nice-to-have” column to the “non-negotiable” column in the household budget. And it’s not going back. 

Watch our latest webinar on what’s driving the fitness industry in 2026

The Generation Driving It 

Gen Z and Millennials — ages 18 to 34 — represent 31% of all U.S. gym memberships and a full 65% of new joins. Let that sink in. Two-thirds of every new member walking through your door is under 35. 

And they’re not just signing up and ghosting. 73% of Gen Z and 72% of Millennials report actively using their memberships. They’re showing up. They’re training. And they’re training differently than any generation before them. 

Strength training has overtaken every other workout modality as the number one activity for members under 40. Strength equipment sales are up 181% from 2012 to 2022 while cardio equipment sales have actually declined. This generation doesn’t want to run on a treadmill. They want to deadlift, squat, and build muscle. The science supports them — especially with GLP-1 drugs creating a clinical mandate for resistance training to prevent muscle and bone density loss. 

They’re also the most connected generation of gym members in history. 46 million of them use smart wearables to track their workouts — nearly twice as many as Gen X and Boomers combined. 80% share their workouts on social media. 74% of Millennials describe fitness as a lifestyle, not a routine. For this generation, your gym isn’t a vendor. It’s part of their identity — and their expectations for a seamless digital experience extend to your gym POS system, mobile member app, and integrated fitness management software. 

📝 Check Out: Understanding Gen Z.

The GLP-1 Tailwind Nobody Predicted 

Two years ago, the industry narrative was that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy would kill the gym. People would take a shot and stop working out. It was the fitness apocalypse story. 

The opposite happened. 

Clinical guidelines now require strength training for patients on GLP-1 medications. Without it, patients risk losing muscle mass and bone density alongside the fat. Physicians are now prescribing gym memberships alongside prescriptions. Medicare is reimbursing doctors for physical activity assessments. HSA and FSA rules now allow $150 billion in pre-tax accounts to be used on fitness services. 

As Pete Moore likes to say: “The pill that was supposed to kill the industry is actually supporting it.” He’s right. The pharmaceutical industry just validated what gym owners have always known — exercise is medicine. 

📝 Check Out: Data-Driven Success: How Analytics Are Reshaping the Future of Fitness in 2025

The Opportunity and the Catch 

Here’s where I need operators to really listen. 

This generation is the most committed, most engaged, most frequent gym-going cohort in history. They’re driving $60 billion in spending. They’re making fitness the last thing they’d cut. They’re showing up 4-5 times a week. 

But they manage money in a way your billing system may not have been built for. They pay with digital wallets. They carry Discover cards they signed up for in college — and Capital One just acquired Discover and migrated 70 million cards to a higher-cost processing network. They use buy-now-pay-later for things previous generations put on a credit card. 

If your gym payment processing solution, recurring billing software, or club management system isn’t optimized for digital wallets, ACH, card network changes, and intelligent retry logic, you could be losing 5–10% of collectible revenue without realizing it. That’s a revenue operations problem — not a demand problem. 

So you’ve got the best demand environment the fitness industry has ever seen, powered by a generation that’s more committed than any before them. And you’ve got a collection challenge that is silently eroding 5-10% of the revenue you’re owed every single month — something modern fitness billing automation, integrated payments, and revenue cycle management for gyms are specifically designed to solve. 

The operators who figure this out are going to ride the biggest wave in the history of our industry. The ones who don’t are going to watch that wave pass them by — and wonder why their gym was full but their bank account wasn’t. 

📝 Check Out:Data-Driven Success: How Analytics Are Reshaping the Future of Fitness in 2025

Next in this series: Why private equity is pouring billions into fitness — and what that means for every gym owner with 1 to 10 locations. 

Read the first post in this series here.

Ready to transform your member acquisition strategy? ABC Ignite is the growth-driven gym management platform that streamlines your sales, automates member engagement, and provides the insights you need to optimize every strategy in your toolkit. Get a demo today.