Why more households are investing in home gyms than ever before

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Why more households are investing in home gyms than ever before

The home-fitness boom that took off during the pandemic was widely expected to fade once gyms reopened. Once people could leave the house again, the thinking went, the living room would go back to being a living room.

Four years later, however, the trend has only accelerated. RITFIT found that people are buying more home gym equipment than ever. The global home fitness equipment market reached roughly $13.5 billion in 2025 and is projected to approach $23 billion by 2034, according to Fortune Business Insights. Gyms have bounced back, too. But the home fitness trend shows no signs of going anywhere.

Part of the reason is money. Health & Fitness Association data shows average monthly gym dues in the United States rose 9% to $60 in 2023, then climbed again to $69 in 2024. Meanwhile, the median monthly fee jumped to $38 from roughly $30, where it had held for most of the prior decade. Even Planet Fitness, which had kept its basic membership at $10 since 1998, raised it to $15 in 2024, attributing the increase to rising operating costs.

None of these increases would break the bank on their own. But gym memberships have always been an easy line to cross out when budgets get tight, and after years of cost-of-living pressure, many households have done exactly that.

Cost is now the No. 1 reason Americans cancel gym memberships, cited by 41% of those who left in a YouGov survey. At current prices, a mid-range home gym setup can total less than a year's worth of membership fees for a single household. This may be why nearly one in five departing members felt they could get the results they wanted without belonging to a gym.

Yet the math has favored home fitness for decades. A squat rack and a barbell have always been cheaper over time than a monthly membership. So, if cost alone were fueling the home fitness industry, it would have happened long ago. Something else has changed.

The first clue is that people are increasingly saying they feel busy and burnt out. Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2024 shows Americans aged 35 to 44, a prime age group for gym membership, average less daily leisure time than any other adult age group. The causes are debated. Work is the obvious candidate: Globally, nearly two-thirds of employees reported increased workloads last year, an EY survey of 15,000 workers found. But researchers have also pointed to smartphones and social media as a driver of perceived time pressure and mental fatigue, which may help explain why burnout rates look remarkably similar across countries with very different working cultures.

Whatever the cause, the squeeze shows up in cancellation data. Roughly a quarter of Americans who dropped gym memberships in 2024 blamed a lack of time. In response, gyms have increasingly added 24-hour access and shorter group classes. Even so, for people who are short on time, working out at home simply makes more sense.

"When I get home from work, I just change my clothes and go right into a workout," said Christopher Kovach, 35, a home gym owner in the U.S. "I don't have to worry about traffic on the roads and not getting back home in time for the kids to get home from school."

Time and cost go a long way toward explaining the shift. Still, there's another cause that often gets overlooked: affordable home gym equipment has massively improved in recent years.

Not long ago, budget home gym equipment meant a bulky treadmill that dominated a room or a folding bench that wobbled under any real weight. That's no longer true. The quality gap between an average home setup and a commercial floor has narrowed significantly to the point where, for many households, the monthly membership fee is harder and harder to justify.

Part of that is down to innovation. The number of manufacturers competing in the compact, multi-functional segment has surged since 2020, with brands investing in modular designs and combination machines that merge Smith machines, cable crossovers and pull-down stations into single frames.

Where a home gym once required a dedicated room full of separate equipment, a single machine can now cover most of what a commercial gym floor offers. Industry analysts at Future Market Insights report that mid-range, space-efficient equipment is now among the fastest-growing categories in the industry.

That versatility has a particular appeal for families. "My whole family is able to get all their workouts in on the same machine, even when each person is at a drastically different stage of lifting," said Kovach.

None of this means the commercial gym is obsolete. For people who thrive on group classes, specialized coaching, or the social energy of a gym floor, a membership still has a lot going for it. But as more households run the numbers (and the clock), a growing share are arriving at the same conclusion: the best gym is the one they'll actually use. And for a lot of families, that turns out to be the one 30 seconds from the kitchen.

This story was produced by RITFIT and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.