New York
CNN
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Planning to hit the gym during rush hour? You’ll have much better luck finding an open elliptical machine than a bench press, squat rack or 30-pound dumbbells.
Strength training — also called weight training or resistance training — has surged in popularity, driven by new research on its health benefits, the growth of high-intensity gyms like CrossFit, and more women brushing off stereotypes that body building is for men only. It’s just the latest in a series of radical shifts over decades in how Americans exercise.
The pandemic led more people to take up weight training, gym owners and industry experts say. After gyms reopened in late 2020 and early 2021 from Covid-19 safety restrictions, more people rushed to lift weights and use equipment they didn’t have access to at home.
Post-pandemic, the surge in the popularity of weight training has helped the gym industry recover. The number of gym memberships in the United States increased 3.6% in 2021 from pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest data from IHRSA, a trade association for the fitness industry.
Strength training has been the most popular exercise class booked during the past two years, according to ClassPass, a subscription-based fitness app. In 2022, there was a 94% increase in strength training classes from the year prior.
“Strength training has become so much more widely embraced and accepted for all kinds of outcomes — aesthetic, weight loss, bone health and balance,” said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an associate professor of history at the New School and author of “Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession.”
At the same time, stationary cardio equipment like elliptical machines and treadmills have seen a dropoff in usage at gyms.
“There’s [fewer] minutes spent on cardio [compared] to pre-Covid,” Planet Fitness CEO Chris Rondeau said on an earnings call Thursday. Planet Fitness members are doing more weight training and functional exercises like push-ups and squats, he said.
Planet Fitness
(PLNT) is reducing the available space in some gyms for cardio and adding more room for functional training and kettlebell workouts. (Planet Fitness
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