Gym membership demand increases as young people lack space at home

Membership numbers at Gym Group have seen a “rapid recovery” thanks to young people short of space at home.

The gym chain, which operates 190 sites, say that since February membership jumped by a third as its premises reopened. The company hopes to open a further 40 new gyms by the end of 2022, by converting old shop buildings.

More than two thirds of its members are under 34 years old. The firm believe this is largely because a lot of younger people lack the space needed for home workouts.

Chief executive Richard Darwin says: “The physical gym will always be really important for people and I think that’s coming through in our numbers”. During lockdown many people exercised at home instead while gyms temporarily closed. But according to Mr Darwin, many younger people “just don’t have the space… to be able to do home workouts”.

Gym Group operates a low-cost system, with customers not needing to have an annual contract.

By the end of June this year membership numbers reached 730,000, compared to 547,000 at the end of February, during Covid restrictions. However, in February 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic, membership numbers peaked at 891,000.

Lockdown measures in the UK meant that gyms only reopened this year on 12 April in England, and at an even later date in other regions.

Re-purposing retail space

For the six months leading up to the end of June, Gym Group report a pre-tax loss of £28.5m, while sales fell to £29.3m, a drop of 21.4%. Despite these losses, the company still looks towards expansion. It plans to repurpose empty retail spaces on the High Street, which has suffered a number of shop closures over recent times.

So far this year, Gym Group has already opened seven new sites, and plans another 40 by the end of 2022.

A lot of properties are becoming available at the moment, especially in retail parks. Mr Darwin says these are a prime location for a gym “as they have accessible parking and clear signage”.

However, senior investment analyst Dan Lane warns that Gym Group’s rollout of sites needs doing “efficiently” so it doesn’t end up “diluting overall profits just for the sake of willing itself back to normality”. The firm should not rush out to buy more properties when current ones aren’t yet up to full capacity, and not everyone is back in the office. Moving too quickly to acquire new sites “is a sign of how much the group needs footfall”. A lot of gymgoers often visited before or after work, but if they are still working from home, there is no real need to bother leaving the house.

However, as lockdown restrictions are now lifted there are signs that people are tending to exercise at home less. Rival gym chain PureGym echo the success of a rise in customers. Meanwhile, home fitness bike company Peloton report recent losses as sales slow down.

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