These Fitness & Wellness Franchising Trends Dominated 2024
Despite some negative headlines and a fraught macroeconomic environment, the fitness and wellness franchising industry is as robust as ever.
One look at your local strip mall should be enough to put to rest any ideas to the contrary, as big-box gyms, Pilates studios and wellness centers increasingly fill the spaces once occupied by now-shuttered department stores and retail giants.
Athletech News breaks down the key trends dominating the fitness and wellness franchising space, spotlighting the brands, modalities and executives poised to define the sector in the years ahead.
Pilates Is Booming
Pilates has officially hit the mainstream. Once reserved for trendy studios in coastal cities, the mind-body modality developed by Joseph Pilates in the 1920s can now be practiced in towns across the United States as brands race to open franchise locations.
The OG in the Pilates franchising space, Club Pilates, continues to dominate, with over 1,000 studios across four continents. The Xponential Fitness-owned brand has done as much for the growth of Pilates as any entity or person, but it’s now got some competition.
JetSet Pilates, a Miami-based brand, launched its franchising arm in 2022 and has already sold over 50 locations nationwide, most recently opening in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. The brand offers 50-minute classes that feature a modern, upbeat take on traditional Pilates workouts.
JetSet founder Tamara Galinksy believes the brand can open 600 locations domestically while also pursuing international expansion as the Pilates market shows no signs of slowing down.
“Pilates may seem like a crowded space, however, I see a renaissance and reinvention of reformer Pilates as a modern method that attracts so many and not just an elite few,” Galinsky has told ATN. “Reformer Pilates is still in the early stages of its growth phase within the market. Experts forecast the Pilates market to reach $277 billion by 2028, which is huge growth from 2022 when the market size was around $150 billion.”
Australia-based Studio Pilates is also beginning to spread its wings in America, with 10 franchise locations open in Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Minnesota and Tennessee. Additional Studio Pilates locations are planned for California, Idaho and Tennessee as the brand eyes more growth.
Established fitness brands are getting in on the action, too. F45 Training is so bullish on Pilates that it’s opened two new standalone boutique fitness concepts, Vaura Pilates and FS8, both of which offer a distinct take on the mind-body modality.
Wellness Franchises Emerge
Often maligned for promoting a sedentary lifestyle, America’s suburbs are quickly becoming hubs for next-gen wellness. That’s due to the emergence of wellness, recovery and longevity franchises that offer everything from GLP-1 weight-loss drugs to infrared sauna sessions to IV therapy.
Restore Hyper Wellness leads the way with over 200 locations and a presence in almost every state in America. Restore offers services including red light therapy, cryotherapy, sauna, peptides and much more. Under co-founder and CEO Steve Welch, the brand is eyeing 500 locations nationwide.
credit: Restore Hyper Wellness
Restore isn’t alone in jumping on board the wellness train. Similar concepts including Serotonin Centers, Lindora, and Next Health are planning large-scale franchise expansion in the coming years.
Serotonin Centers founder Eric Casaburi, who also founded gym chain Retro Fitness, believes there’s a massive market for wellness franchises as more and more people embrace the longevity movement made popular by podcasters like Andrew Huberman.
“I think the pandemic was an incredible eye-opener,” Casaburi told ATN. “People became enlightened to how little control they’d been given over their health and then more enlightened to how much control they actually could have over their health when they started to do their due diligence.”
The business of hot and cold is booming, too. Perspire Sauna Studio, which offers infrared sauna and red-light therapy, is expanding quickly, with over 55 open studios and 200 signed franchise agreements as the brand eyes 500 locations by 2027.
SWTHZ, a contrast therapy brand founded by franchising expert Jamie Weeks, is just starting to scale. The brand offers infrared sauna, cold plunge and vitamin C showers in fancy private rooms.
As of this summer, SWTHZ had 25 open studios with plans to open 100 additional locations over the next 12 months.
HVLP Gyms Race to Expand
For all the innovative new franchise concepts that have popped up in recent years, the gym is still the lifeblood of the fitness industry. High-value, low-price (HVLP) gyms, in particular, are dominating the market, winning over young fitness consumers with memberships starting as low as $15 per month.
Planet Fitness is still the undisputed top dog with around 2,600 gym locations. However, Crunch Fitness has emerged as a formidable number two thanks to its strong franchise economics and premium offerings like group fitness classes and Olympic lifting platforms.
Under CEO Jim Rowley, Crunch is expanding across the country at breakneck speed. Fueled by a spate of private equity investments and partnerships with sports stars like James Harden and Dak Prescott, Crunch is eyeing large-scale expansion in the southeast, southwest and midwest.
Crunch currently has more than 450 open gyms and over 2.5 million members, both of which are poised to grow significantly over the coming years. Rowley believes the franchise could one day reach 1,500 locations in the U.S., and double or triple that number when taking international expansion into account.
“Hold on to your hat for what you’re going to see in the next five years,” Rowley told ATN in late 2023.
credit: CR Fitness
The third-largest HVLP gym franchise by unit count, Retro Fitness is also eyeing massive growth. Under CEO Andrew Alfano, a former Starbucks executive, Retro has rebranded its clubs, eschewing its previous yellow-and-red aesthetic in favor of a modern look and feel that includes new turf training areas and communal gathering spots featuring premium furniture.
A testament to this new approach, Retro Fitness signed a deal with the BlackRock Impact Opportunities Fund under which the investment group committed to open a minimum of 80 franchise locations in Black and Brown neighborhoods in New York, Texas and Southern Florida.
Retro currently has around 200 locations open or in development, and Alfano believes the brand will open at least 1,000 clubs in the U.S. while also pursuing international expansion.
Boutique Brands Embrace Strength
The rise of strength training is the single most dominant fitness trend of the post-pandemic era, and boutique brands are looking to get in on the action.
Orangetheory Fitness, which made its name on heart-rased-based interval training workouts that take place primarily on the treadmill and other cardio machines, is embracing strength training in a big way. The boutique fitness brand added Strength 50, a 50-minute class featuring exercises with dumbbells, TRX suspension trainers and bodyweight movements.
Orangetheory’s strength move came in response to strong member demand.
“66% of our members (named) strength training as one of their preferred fitness formats (so) we determined it was the right moment to roll out Strength 50,” Scott Brown, Orangetheory’s vice president of fitness, told ATN following the launch.
credit: Orangetheory Fitness
Xponential-owned brands Pure Barre and YogaSix have added strength training formats of their own, bringing equipment like free weights and TRX straps into traditional barre and yoga classes.
Some boutique franchises, however, have built their entire identities around strength training, and it’s starting to pay off.
MADabolic targets “high-performers” with its barbell-free group workout classes that include kettlebells, dumbbells and medicine balls with movements led by expert coaches. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based brand now counts at least 35 open locations, with another 60-plus units in development.
A 13-year-old brand that’s seen a resurgence thanks to the rise of strength training, MADabolic could open at least 200 locations, co-founder and chief concept officer Brandon Cullen has said.
This article originally appeared in ATN’s Fitness & Wellness Franchise Outlook Report, which explores the essential questions that can help determine if a franchise aligns with your personal and professional aspirations. Download the free report.