Home gym statistics in Canada show a clear shift toward training at home, especially among active fitness buyers. In Fitness Avenue’s early 2026 survey of 533 Canadian adults in its customer audience, 76% of respondents said they now exercise primarily at home.
Fitness Avenue asked respondents where they work out, how much time they spend exercising, how often they skip workouts, what they give up to make time, and how confident they feel about sticking with their routine a year from now.
The data below combines two sources. Internal Fitness Avenue survey results are labeled in-line and in section openers. External Canadian fitness industry data, including Statistics Canada, IMARC Group, and other third-party sources, is cited with direct links.
Together, the data suggest Canada’s workout habits are continuing to move into basements, garages, and condo corners. Commercial gyms still serve a dedicated audience, but among active fitness buyers, home training is now the clear default.
Key Takeaways
- 76% of Canadians exercise primarily at home. Only 9% primarily at a public gym.
- Home gym users are 2.3x more likely to never miss a workout than public gym users (19.3% vs 8.3%).
- 61% of home gym users say the weather has zero impact on whether they exercise. Only 25% of public gym users say the same.
- 39.5% of home gym users spend $0 per month on fitness. 50% of public gym users spend $51 to $100.
- 58% of Canadians cite schedule conflicts or time constraints as the top reason they skip workouts.
- 97.9% of public gym users spend 45 minutes or more per workout once travel and prep are counted.
- 79.5% of Canadians rate cleanliness as very or extremely important in their workout environment.
- 32.4% of Canadians are uncomfortable in a public gym environment.
Where Canadians Actually Work Out (Fitness Avenue Survey)
76% of the 533 Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey exercise primarily at home. Commercial gyms come in at 9%. A further 11.6% split their workouts across locations, and 1.5% train outdoors.
|
Primary workout location |
% of respondents |
|---|---|
|
Home |
76.0% |
|
Mix of locations |
11.6% |
|
Public gym |
9.0% |
|
Outdoors |
1.5% |
|
Don't exercise regularly |
1.1% |
The home gym majority here runs higher than broader Canadian fitness industry estimates, which typically put the share of Canadians who prefer to exercise at home between 70% and 77%. The Fitness Avenue sample leans toward active fitness buyers, so the number reflects the population most likely to invest in gym equipment, not the general public.
How Long a Workout Really Takes (Fitness Avenue Survey)
97.9% of public gym users spend 45 minutes or more per workout once prep and travel are included. For home gym users, that figure drops to 79.3%. The gap widens at the short end: home gym users are nearly 10 times more likely to complete a workout in under 45 minutes (20.7% vs 2.1%).
|
Total time per workout (prep + travel + session) |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|
|
Under 45 min |
20.7% |
2.1% |
|
45–60 min |
42.7% |
31.2% |
|
60–90 min |
30.1% |
50.0% |
|
90+ min |
6.4% |
16.7% |
Half of public gym users (50%) land in the 60-to-90-minute bracket once you count everything from packing a bag to walking back in the door. The same bracket covers just 30.1% of home gym users. Shorter, more frequent sessions are easier to run from home because there's no fixed logistics cost — the gym equipment is steps away, not a drive away.
Missed Workouts: How Often Canadians Skip (Fitness Avenue Survey)
Home gym users are 2.3x more likely to never miss a workout in a given 30-day window than public gym users (19.3% vs 8.3%). On the other end, 9.1% of home gym users missed 6 or more workouts in the past 30 days, compared with just 2.1% of public gym users, who tend to have stricter schedules.
|
Missed workouts (past 30 days) |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|
|
Never |
19.3% |
8.3% |
|
1–2 times |
45.9% |
60.4% |
|
3–5 times |
25.4% |
29.2% |
|
6+ times |
9.1% |
2.1% |
Across all 533 respondents, 47.7% missed 1 to 2 workouts in the past month, 25.7% missed 3 to 5, and 17.4% missed none.
Why Canadians Miss Workouts (Fitness Avenue Survey)
58.3% of Canadians cite schedule conflicts (29.6%) or time constraints (28.7%) as the single biggest reason they skip a planned workout. Fatigue is next at 18.4%. Motivation comes in at 8.1%. Everything else sits in the single digits.
|
Reason for missed workouts |
% of respondents |
|---|---|
|
Schedule conflicts |
29.6% |
|
Time constraints |
28.7% |
|
Fatigue |
18.4% |
|
Motivation |
8.1% |
|
Environment (crowds, weather) |
1.5% |
|
Illness / injury / other |
~10% combined |
One split is worth pulling out: public gym users are more than 4x as likely as home gym users to cite environmental factors (crowds, weather) as their top reason to skip (6.2% vs 0.7%). That gap is small in absolute terms but meaningful, and it leads directly into the next section.
Weather and Canadian Workout Consistency (Fitness Avenue Survey)
This is the most Canada-specific finding in the Fitness Avenue survey.
61.2% of home gym users say the weather has zero impact on whether they exercise. Only 25% of public gym users say the same. Public gym users are more than 2x as likely as home gym users to report moderate-to-major weather disruption to their routine (23% vs 9.6%).
|
Weather impact |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|
|
No impact |
61.2% |
25.0% |
|
Minor impact |
28.9% |
52.1% |
|
Moderate impact |
7.4% |
18.8% |
|
Major impact |
2.2% |
4.2% |
Open-text responses from the survey put the Canadian context plainly. When asked what caused them to skip a workout, multiple respondents wrote in answers like "had to do snow removal," "snowed in once in January," and "unforeseen circumstances, closures due to snow storm." Those responses came almost exclusively from public gym users. Home workouts simply don't carry the same weather tax — and for anyone building home gym setups in a basement or garage, weather becomes irrelevant to their physical activity routine entirely.
What Canadians Spend on Fitness Each Month (Fitness Avenue Survey)
39.5% of home gym users in the Fitness Avenue survey spend $0 per month on fitness. They already own the equipment, and the marginal cost of another workout is nothing. Public gym users land in a very different distribution: 50% spend $51 to $100 per month, mostly on gym memberships.
|
Monthly fitness spend |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|
|
$0 |
39.5% |
4.2% |
|
$1–$50 |
29.1% |
20.8% |
|
$51–$100 |
16.5% |
50.0% |
|
$101–$200 |
8.1% |
16.7% |
|
$200+ |
6.7% |
8.3% |
The home fitness equipment market sits on the other side of that spending split. According to third-party market research from IMARC Group, the Canadian fitness equipment market reached USD 378.3 million in 2025 and is forecast to reach USD 620.1 million by 2034, representing a 5.47% compound annual growth rate. IMARC cites rising obesity rates, health consciousness, and "the shift toward home fitness solutions" as market drivers. Rising disposable incomes and gym membership prices that now run $60–$120 per month are also fuelling consumer demand for home workout equipment as a long-term alternative to commercial gym memberships.
How Often Canadians Exercise per Week (Fitness Avenue Survey)
54% of Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey work out 3 to 4 times per week. 32.6% work out 5 or more times. Only 10.9% train 1 to 2 times per week, and 1.1% report not exercising at all.
|
Workouts per week |
All |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|---|
|
5+ |
32.6% |
32.3% |
25.0% |
|
3–4 |
54.0% |
54.8% |
58.3% |
|
1–2 |
10.9% |
11.1% |
14.6% |
|
0 |
1.1% |
1.0% |
0.0% |
Home gym users are slightly more likely to hit 5 or more sessions per week. Public gym users are more tightly clustered in the 3-to-4 range. That distribution fits the logistics cost of a gym visit: a third daily trip is harder when each trip is 60-plus minutes of your day.
Plan vs Complete: Weekly Follow-Through (Fitness Avenue Survey)
45.4% of Canadians complete every workout they plan each week. Another 34.5% miss just one. That leaves roughly 20% who miss two or more, or don't plan in the first place.
|
Weekly plan vs complete |
% of respondents |
|---|---|
|
Complete all planned workouts |
45.4% |
|
Miss 1 |
34.5% |
|
Miss 2–3 |
11.4% |
|
Don't plan workouts |
6.2% |
|
Miss most |
1.7% |
Canadians are, on balance, better at sticking to their own plans than conventional gym-quitter statistics suggest. The much-cited "90% of people quit within three months" figure applies to cold starts and New Year's resolutions, not to the engaged population captured in the Fitness Avenue survey.
Short Workouts (20 Minutes or Less) (Fitness Avenue Survey)
45.9% of home gym users in the Fitness Avenue survey fit at least one sub-20-minute workout into their monthly routine. Only 29.2% of public gym users do. The home advantage here is simple physics. A 15-minute session isn't viable when the round trip to the gym is 30 minutes, but it's very viable when the training equipment is 30 seconds from the couch.
|
Short workouts (20 min or less) |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|
|
Never |
54.1% |
70.8% |
|
1–3 per month |
24.9% |
12.5% |
|
1–2 per week |
12.6% |
14.6% |
|
3+ per week |
8.4% |
2.1% |
Home gym users are 4x more likely to do short workouts 3+ times per week (8.4% vs 2.1%). That matters for adherence. Short, frequent sessions are often what separates consistent exercisers from streaky ones.
Public Gym Comfort and Cleanliness (Fitness Avenue Survey)
32.4% of Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey are uncomfortable in a public gym environment. That breaks down to 16.5% "very uncomfortable" and 15.9% "somewhat uncomfortable." Only 37% report being "very" or "somewhat" comfortable. The remainder sit at neutral.
|
Public gym comfort (all respondents) |
% |
|---|---|
|
Very comfortable |
26.3% |
|
Somewhat comfortable |
10.7% |
|
Neutral |
29.6% |
|
Somewhat uncomfortable |
15.9% |
|
Very uncomfortable |
16.5% |
Cleanliness compounds the comfort issue. 79.5% of Canadians rate cleanliness as very or extremely important in their workout environment (51.2% very, 28.3% extremely). For a commercial gym shared with hundreds of members per day, that standard is structurally hard to meet. For a home gym setup, it isn't.
Fitness Goals Across Canadian Adults (Fitness Avenue Survey)
44.3% of Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey say general health is their primary fitness goal. Strength comes second at 28.7%. Athletic performance (12.6%), weight loss (7.9%), and stress or mental health (5.6%) round out the list.
|
Primary fitness goal |
All |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|---|
|
General health |
44.3% |
44.7% |
35.4% |
|
Strength |
28.7% |
30.6% |
35.4% |
|
Athletic performance |
12.6% |
10.6% |
16.7% |
|
Weight loss |
7.9% |
8.4% |
4.2% |
|
Stress / mental health |
5.6% |
5.4% |
8.3% |
Public gym users skew more toward strength and athletic performance — a pattern that aligns with access to specialized strength-training equipment not always found in home gym setups. Home gym users are slightly more likely to name weight loss. General health dominates in both groups, but leads by a bigger margin at home, where functional fitness and general conditioning are easier to maintain consistently.
What Canadians Give Up to Make Time to Exercise (Fitness Avenue Survey)
45.2% of Canadians give up relaxation or leisure time to exercise. Social time (17.1%), sleep (12.9%), family time (9%), and work (8.3%) follow. Only 6% say they don't consistently make the time.
|
What Canadians give up |
% |
|---|---|
|
Relaxation / leisure |
45.2% |
|
Social time |
17.1% |
|
Sleep |
12.9% |
|
Family time |
9.0% |
|
Work or productivity |
8.3% |
|
Don't make time consistently |
6.0% |
The ranking is telling. Exercise competes with downtime first and sleep last. Respondents in the Fitness Avenue survey treat their sleep and family time as relatively protected and trade off their leisure time to get their workouts in.
What Keeps Canadians Consistent (Fitness Avenue Survey)
55.5% of Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey say self-discipline is the single biggest thing that keeps them consistent. Schedule and routine come second at 25.5%. Trainers, fitness apps, and social accountability each land in the mid-single digits.
|
Consistency driver |
All |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Self-discipline |
55.5% |
58.5% |
43.8% |
|
Schedule / routine |
25.5% |
25.2% |
25.0% |
|
Tracking apps |
5.1% |
5.7% |
4.2% |
|
Trainer or coach |
4.9% |
3.7% |
12.5% |
|
Social accountability |
3.2% |
2.2% |
8.3% |
|
Nothing consistently works |
5.1% |
4.7% |
6.2% |
Public gym users rely on trainers roughly 3.4x more than home gym users do (12.5% vs 3.7%). They also lean more on social accountability. Home gym users report a higher baseline of self-discipline, which makes sense given the setup: nobody is waiting for you, nobody is watching, and the gym equipment won't use itself. Digital coaching tools and fitness apps are growing as consistency aids, but self-discipline still dominates both groups by a wide margin.
Long-Term Confidence in Sticking With It (Fitness Avenue Survey)
71.5% of Canadians in the Fitness Avenue survey are "very confident" they'll still be exercising regularly 12 months from now. Another 18.6% are moderately confident. Only 0.9% are "not confident."
|
Confidence 12 months out |
All |
Home |
Public gym |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Very confident |
71.5% |
72.1% |
75.0% |
|
Moderately confident |
18.6% |
18.8% |
16.7% |
|
Slightly confident |
8.1% |
7.9% |
8.3% |
|
Not confident |
0.9% |
1.2% |
0.0% |
One honest note on this data: there's no meaningful long-term-confidence gap between home gym users (72.1% very confident) and public gym users (75%). Short-term behaviour looks different between the two groups, but both populations believe they'll still be training a year from now. 68.5% of Canadians overall say they already exercise consistently year-round.
The Canadian Fitness Context (External Data)
The Fitness Avenue survey captures behaviour. Publicly available Canadian fitness industry and government data provide the wider context around it.
53.9% of Canadian adults (18+) met the 150-minute-per-week physical activity recommendation in 2021, the most recent year with published data from Statistics Canada. Youth (ages 12 to 17) came in at 45.2% for the 60-minute daily guideline. The guidelines are set by the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, published by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.
Canadian exercise equipment sales jumped 42.5% in 2020 as commercial gyms closed during the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada's retail commodity data. Over the same year, operating revenues at Canadian fitness and recreational sports centres dropped 23.1% to $3.5 billion. That one-year spike pushed an entire segment of the Canadian population into home training, and most of them stayed.
The Canadian fitness equipment market reached USD $378.3 million in 2025 and is forecast to hit USD $620.1 million by 2034, a 5.47% compound annual growth rate, per IMARC Group. Market drivers cited in the report include rising obesity rates, increased health consciousness, and the shift toward home fitness solutions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percent of Canadians have a home gym?
76% of the 533 Canadians in the Fitness Avenue 2026 survey exercise primarily at home. Broader third-party industry estimates put the share of Canadians who prefer exercising at home between 70% and 77%.
How much does a home gym cost in the Canada fitness industry?
Upfront cost varies widely based on space, goals, and how much gym equipment you buy at once. Monthly ongoing cost is the telling number: 39.5% of home gym users in the Fitness Avenue survey spend $0 per month on fitness once the equipment is in place. Many home gym owners start with a few key pieces of strength equipment — a barbell, weight plates, a rack — and add training equipment over time. For a full breakdown of upfront pricing by setup type, see the Fitness Avenue guide on how much a home gym costs in Canada.
Do home gym owners stick with exercise longer than gym members?
The short-term data in the Fitness Avenue survey says yes, with one caveat. Home gym users are 2.3x more likely to never miss a workout in a 30-day window (19.3% vs 8.3%). But long-term confidence is nearly identical: 72.1% of home users and 75% of public gym users are "very confident" they'll be exercising a year from now. Home gym setups reduce the day-to-day friction. They don't replace the underlying commitment.
How many Canadians meet physical activity guidelines?
53.9% of Canadian adults met the guideline of 150 minutes per week of physical activity in 2021, per Statistics Canada. Youth compliance came in at 45.2%. Those figures are the most recent available.
What is the biggest barrier to exercise in Canada?
Time. In the Fitness Avenue survey, 29.6% of Canadians cited schedule conflicts as their top reason for missing workouts, and another 28.7% cited time constraints. Combined, time-related reasons account for 58.3% of missed workouts, well ahead of fatigue (18.4%) and motivation (8.1%). Removing the travel time to commercial gyms is one reason home gym owners report higher consistency — when the workout equipment is already in the house, the time barrier shrinks.
Methodology
The primary data in this report is from the Fitness Avenue Canadian Fitness Habits Survey, an internal survey of 533 Canadian adults from the Fitness Avenue customer audience, fielded in early 2026. Responses were self-reported. The survey asked about primary workout location, weekly frequency, fitness goals, missed workouts and reasons, workout duration, weather impact, public gym comfort, cleanliness preferences, long-term confidence, trade-offs made for exercise, weekly plan-vs-complete behaviour, monthly fitness spend, and what keeps respondents consistent.
Primary exercise location breakdown: 76% home, 11.6% mix of locations, 9% public gym, 1.5% outdoors, 1.1% don't exercise regularly, 0.8% non-response. Percentages in sub-analyses may not sum to 100 due to rounding and non-response. No causal relationships are claimed. The survey reports correlations only.
External data cited in this report comes from Statistics Canada (Quality of Life physical activity indicator; retail commodity survey) and IMARC Group (Canada Fitness Equipment Market Report). All external sources are cited inline with direct links.
Wrapping Up
The one-line version of the Fitness Avenue survey: most Canadians now exercise at home, and those who do miss fewer workouts, spend less money, and are less at the mercy of the weather than public gym users. Both groups report similar long-term confidence and similar weekly frequency, so the home gym advantage shows up in the friction points, not the outcomes.
That pattern tracks with what the broader Canadian fitness equipment market has been signalling. Equipment sales are forecast to grow from USD $378.3 million to USD $620.1 million through 2034. Commercial gyms aren't going away, but home is now the default.
Fitness Avenue has been a Canadian home gym equipment retailer since 2007, and this survey is the clearest look yet at why so many Canadians now train from home. If you're building a home gym setup of your own, the Fitness Avenue home gym collection is a good place to start.
Sources
- https://www.statcan.gc.ca/hub-carrefour/quality-life-qualite-vie/health-sante/physical-activity-activite-physique-eng.htm
- https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/289-grand-reopening-home-gym
- https://www.imarcgroup.com/canada-fitness-equipment-market
- https://www.fitnessavenue.ca/blogs/post/fitness-industry-statistics-canada
- https://www.fitnessavenue.ca/blogs/post/how-much-does-a-home-gym-cost
- https://www.fitnessavenue.ca/blogs/post/gym-vs-home-workout
