8 workout trends you'll see in 2025, according to fitness experts

"I firmly believe there's no one size fits all when it comes to exercise," said Luke Worthington, a celebrity personal trainer based in London. "A big shift is a real move toward improving health outcomes."

He's seen an increased interest in understanding what each exercise is doing to the body and how it's helping improve long-term health, as opposed to "just working out," he said.

In 2024, ClassPass saw a 159% increase in user bookings of body scan services, in which professionals use specialized equipment to look at a client's body composition, from fat and muscle mass to bone density, the company told Business Insider.

"People want that data. People want to know exactly where they are," ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman told BI.

McKinsey's Future of Wellness survey, a January 2024 analysis of consumer wellness trends that surveyed over 5,000 people in China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, reported nearly one in five respondents in America — and one in three millennials — prefer personalized wellness services and products.

Part of this comes from the rise in biometric tracking devices that provide users with insights about their workout performance.

According to McKinsey's survey, approximately 20% of respondents in the US and the UK said they want to use biometric data in their personalized services and product recommendations.

This has also contributed to a rise in AI personal trainers that use user data to create personalized fitness plans.

"The future that we're trending toward in fitness for women is — I'm so happy to report — is weight training," Sarah Hagaman told Business Insider.

Hagaman, who has worked in the fitness industry for 20 years and trained celebrities like Cindy Crawford, said she consistently encourages clients to include a form of strength training in their routine.

"The goal is longevity and increased strength," she said.

In an end-of-year report from activity-tracking app Strava, the company reported that weight training was the fastest-growing sport type among women in 2024, with a 25% growth in user activity uploads.

Hagaman said that old fears of gaining muscle and "getting bulky" have largely phased out in the women she works with.

Activities like lifting weights or training with resistance, which target muscle building, have traditionally been marketed to men. However, Worthington said women benefit just as much from this kind of exercise.

Strength training is one of the most effective ways of improving one's health span, the period of time during which one has optimal health, Worthington said. This is especially true when taking women's health and age factors like menopause into consideration.

"There are particular points throughout life where there are more rapid changes for women than there are for men, and all of those changes can be mitigated by training with resistance," Worthington said. "There are very distinct, measurable, positive hormonal changes that happen when you do that."

"We see positive changes in testosterone and positive changes in estrogen as well. So all of those things help mitigate what you would call, broadly speaking, aging," he added.

Run clubs are the new dating apps, and more people are finding community in fitness in 2025.

ClassPass told BI that group-sports reservations rose dramatically in 2024 compared to the previous year. The company said it saw volleyball reservations increase by 250%, soccer reservations increase by 158%, and ice-skating reservations increase by nearly 700%.

The company said its data also showed more users are bringing friends to studio fitness classes, with Pilates ranking as the top category where users are likely to invite friends.

"A lot of our users go with their friends, and if they go along with their friends, they're much more likely to stick with their routine," Lanman said. "It's a communal experience. You're in there, going through a challenging experience with other individuals who are like-minded."

The number of group running clubs for Strava's users increased by 59% in 2024, according to the company's year-end report. In a survey by the company, 58% of respondents said they had made new friends through fitness groups.

"If you can't hire a trainer, get a workout buddy or a walking partner or somebody to be accountable with," Hagaman said.

The trainer said she routinely takes walks with her 75-year-old mother, putting on ankle weights to get a more effective workout.

"There's really sweet ways that you can incorporate achievable, realistic, health and fitness into your life," Hagaman said.

"This year, we're seeing a surge into a broader definition of wellness," Lanman said. "Wellness has become more than just about fitness. It's about self-care, beauty treatments, massages, recovery, mental health, eating well, and sleeping well."

Holistic services have seen a rise in interest as people learn more about implementing recovery time in their workout routines.

Recovery services range from massages to newer "biohacking" technologies like cryotherapy, a treatment in which people expose their bodies to extremely low temperatures in a bid to increase blood flow, support muscle recovery, and decrease inflammation. However, more research is needed to back up those claims.

In a 2022 McKinsey report, the firm found that 37% of respondents in a survey of over 2,000 US consumers said they wished there were more products and services focusing on sleep and mindfulness, such as those that address cognitive functioning, stress, and anxiety management.

"People are really working that kind of recovery and those types of treatment into their holistic wellness routines," Lanman said.

Pilates, which has remained one of the most popular workouts in the past few years and has been the top category on ClassPass for the past two years, isn't slowing down.

According to Lanman, users' interest in classes where they can use specialized equipment, build community, and listen to music while being led by professionals isn't likely to go away.

"It's substitutability," Lanman said. "You can do pushups at home. You can do some basic yoga poses at home," but an advanced pilates workout cannot easily be replicated at home, he said.

Classes like Solidcore, one of the most popular studios on ClassPass and which trains on a specialized machine, or tower Pilates, which saw an 83% increase in worldwide interest between July and September 2023 and July and September 2024, as reported by PureGym UK, provide users with a unique experience that makes booking a class more desirable than more replicable workout plans.

Wearable fitness devices have come a long way since Fitbit's introduction in 2007.

Today, users can opt for devices as small as an Oura ring or as big as a Zozofit suit to track their heart rate, step count, glucose, and VO2 max, and many are.

Half of McKinsey's survey respondents said they have purchased a fitness wearable at some point, and about one-third of them said they used their devices more often in 2024 than they did in 2023.

Other workout gadgets on the rise, according to Hagaman, are wearables that add an extra challenge to your workout, like weighted vests and weighted leggings.

"I think it's so cool because you're just functionally moving and doing your life but adding a challenge to it," Hagaman said.

With return to the office on the rise, workers are keeping up with the fitness routines they developed over remote- or hybrid-work structures, and companies are adapting to these changes, Lanman said.

"The lunch or cigarette break that existed 50 years ago has to some extent been replaced by a class break," Lanman said. "Society and corporate culture have become a bit more flexible on letting people kind of go and invest in their wellness and having the flexibility to do that."

Since 2020, ClassPass has seen an average year-over-year increase of 57% in corporate subscribers whose memberships are subsidized by employers.

In 2024, nearly 85% of large US employers offered wellness programs, with the market expected to reach $94.6 billion by 2026, as reported by Shortlister, an HR benefits database.

"People want to have the mobility to keep up with their children and grandchildren and carry their grandchildren and have the strength to do that," personal trainer Nicole Stuart told Business Insider. "Flexibility as we age is so important, and that's what I do mostly with most of my clients."

Stuart, whose clientele ranges from 20 to 80 years old and includes stars like Kate Hudson, recommends that her clients balance weightlifting and stretching in their routines to promote healthy aging and functional fitness.

McKinsey reported that more than 60 percent of its survey respondents considered it "very" or "extremely" important to purchase products or services that help with healthy aging and longevity.

Between 2023 and 2024, "functional fitness," an exercise approach that focuses on improving the performance of everyday activities, saw a 124% increase in worldwide Google searches, as reported by PureGym UK, being one of the top categories of workout trends on the rise.

"As you get older, you lose bone density, flexibility, and muscle mass," Stuart said. "Whether it is being able to bend over to put on your socks or being able to lift your knee up high enough to put your shoe on, more and more people are realizing they have to keep their mobility to be able to do things."