A newly published analysis of more than 250,000 gym customers and roughly 33 million visits suggests that exercise habits are not built by attendance frequency alone: coaching, group participation and the way people use a fitness network may help some members maintain a routine.
Gym attendance habits are often discussed as a motivation problem. A study published September 9 in EPJ Data Science took a different approach, analyzing large-scale real-world usage data from Mars Athletic Club, Türkiye’s largest sports chain, to identify when attendance becomes fragile and which experiences are associated with longer-lasting participation.
The research used data collected during 2022 and 2023. One of the authors’ project pages reports more than 250,000 customers and approximately 33 million recorded visits. The investigators used survival analysis, behavioral clustering and propensity-score methods to examine sustained attendance and several potential supports, including group classes, personal-training sessions and visits to different club locations.
The main message is not that one intervention guarantees consistency. Effects differed across behavioral clusters, and the analysis was observational rather than a randomized trial. But personalized guidance and social dynamics repeatedly emerged as relevant to longer-term engagement.
At a Glance
- The peer-reviewed study was published September 9, 2026, in EPJ Data Science.
- The authors analyzed data from more than 250,000 customers and about 33 million gym visits from 2022–2023.
- The researchers defined sustained attendance around a six-week milestone while allowing a one-week gap without breaking a streak.
- Members were grouped into distinct behavioral patterns rather than treated as one uniform population.
- Personal training, group lessons and use of different club locations were among the interventions analyzed.
- Effects varied by member pattern, and observational causal-inference methods cannot eliminate unmeasured confounding.
Why the First Weeks Matter
The researchers built a survival-style measure around weekly attendance. A one-week absence was tolerated because half of the gaps between attendance streaks in the dataset lasted one week. Two consecutive missed weeks were treated as a break in the sustained-attendance streak.
They then tested whether conclusions changed when the milestone was moved to five, six or seven weeks and when the allowable gap was changed from zero to one or two weeks. The direction of most estimated intervention effects remained similar across those choices.
That makes the early period useful as a behavioral checkpoint rather than a magical deadline. If attendance is becoming irregular in the first several weeks, the solution may be to change the environment around the routine rather than simply demand more willpower.
approximately 33 million visits were represented in the authors’ project description, giving the analysis unusual real-world scale. Large datasets reduce random noise, but they do not turn observational behavior into a randomized experiment.
Personalized Guidance and Social Structure Stood Out
The study examined group lessons, personal-trainer sessions, visiting different club branches and variety within group-class participation. The authors concluded that personalized guidance and social dynamics were important drivers of sustained engagement, but the effects were not identical for every type of member.
That distinction is important. A person who already trains consistently may respond differently to a trainer or group class than someone whose attendance is sporadic. The researchers therefore clustered users by visit patterns and estimated intervention effects separately across behavioral groups.
Fitness Living has seen the same theme from a different angle in its local reporting. Our feature on The Weight Room in Pleasanton explored how a gym can function as a “third place”, while The New Social Architecture of Fitness examined why independent gyms increasingly design for belonging as well as training.
What the Study Does Not Prove
The analysis used propensity-score matching and sensitivity tests to make treatment and comparison groups more similar on measured characteristics. The authors reported good covariate balance and tested how strong an unmeasured bias would need to be to overturn many of their findings.
Even so, this was not randomized. People who choose personal training or group classes may differ in motivation, income, goals, injury history, schedule flexibility or social preference in ways the dataset cannot fully capture.
The data also came from one large fitness chain in Türkiye. The patterns may not transfer perfectly to boutique studios, low-cost gyms, home training, different countries or people who exercise outdoors. Several study authors were affiliated with Mars Athletic Club, although the paper reports no competing interests and no specific external research funding.
The six-week attendance milestone is an analytical choice, not a biological law of habit formation. The authors tested nearby thresholds and found generally stable directions, but the study cannot tell an individual that a habit is permanently formed after a certain number of weeks.
If a gym routine is slipping, adding accountability, social contact or a more convenient training option may be more useful than simply increasing intensity. The study supports testing the environment around the habit, not prescribing one universal solution.
What Fitness Enthusiasts Can Do With This
For someone starting or restarting a gym routine, the clearest practical lesson is to make the first several weeks easier to repeat. Put sessions on the calendar, reduce friction around travel and equipment, and decide in advance what happens when one workout is missed.
Coaching can help if uncertainty about programming or technique is the barrier. Group classes can help if social connection and a fixed appointment make attendance easier. Access to multiple locations can help if commute or schedule variability is the problem. None of those tools is automatically superior; their value depends on why the routine is breaking down.
The study also suggests that a temporary lapse does not have to become abandonment. Because the researchers deliberately allowed a one-week interruption before calling a streak broken, the model reflects a realistic idea: consistency can include occasional disruption.
The Fitness Living Takeaway
A large real-world analysis of more than 250,000 gym members and roughly 33 million visits found that sustained attendance was shaped by behavioral patterns, personalized guidance and social participation—not simply by how motivated someone felt on day one.
The findings are useful for designing better routines, but they remain observational. Personal training or group classes may support consistency for some people; the study does not prove they will cause every member to keep exercising.
Research & Sources
- EPJ Data Science: From occasional to steady — causal drivers of sustained gym attendance
- Study DOI
- Study author project page describing the dataset
- Authors’ public analysis code and aggregate materials
- Image: Jonathan Borba / Unsplash
This article summarizes peer-reviewed research for general information. It does not guarantee that any specific gym, class or coaching format will improve adherence for an individual.
