Future of Fitness
Q1 2026 . Live now

The Future of Fitness Quarterly Report

TheStateofFitness

The fitness industry's public earnings, decoded. Every quarter, Eric Malzone sits down with operator Alex Alimanestianu and The Ready State's Juliet Starrett to tear down the numbers and tell you what they actually mean.

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Hosted by Eric, Juliet & Alex. Joined by 5,712+ operators, founders, and investors in fitness — and growing.

Covering the brands you already watch

WHOOPPelotonEquinoxOuraEight SleepLife Time

Guests and brands featured on the show

WHOOPPelotonEquinoxOuraEight SleepLife TimeBarry'sF45TonalStravaPlanet FitnessTechnogymCentrTRXCrunchThe Ready StateAsenseiGarminHypericeForwardVIABC FitnessWHOOPPelotonEquinoxOuraEight SleepLife TimeBarry'sF45TonalStravaPlanet FitnessTechnogymCentrTRXCrunchThe Ready StateAsenseiGarminHypericeForwardVIABC Fitness

Inside the drop

What's in the report

The teardown

Life Time, Garmin, Peloton, and the rest of the public market, broken down to the numbers that actually matter.

The audio breakdowns

Every company links straight to the moment in the episode. Hear Alex and Juliet make the call in their own words.

The so-what

Not just what happened. What it means for how you build, operate, or invest this year.

Industry Overview

The Big Picture

Five signals showed up in every report we looked at this quarter, and each one has real implications for how you build from here.

  1. 01

    The K-shaped economy has arrived in fitness

    High-income consumers are spending more, not less. Life Time raised dues and barely moved churn. Planet Fitness added over a million members. The pressure sits in the middle: mid-tier boutiques and mid-priced franchises without a clear value proposition at either end.

  2. 02

    Wearable tech is worth more than most gym chains

    Garmin's market cap is $46 billion. Life Time, one of the best-run gym businesses in the country, sits near $7 billion. The market is telling you where it thinks long-term value is being created.

  3. 03

    Fitness and healthcare are converging

    The bridge between facilities and the medical system is being built right now: GLP-1 integration, longevity programming, clinical partnerships. Not niche plays anymore. The operators who move early get a real head start.

  4. 04

    AI is becoming infrastructure

    Peloton deployed AI personalization to its entire member base this quarter. Strava is building AI into post-workout reporting. Companies treating AI as an add-on will lose to the ones building it into the core product.

  5. 05

    The IPO pipeline is worth watching

    Strava filed confidentially. Oura is being tracked closely. After years of fitness companies struggling as public entities, the next wave of listings will tell us a lot about how Wall Street values health and wellness now.

Inside the Q1 2026 report: a Peloton company teardown spread with revenue charts and key metrics

Peek inside

Not a blog post. A real report.

Every company gets the teardown treatment: revenue, margins, segment trends, and the one number that tells the story. Plus audio clips from the episode so you can hear the call in context.

  • Public-company financials decoded
  • Segment-by-segment trend analysis
  • Linked audio breakdowns from the show

Company teardowns

Three we ripped apart

Life Time Group Holdings

NYSE: LTH . Q1 2026

Life Time Group Holdings

$788.7M

Q1 Revenue

+12% YoY

$226M

Adj. EBITDA

+18% YoY

$930

Rev / Member / Qtr

+10.2% YoY

  • 837,900 memberships, up 1.4%, against 12% revenue growth. Getting more out of each member, not chasing volume.
  • Lower-revenue insurance-administered memberships down 14.9% on purpose. Quality over quantity, and it is working.
  • Net leverage down to 1.6x and a first-ever $500M buyback. Capital allocation has replaced survival mode.
  • 12 to 14 new clubs under construction, all in affluent markets. The test is whether the formula travels to new zip codes.

"In affluent areas, the last thing people cut when they are trying to save money is their gym membership, especially at this level of experience."

Juliet Starrett

Garmin Ltd.

NASDAQ: GRMN . Q1 2026

Garmin Ltd.

$46B

Market cap

vs. Life Time near $7B

+42%

Fitness segment

Market growing ~18%

-5%

Outdoor segment

The one soft spot

  • Fitness grew 42% in a market expanding near 18%. Taking share from a neglected Fitbit and a shrinking Samsung.
  • Apple Watch holds 23% of global smartwatch share. Garmin is not fighting Apple, it is winning everything else.
  • The Truemed partnership makes devices HSA/FSA eligible, moving the product into healthcare spend.
  • A screenless, no-subscription band is coming straight at Whoop, and Garmin has barely started monetizing its data.

"You can get sleep data, GPS, nutrition tracking, workout tracking, all with no subscription. At some point you are like, why am I paying for Whoop AND Oura AND this?"

Juliet Starrett

Peloton Interactive

NASDAQ: PTON . Q3 FY2026 (quarter ended March 2026)

Peloton Interactive

$663M

Revenue

+1% YoY, first growth in a year

$126M

Adj. EBITDA

+41%

2.66M

Paid subs

-7.6% YoY

  • Net income $26M, free cash flow $151M (up 59%), net debt down 70% to $173M. The turnaround is real.
  • Churn is low at 1.2% a month. People who own the bike are not leaving. New subscriber acquisition is the problem.
  • German and Spanish content dubbing just launched, an international lever that sat unused too long.
  • Commercial sales (hotels, universities, corporate) are a credible path. TechnoGym does roughly $1B a year there.

"They have done a good job righting the ship and plugging holes. Now they have to figure out growth, and that is the harder problem."

Eric Malzone
Top-rated on Apple Podcasts

You're in good company

Nine years. 550+ interviews. The room where fitness operators, founders, and investors already talk.

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One of the best I've found. Informative, accessible, and super interesting.
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A must listen for anyone interested in fitness and fitness technology.
Apple Podcasts review

The voices

Who's behind the numbers

Eric Malzone, Host of Future of Fitness

Host

Eric Malzone

Host of Future of Fitness. 550+ interviews across the industry over nine years.

Juliet Starrett, Co-host of Future of Fitness

Co-host

Juliet Starrett

Co-founder of The Ready State. Ran a CrossFit affiliate for years. Sees the operator and human-performance side.

Alex Alimanestianu, Co-host of Future of Fitness

Co-host

Alex Alimanestianu

Former CEO of Town Sports International. Knows capital markets and operator economics cold.

Handling objections

Questions

Yes. The report is free. We make our money elsewhere.

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