IHRSA Names U.S. Locations With Greatest Health Club Attendance

You don’t need a sports championship to be proud of your state or city. If your home is on either of the two lists recently released by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), it excels in what really counts: fitness awareness and participation.

Compiled from data collected in the 2001 Health Club Trend Report, these lists indicate the U.S. states and metropolitan areas with the highest rates of health club membership. Here are the top 10 of each:

The report revealed that, on average, U.S. health
club members visited their facilities a record 93 days in 2001. Furthermore, the number of members who used their facilities at least 100 days per year was 13.9 million, an increase of more than 160 percent since 1987, the first year of the Health Club Trend Report.

John McCarthy, executive director of IHRSA, said, “We project that health club membership will reach 50 million members in the U.S., and a total of 100 million worldwide, by the year 2010…Clubs increasingly provide programs and services that appeal to people from all walks of life and cater to members with diverse fitness backgrounds.”