Gen Z and the gym boss: ‘They cite mental health as high as physical health in terms of reason to join'

The Guardian

08-04-2025

If you have health-conscious friends, chances are you'll have seen at least one posting online about a Hyrox race, the gruelling competitive circuit-training trend that has swept the fitness sector.
Will Orr knows a thing or two about it. His company, The Gym Group, has rolled out Hyrox training sessions to about half of its 245 sites and prides itself on being the biggest club for the discipline in the UK.
However, the silver-haired chief executive has a confession to make: he has never done a Hyrox competitive event, although he has done some training.
'They're quite demanding; that's not to say I couldn't do it,' he tells the Observer as we meet in the no-frills gym chain's new site in Elephant and Castle, south London. 'I'm old-school – I go on the treadmill and the rowing machines.'
Hyrox is certainly not for the out of shape: participants have to perform eight 1km runs on a treadmill, each followed by a workout on a different station, such as the sled, sandbag lunge or wall ball.
Launched in Germany eight years ago and touted as the sport for everybody, it has become particularly popular with twentysomethings, who post social media snaps of themselves training for races held around the world. Christian Yanga, the Elephant & Castle gym manager, says their oldest member doing Hyrox is 75, while the youngest is 16.
The craze is just one leg of a strategy has helped The Gym Group become one of the biggest players in the fitness sector. Founded in 2007 by the former England squash player and accountant John Treharne as Britain's first budget, 24-hour gym chain, it has since grown to 951,000 members, with plans to open 50 more gyms in the next three years.
Orr says the founder was inspired by what other no-frills players, such as Premier Inn and easyJet, were doing in their sectors. 'It's about really focusing on the things that matter … great equipment, a nice, big space that's clean and safe and well run, and engineer out some of the things that are less important to people, like a receptionist, somebody laundering towels, and a swimming pool.'
Initially backed by Phoenix Equity Partners and Bridges Ventures, the chain floated in London in 2015 and has a market value of £237m, down by a third since the IPO. Its main low-cost rival, PureGym, set up in 2009, is the biggest chain in the UK in terms of sites (412) and members (1.5 million). The Gym Group tried to merge with PureGym in 2014 but the deal was blocked by the competition watchdog.
Today, one in six people aged 16 or over in the UK are members of a gym, and numbers are growing. Providers range from £200-a-month luxury health clubs, such as David Lloyd Leisure or Third Space, which offer hot yoga and reformer pilates at the top end, to Virgin Active and Fitness First in the middle, and PureGym and The Gym Group at the low-cost end, with contract-free membership from £14.99 a month and a £15 joining fee.
The Gym Group's sites are open around the clock – members can get in, with a code, to work out at 3am if they wish – with 24/7 CCTV monitored externally when there are no staff on site. The chain signed up to the mayor of London's women's night safety charter in 2022.
In fact, there are now more 24-hour gyms than 24-hour licensed nightclubs in the capital, confounding predictions that the fitness sector might never bounce back from the pandemic boom in home workouts.
Orr, who was headhunted from the Times to become chief executive of the company in August 2023, says that, as a no-contract business, it had to build its membership back from scratch after lockdowns. 'But it came back very quickly. Like so many other businesses in that period, it was obviously a very, a very challenging time.'
The future looks much more promising. Record numbers of Britons are going to the gym to socialise while getting fit, a report from trade body UKActive said last week. It found that, since 2022, gym membership had risen by 1.6 million to 11.5 million people aged 16 and over, driven by generation Z.
The fitness industry in the UK has grown by 3.5% between 2012 and 2024 to £5.9bn, according to data firm Leisure DB. Much of that was driven by low-cost gyms, which account for 15% of the market by value, up from 2% in 2012, and 28% of membership, up from 4% in 2012.
Orr also credits a rise in 'fitness IQ', with people increasingly aware of the health benefits of exercise for mind as well as body. 'Our members cite mental health as high as physical health in terms of the reason to join and the reason to stay,' he says. 'And that's a huge change: maybe 10 years ago, people weren't talking much about mental health.'
Gym-goers are roughly 60% male, 40% female with an average age of 30; two-fifths are gen-Z 18- to 24-year-olds, plus a big chunk of millennials, aged 26 to 41.
'Gyms and fitness are increasingly part of the identity of emerging generations. It's part of how they want to live, how they want to socialise, how they want to express themselves, both in the real world and in social media,' Orr says.
'My 19-year-old son – when I was 19, I did occasionally go to the gym because I thought I ought to. He's going every day because he wants to, which kind of amazes me.'
Orr has had a varied career. Armed with an MBA from Imperial College London, he ran the ad agency WCRS for five years, which created the widely known 'The future's bright, the future's Orange' ad to launch mobile phone provider Orange in 1994 (now part of EE). He moved on to senior roles at British Gas and the RAC.
In 2020, he became managing director of Times Media, where he oversaw the strategic development of the Times and Sunday Times across digital and print platforms.
Lessons learned there about retaining interest have been applied to his current job, where there is a lot of churn in the first 45 days of someone joining. 'It's not uncommon in subscription businesses for the highest churn to be near the beginning. A subscription at the Times is no different in terms of that sort of fundamental dynamic,' he says.
The chain, which employs 1,900 people, swung to an adjusted pre-tax profit of £3m last year, from a loss of £5.5m in 2023, with like-for-like revenues up by 7%. Orr expects the rise in employers' national insurance, which came in on 1 April to result in a £1.3m hit – 'very modest compared to Wetherspoons' or other leisure businesses.
As an avid Fulham FC fan, Orr insists that this is the job he has enjoyed most. 'I've always liked sport and fitness, and it's not a difficult area to get excited about, because we make a positive difference to the UK.'
Age 54
Family Married with three sons.
Education St Paul's school; Durham University; Imperial College London (MBA).
Pay Total package of £1.6m in 2024.
Last holiday Cornwall.
Best advice he's been given 'Lots of people are good at starting things. Be good at finishing them too.'
Biggest regret 'No major regrets (touch wood) but lots of lessons learned.'
Phrase he overuses 'Can you switch the light off in your bedroom?'
How he relaxes Family, friends, sport, reading.