Tech & Wearables · NEWS BRIEF
Wearables Hold the Industry's No.1 Spot — Again
ACSM's 21st annual survey ranks wearable technology No. 1 for the tenth time, with strength training, healthy aging and mobile exercise apps prominent — consistent validation of the tech-led agenda operators are buying.
Wearable technology is the fitness industry’s No. 1 trend for the tenth time, as the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual survey marked its 21st year. The 2027 Worldwide Fitness Trends report, published 20 October, also places strength training, healthy aging, weight management, mental well-being, mobile exercise apps and instructor-led group fitness among the prominent trends — a list that leans hard toward measurable, data-adjacent training.
The ranking is less a surprise than a confirmation of consistency. In the 2026 edition — the survey’s 20th year, drawing on 2,000 clinicians, researchers and exercise professionals — wearables also ranked first, ahead of fitness programs for older adults, exercise for weight management, mobile exercise apps, and balance and core training.
“We’ve seen dramatic changes in fitness trends over the last two decades, and this milestone gives us a long-term perspective of how the field has evolved and impacted health and fitness”
— Cayla R. McAvoy, PhD, ACSM-certified exercise physiologist and lead author
For operators, the commercial validation is already on the equipment floor. Technogym’s AI Ecosystem is built on a dataset of more than 38 million connected users, and its AI Assistant for operators and trainers cuts program-design and behavior-analysis time by up to 80% — infrastructure aimed precisely at the trend ACSM keeps ranking first.
Two consecutive No. 1 finishes make the strategic question simple. Wearables are no longer a trend to trial but a planning assumption: the member arriving in 2027 arrives measured, and increasingly expects the facility to use the data.