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England is more active than it has been since Sport England began measuring in 2015. The latest Active Lives Adult Survey found that 64.6% of adults (30.9 million people) now meet the Chief Medical Officers' guideline of 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. That is 859,000 more than the year before.
The other side of that number is harder to ignore. 11.8 million adults, 24.7%, still do less than 30 minutes a week.
An active England for everyone
Sport England's data shows plenty to build on, and exactly where the opportunity lies. Almost half of adults with a disability or long-term health condition (49.1%) are already active. So are 44.3% of those aged 75 and over, a group that has driven much of the recent growth. More than six in ten women (62.2%) and more than half of the least affluent adults (53.8%) meet the guideline too, and every one of those figures has room to rise.
The same is true for children. Activity levels are the highest Sport England has recorded, with 49.1% now getting the recommended hour a day, according to its Children and Young People Survey. Among the least affluent families, 45% of children already get there, and 58% do in the most affluent, so the potential gain is significant.
Membership fees, travel time and unfamiliar indoor spaces can make exercise feel out of reach for many of these groups. Outdoor gyms remove all three: they're free, close to home and open to everyone.
People already want to train
Fitness is where much of the recent growth has come from. Around 15.3 million adults now take part in fitness activities, up more than 900,000 in a year. Sport England describes a broader shift towards flexible, accessible and individual ways of being active, rather than organised sport.
It's showing up among young people too. Gym and fitness participation among children and young people has risen from 11% to 24% since 2017-18.
So the appetite is there. What's often missing is somewhere convenient, free and welcoming to act on it.
Why outdoor gyms fit
An outdoor gym has no joining fee, no booking system and no opening hours. It sits in a park, on an estate, at a school or beside a path people already use. A systematic review in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health describes outdoor gyms as public spaces where people can find social connection while doing structured exercise at no cost.
That social side matters. A neighbour on the next machine, a parent training while their children play and an older resident doing a gentle routine all make the space feel normal to walk into.
What the research says
The strongest evidence comes from Temuco in Chile. Researchers tracked the activity levels of 2,463 adults across 16 neighbourhoods over several years, while outdoor gyms were being installed in different parts of the city. People who lived in neighbourhoods with enough outdoor gyms were significantly more likely to meet the World Health Organization's activity recommendations than those who didn't. Their odds of doing so were more than four times higher.
A study of Fitness Zones in Los Angeles parks offers a more cautious picture. People using the equipment were far more likely to be doing moderate-to-vigorous activity than other park visitors (66% against 31% at the first follow-up). More people also reported being new park users. However, the overall rise in park use compared with control parks wasn't statistically significant, so the authors called for longer-term research.
Closer to home, a Liverpool John Moores University evaluation in Sefton found users reported more confidence about being active and feeling more relaxed and less stressed.
Taken together, the evidence is encouraging rather than conclusive. Outdoor gyms help, but where and how they're installed makes a real difference.
Getting the details right
The Los Angeles study offers some practical lessons.
Put them where people live. The equipment worked best in densely populated areas with few other facilities, and users tended to live close by, about 0.7 miles on average. People weren't willing to travel far.
Don't rely on "build it and they will come". The researchers suggested outreach and promotion may be needed to keep early enthusiasm going. A launch event, a few guided sessions or a word from the school or local GP surgery can all help.
Choose equipment for your community. Some pieces in the study were barely touched while others were in constant use. Given that women, older adults and disabled people are among the least active groups, it's worth choosing kit that suits a wide range of ages, abilities and confidence levels.
Money is heading to the right places
There's also a funding case. The government is backing £250 million through Sport England for places with the highest levels of inactivity, plus at least £400 million for multi-sport community facilities, as the Sports Minister set out alongside the latest figures. Outdoor gyms are a relatively compact, low-maintenance way to bring activity to the neighbourhoods those programmes are aimed at.
Outdoor gyms with a long reach
Outdoor gyms won't close England's activity gap on their own. But they tackle some of its most stubborn causes: cost, distance and the feeling that exercise happens somewhere else, for someone else. Put the right equipment in the right place and tell people it's there, and that gap can start to narrow, one neighbourhood at a time.
Contact our friendly team to kickstart your next outdoor gym project.
