Singapore's Fitness Golden Age and the Death of the Middle

When the doors of TFX at Millennia Walk closed, Singapore lost the largest gym it had ever housed: more than 41,000 square feet, a figure no boutique chain would dare dream of. What stopped me was not the size. It was the paradox sitting right beside it. In the same month True Fitness and True Yoga announced the closure of every studio in Singapore, Sport Singapore reported that 76 percent of residents exercised at least once a week — the highest level since before the pandemic, when the figure stood at 66 percent in 2026.

More people are training than ever before. And the biggest operator died first.

Parent company Kontafarma called it "unprecedented" challenges: the rise of boutique studios, more residential gyms reducing the need for external memberships, and the growth of online training. It sounds reasonable. But stopping there means missing the most interesting part of the story — because the people inside the industry reject that explanation.

"We are in what the industry calls the 'golden age of fitness and wellness'. There has never been greater awareness of the importance of exercise," said Sean Tan, co-founder and president of the non-profit Singapore Fitness Alliance.

Samuel Gallo, co-founder of Surge Strength & Results, put it bluntly: "The market itself has never been bigger. Demand is not the problem. Being nothing in particular is the problem. Not the cheapest, not the best, so people drift out of the middle."

That is the argument I want to dissect. Not "gyms die because too few people train", but "gyms die because they stand in the middle".

On the day the stadium falls silent, I hear the whisper of data most clearly. And in this story, that whisper comes from a balance sheet, not from a training programme.

Across years of tracking the Asian sports market from Busan, I have learned one thing: when a business model dies, people blame demand. It is almost always the wrong place to look. Singaporean demand for fitness is rising, not falling. What is dying is a specific cost structure.

Three tiers of a torn market

To understand why True Fitness collapsed, you need to see where it sits on the segmentation map. Singapore's fitness market now splits into three fairly clear tiers.

The bottom tier is budget 24-hour chains such as Anytime Fitness, Snap Fitness and 24/7 Fitness. Their footprints run only about 4,000 to 6,000 square feet. They may offer personal trainers and group classes, but they cut the most expensive things.

Sean Tan pointed to the priciest item this model removes: showers and toilets. "Their lean operating model allows them to compete effectively on convenience and affordability without the overhead burden that weighs on larger operators," added Damien Lee, senior lecturer in sport and wellness management at Nanyang Polytechnic.

The other tier is boutique: small studios of 1,000 to 2,500 square feet, usually specialised in a single modality — pilates, indoor cycling, strength training. Low set-up costs, fast depreciation, and most importantly: they sell expertise, not equipment.

And in the middle sits big box. True Fitness belonged squarely to this tier. According to Tan, big box gyms tend to be 15,000 square feet or more, gathering everything under one roof: treadmills and ellipticals for cardio, pin-loaded machines for strength, personal training, group class studios, recovery facilities such as saunas or cold plunge baths, showers, changing rooms, even swimming pools. TFX at Millennia Walk was the epitome of this — more than 41,000 square feet, Singapore's largest gym before it closed.

"Large gyms carry significant fixed costs in rent, equipment, staffing, utilities and maintenance, so profitability becomes a challenge when utilisation falls," Tan said. "Operating costs remain high, while consumers have more alternatives these days and can switch providers with ease, making membership revenue less predictable."

Read that line again and underline "when utilisation falls". This is not a market demand problem. It is an internal demand problem — what percentage of your 41,000 square feet is generating revenue at 10am on a Tuesday?

A gym does not die because too few people train nationwide. It dies because thousands of its square feet generate nothing for most of the day.

When "small" stops being the pitch

If you think the story is simply "small wins, big loses", you have skipped the most important variable. Gallo of Surge Strength & Results is clear: being merely a "small version of the same commercial gym" is not enough to survive.

Surge goes all in on one-to-one personal training. No group classes, no gym memberships. Three locations. But the company's biggest investment is not equipment.

"Last year alone we invested over S$50,000 in our team's education. This year we plan to do the same," Gallo said. "The coaches are the product."

This is a fundamental difference in financial model. A big box gym invests in fixed assets: machines, pools, saunas, floor space. A boutique invests in people. Fixed assets depreciate slowly and demand steady footfall to pay back. People are more flexible, but expensive in a different way — and tied to specific individuals.

UFIT takes a third path. The chain has four locations and about 700 active clients, and also rejects pay-per-use or membership models. What it sells is a wider "circle of care": clients can tap the services of a physiotherapist, podiatrist or nutritionist as needed.

"We work more with clients who are paying for expertise and accountability, not just access to equipment and facilities," said founder and COO Dean Ahmad.

In stark contrast to the recent closures, Ahmad said 2026 has been UFIT's best year of business in five years. Event-based competitions and marathons are helping drive people into gyms, but he also credited a focus on client retention through measurable outcomes.

One detail in Ahmad's remarks matters most to me: ActiveSG and condominium gyms are not a threat to boutique studios.

"They have absorbed a real slice of that demand, but it's a very specific slice of that demographic that are price sensitive or that are convenience-based users, who are never going to pay for coaching or they're not interested in that coaching model in the first place."

In other words: condo gyms and ActiveSG do not take boutique clients. They take mid-market big box clients. These two segments serve two different consumer psychologies, and the middle is where both forces drain the water out.

Exercise habits have changed shape

What is killing the mid-market is not only its neighbours on either side. The behaviour of the exerciser itself has changed structurally.

"Today's consumers are far less likely to anchor their fitness routines around a single gym membership," said Damien Lee of Nanyang Polytechnic. "Instead, they mix and match across different formats: using the condo gym, running outdoors, attending pilates classes, joining colleagues for pickleball, following free digital fitness programmes, or even travelling regionally for Hyrox competitions with their training communities."

Lee concluded: "Fitness spending has become more fragmented, more flexible, and increasingly driven by experience, community and measurable outcomes."

This is the knockout line. The big box model rests on the assumption that customers will buy one membership and come to one place for everything. When behaviour shifts to mixing formats, that assumption collapses — and it collapses fastest in the middle, where there is no reason strong enough to hold anyone back.

Amore Fitness, a homegrown brand operating for more than 40 years with nine women-only studio and spa locations, is living inside this shift.

"Fitness is no longer just about choosing between one gym and another. Consumers can choose from 24-hour gyms, boutique studios, pilates, specialised training, outdoor activities and digital programmes, and many move between them," said director Lim Kian Leong.

Amore's response is notable. Rather than clinging to one model, it broadened its portfolio: new brands for beauty, rest and recovery treatments, reformer pilates, and strength and functional training.

"Women don't all want the same thing from fitness, and what they need can change over time," Lim said.

The physical footprint reflects the shift. Amore closed outlets at Jurong Point in 2026 and Seletar Mall in 2026, then opened at the CPF Jurong building in 2026 and Punggol Coast Mall in 2026. Lim called this "part of running a physical fitness business in a changing market", stressing the goal is not more locations but the right ones.

A forty-year-old chain still has to open and close continuously to follow the flow of people. If that is not a signal of a market restructuring itself, nothing is.

What is really choking them: rent

And here is the part least discussed, yet the most decisive. Setting aside internal competition between models, the fitness industry is not immune to the cost factor squeezing every local business in Singapore: rent.

According to Sean Tan of the Singapore Fitness Alliance, high rents are the single biggest challenge gyms face. Industry margins are traditionally thin at 15 to 25 percent, with rents taking up 15 to 20 percent of revenues.

"If rents now go up to 30 to 40 percent of revenues, and other costs like manpower and utilities also go up, what is there for the businesses to take home?"

The referee is never wrong; it is just that the law cannot keep up with the ball. Here, the "law" is the commercial rental market, and it has long outrun what small operators can absorb.

Tan traced this to more commercial properties being owned by real estate investment trusts, or REITs, where landlords must show year-on-year increases in rental yields.

"Rarely can you now find instances where your unit is owned by an individual with whom you can have reasonable discussions on rents. Rental negotiations are often cold and without emotion," he said.

Many leases also carry a gross turnover component, tying rent to sales. "If the landlord sees that you are doing well, you can almost surely expect a significant increase in your rent at the next lease renewal," Tan added.

Let that number sink in. A mid-market gym runs on 15 to 25 percent margins. If rent jumps from 15 to 20 percent of revenue to 30 to 40 percent, the entire margin vanishes and the business starts losing money on every member. No marketing strategy rescues a cost structure like that.

The insider's cost equation

To grasp the severity, look at real numbers. At Unstoppable Fitness, a roughly 4,000 square foot bodybuilding gym in Shenton Way, operating expenses reach about S$40,000 a month.

"Beyond rent, there are utilities, business loans, manpower, cleaning, laundry, equipment maintenance and repairs, software, marketing and many other recurring expenses," said founder and owner Luke Yeo.

About S$1.2 million has been invested in building and operating the gym since it opened in 2026.

To Yeo, the amount of capital being pumped into the industry by well-funded operators is a major change intensifying competition. A premium commercial gym machine can easily cost around S$15,000 to S$20,000, not including taxes, transport and installation. And he is seeing more such equipment in local gyms.

Operators are also spending heavily on renovation and amenities because customer expectations have changed.

"Differences between two pieces of gym equipment may be hard to spot, but what clients do see immediately are a gym's size and appearance, showers and changing rooms and overall environment," Yeo said. "An independent operator isn't competing only on membership price anymore. You're competing on equipment, design, convenience, amenities, technology, community, branding and the overall experience."

His sharpest pain point lies elsewhere: branding and visibility.

"A trainer with more experience does not automatically get more clients, and a gym with better equipment does not automatically get more members. People first need to know you exist, understand what you offer and trust your brand."

But the bodybuilder, whose own training journey began in ActiveSG facilities, embraces the rivalry.

"I don't necessarily think competition is a bad thing. It forces every operator, including us, to continuously improve and give customers a reason to choose us."

The personal trainer's escape press

While large chains wrestle with floor space and fixed costs, another layer of operation is growing from below: self-employed personal trainers with no premises and no equipment.

Sharon H, 29, began taking clients in April. She offers them the option of training in ActiveSG gyms, at their homes, or in her flat, which has a dedicated exercise space.

She told CNA she wanted to fill the "gap in the market" for clients who prefer more privacy and convenience, as the fitness scene is "saturated" with big box gyms. About half of her 10 to 15 active clients work out at her flat. The rest train with her in ActiveSG gyms or their homes.

Hindrances like queues for machines at ActiveSG gyms and limited equipment in condominium gyms are counterbalanced by greater affordability and convenient locations. When Sharon H herself began exercising regularly around 2026, she followed YouTube videos, and still primarily works out at home.

Her model has no fixed assets, no long-term lease, no staff. Her margin is not eroded by rent or equipment depreciation. This is the most dangerous competitor for the middle tier, because it does not need scale to survive.

Where I might be wrong

I have drawn a tidy story: the middle tier squeezed to death between boutiques selling expertise and 24-hour chains selling convenience, plus the rent burden imposed by REITs. But if I am wrong, I want to know where before someone points it out.

First, I may be confusing cause and effect. True Fitness and True Yoga collapsed together — two brands under one parent. That may reflect governance and debt-structure problems specific to Kontafarma, not a general law about the middle. If so, I am diagnosing a whole population from one severe case.

Second, the disappearance of large big box gyms may just be cyclical. The giant gym with pools and saunas was once the standard in many Asian markets, then shrank, and may return in another form — as integrated sports and leisure complexes where the gym is one part of a larger retail and dining ecosystem.

Third, and most importantly: I have no data on customer retention by segment in Singapore. I know the costs, the margins, the rent. But I do not know exactly how long a big box member stays compared with a boutique client. If boutique clients churn just as fast, specialisation is not a shield — it is merely a slower way to burn.

And I remind myself of this whenever I write a hot take: The hot take said today only ripens into a real judgement three years later. I believe in the middle-tier thesis, but I do not want it to become a new dogma simply because it sounds plausible.

What I think happens next

The death of True Fitness is not the death of Singapore fitness. It is the death of an assumption: that people will pay for one roof housing everything, forever.

I think what shapes the next three years is not the battle between boutique and 24-hour chains. It is the battle for control of the two most underrated assets in this industry: the lease contract and ownership of customer data. Whoever holds long-term leases at reasonable rates, and whoever understands their clients deeply enough to keep them when every gym has comparable machines, will survive.

And here is a prediction I will put my name to: within 24 months, at least one hybrid model will emerge in Singapore — a chain large enough to have a voice with landlords, small enough not to carry fixed costs, and paying coaches based on retention rather than session count. That model will call itself a boutique. In essence, it will be a big box that has learned to trim its own fat.

I don't need the whole world to nod; I just want someone to stop and listen.

And if you run a gym in the middle tier, answer one question before any other: of your 41,000 square feet, what percentage generates revenue at 10am on a Tuesday?