Health Update: Longevity Gyms Begin Packing a Punch – What Experts Say

Imagine plugging your phone — chockablock with biological and environmental metrics — into a machine at the gym. “Stop doing cardio,” it might counsel, factoring in your real-time weight, biomarkers and the time of day. “But instead do more squats or meditation, because your cortisol level is high. Don’t do high-intensity training in the morning.”

“This personalization doesn’t exist yet, but it’s going to be the future,” said Dr. David Luu, a trained cardiac surgeon, who founded Longevity Docs, an invite-only community designed for physicians committed to furthering evidence-based longevity care.

Until recently “longevity gyms” were just a pipe dream. Yet they’re swiftly becoming a reality, ever more personalized and data-fueled. Consider them as gyms 2.0.

“We’re getting to the next level — from body composition, which is really physical, to biological,” said Luu, who also serves as chief longevity adviser for L’Oréal and is an adjunct professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “‘Biological is: Can you get lab work done in gyms?”

That is in its nascent phase.

There’s a confluence of reasons why longevity gyms are emerging.

“Now is a fertile time, because the idea of longevity has moved from niche academic and ultra-wealthy circles into mainstream culture,” said Dr. Bertalan Meskó, known as The Medical Futurist. “The pandemic especially made people realize the importance of immune resilience, mental health and preventative care, which has driven demand for services that go beyond traditional exercise.”

The focus on longevity, or living better longer, has movement at its heart.

“Besides nutrition, sleep, stress management, activity training — working out — is one of the core disciplines of longevity,” said Marcel Achermann, founder of Masters of Longevity, an advisory company.

Longevity has been magnified by media, investor interest, the rise of wearable trackers and, most recently, AI tools. ChatGPT along with OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health on Jan. 7. Four days later, Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare.

“It means health doesn’t belong to health care anymore,” Luu said. “People are in power. There’s no excuse anymore — no guardrail. Everyone is an architect of their own health and longevity.”

Compounding this, exercise is free. “You can do pull-ups in the street,” he said.

Such a converging of factors births new culture and concepts emerging in gyms, which Luu described as “the physical front door of longevity.”

A pioneer in the longevity gym space is Equinox, which has taken a holistic approach, based on MNRC — movement, nutrition or nourishment, regeneration and community — since its start.

“When you look at those four pillars, this is, at the end of the day, 90 percent of what longevity is about,” said Stephanie Musso, vice president, chief of staff at Equinox Group.

People are craving a deeper understanding of what’s happening inside of themselves. “And also for the ‘so what?’ and ‘what do we do about it?’” she said.

Equinox programming helps members leverage insights from wearables by translating them into personalized programming to get people where they want to go and be, Musso continued.

In 2023, Equinox launched its Optimize membership, which starts with a functional health assessment, including the reading of biomarkers, as well as the wearing of an Oura ring, to glean more biological information. That leads to work with a team of holistic care specialists who help draw up personalized programming.

Made-to-measure is the next frontier Equinox is rapidly expanding into. In October 2025, the gym launched EXQ ARC, a personalized approach to women’s health throughout each stage of their lives that is created by certified coaches.

Last December, Equinox launched its next phase of partnership with Function Health, the health platform offering access to more than 60 advanced lab tests (think hormones and metabolic markers) and imaging fueled by Artificial Intelligence. Function is developing Medical Intelligence, a learning system developed to help people see, understand and act on their biology in real time.

Sparkd by Chi Longevity, based in Singapore, is another cutting-edge longevity gym. It was birthed in February 2025 after Chi Longevity, an evidence-based longevity clinic, acquired Sparkd, billed to be the first brain-health gym in Asia.

Five years ago, Anna Milani founded Sparkd, which merges movement with cognitive training. She serves as its chief executive officer and heads physical and cognitive performance at Chi.

Sparkd by Chi Longevity delves into the likes of a person’s epigenetic clock; psychology; cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, sensory and immune systems; joint and brain health, and metabolism. It offers dietary and supplement interventions, and repurposed drugs, among other services.

Sparkd conceives personalized workout programs at the gym based on markers, including balancing and motor skills, and dual-task performance.

“We have [physical and cognitive] markers that then we can work and improve on, based on what the client needs and requires,” Milani said. “By reassessing clients over time, we can show them improvements.”

Life Time Fitness, based in Minnesota, is leaning into longevity, too. In January 2024, it launched Miora, an integrative medical clinic, in some locations. There, medical providers and registered dietitians analyze a client’s blood work and symptom reporting to create a personalized, results-driven plan to optimize health starting from within.

The methodology involves a patented Metabolic Code, which analyzes more than 70 key biomarkers across five health triads.

Other longevity gyms can be found in the Monarch Athletic Club in Los Angeles, KX Club in London, Continuum Club in New York and Siro hotel in Dubai.

Longevity gyms offer a myriad of opportunities — including building on a loyal community, engagement, aspiration and motivation, and offering long-term longitudinal monitoring. But with those have challenges, too.

“The biggest challenge is that this requires a transformation in staffing, training and business model,” Meskó said. “There’s also a premium-cost barrier: The very comprehensive longevity offerings are likely to be expensive, which could limit accessibility at first.”

These generally run into the thousands of dollars per year.

Further, as gym models shift to giving health recommendations, that comes with standardization issues, new responsibilities, compliance and risk.

Other hurdles might include serving gym-goers the right data and translating it into clear, actionable insights, according to Musso. Otherwise, there could be decision paralysis and data overload.

“My call to all the gyms is to get a chief longevity officer,” Luu said.

Meanwhile, technology and its application are developing at warp speed. What seems light-years away is just around the corner.

Achermann could see Intermittent Hypoxic-Hyperoxic Training, or IHHT, which was pioneered for space travel, used in longevity gyms. That gives varying (higher and lower) concentrations of oxygen at intervals through a mask. The process is meant to train cells and stimulate protective proteins, while optimizing mitochondrial energy production.

Hyperbaric chambers, another type of oxygen therapy involving increased air pressure that helps a human body heal faster, could start being found more in gyms, as well.

Musso envisions 360-degree, hyper-personalized programming. It might start with an alarm clock automatically set to a class that Equinox recommended for that morning, depending on how well the person slept, their recovery or movement needs, and personal preferences.

Nutrition suggestions could factor in what the person ate the prior day, as well as their biomarkers.

“We’ll really adapt all of those recommendations and pushes based on what you need, what you like and what we’ve seen having the most impact on you,” Musso said, adding an aim is to eliminate as much friction as possible.

“We will move away from that one-size-fits-all mentality and really get into your own physiology,” she said.