“Building and maintaining lean muscle mass is one of the most significant things a person can do for long-term health, with downstream effects on bone density, injury prevention, metabolic function, and quality of life well into older age,” Brian Mazza, VP at Life Time, told Muscle & Fitness, adding that “people are starting to understand more that they need to slow down in order to go faster, and they need to slow down in order to live longer.”

The facilities built around that logic are attracting a clientele who have started thinking about healthspan the same way they think about their training program: with data, with intention, and with a team.

A Player at Scale

Life Time has been making this argument at scale, and the market is validating it. The company posted nearly $3 billion in revenue for 2025, with average revenue per membership climbing 10.7% in a single quarter. That growth shows that members are going deeper into available services, with record retention rates to show for it. Plus, Life Time is planning 14 new athletic country club openings in 2026, the most in its history, each built with recovery spaces, saunas, cold plunges, and co-ed wellness suites.

Central to that expansion is Miora, Life Time’s longevity center concept that launched in 2023. It brings hormone optimization, GLP-1 support, peptides, and red light therapy under the same roof as the training floor, but not available at all locations just yet.

Mazza says the member showing up today is a different consumer than five years ago. They are more educated and want more from their gym.

“The messaging, the programming, the classes, the feel, and vibe of the facilities do not at all scream short-term; it all screams long-term,” Mazza says, pointing out that while some facilities are quick fixes, to him Life Time part of life. “I want to anchor here, and I want to grow here, I want my kids to be part of this.”

Life Time isn’t the only player expanding in this direction. Equinox has been growing its regenerative amenities and longevity programming across its locations, and smaller boutique facilities are on the rise too underscoring that whole health integration is becoming the expectation at every tier of the premium market.

Why Premium Gyms Are Replacing Traditional Fitness Models

If you prefer a more intimate setting and a less crowded gym floor, a handful of boutique facilities bring the same integrated approach. In Scottsdale, Hive stacks performance training and recovery alongside functional health services. In LA, Love Life weaves longevity and preventive care directly into the training environment.

These offer smaller member caps, tighter teams, and a level of continuity between your trainer, your doctor, and your physical therapist that a 100,000-square-foot facility may not be able to replicate. At Monarch Athletic Club in California (and soon in Florida), memberships cover personal training, physical therapy, preventive medicine, nutrition, and various longevity services.

Dr. Ryan Greene, co-founder and medical director at Monarch Athletic Club, built that model around a failure he’d watched play out in every other setting he’d practiced in, whether it was the healthcare system designed to treat illness, not prevent it, or a fitness industry that had no infrastructure for what came after the workout.

“I pitched it to Mayo Clinic,” Greene remembered during the time he was a clinical research fellow there. “They really liked it. But they just said there’s no money in preventive medicine. There’s nothing that can be patented here.”

A mutual connection led him to his co-founder, so he moved to Southern California and opened it anyway in January 2020. The gap he was filling haven’t closed in the years since, if anything, it widened.

People now arrive at facilities like Monarch carrying wearable data, self-ordered bloodwork, and supplement stacks assembled from social media and AI.

“Data without direction is just noise. It’s fine to measure it, but no one has an action plan,” Greene says. “They don’t know what to do with the data. They’re pumping it into ChatGPT and trying to put it all together.”

However, when experts in medicine, nutrition, training, physical therapy and even mental health communicate about an individual’s data, clients see results.

Greene recently ran an analysis of five years of internal outcome data to objectively see the impact Monarch has had on clients. Across 2,400 data points, including lab records and body composition scans from a roughly even male-female member population, Monarch members showed increased lean muscle mass, improved body composition, reduced body fat percentage, improved HDL, a 30% reduction in inflammation markers, and reduced triglycerides.

That integrated approach, Greene argues, is what makes those numbers move together rather than trading one off against another. “I do believe a measured approach that is an integrated system between medicine, movement, rehab, and nutrition, “ he says. “It’s all the aspects of what makes a human system function.”

The Real Cost of Premium Fitness Memberships

The price of entry depends on the model and location. Life Time runs $199 to $379 a month, but may vary across locations. Its Miora experience starts with a $299 intake package covering a detailed bloodwork panel, a Metabolic Code report, and a consultation. Ongoing membership runs $199 a month and includes red light therapy, cryotherapy, infrared saunas, and a hyperbaric chamber.

Equinox sits at $205 to $395, depending on location and access tier, but its new longevity program, developed in partnership with Function Health, runs $3,000 a month for a minimum of six months, not including the base gym membership, bringing the annual commitment to $40,000 or more.

In Scottsdale, AZ, Hive starts at $299 a month, which includes gym access, unlimited cold plunge, sauna, and compression, and goes up to $899 for the premium path. Love Life ranges from $350 with fitness and recovery, to $2,200, with access to a fully integrative medicine tier. Monarch runs from $380 covering a 12-month training plan, recovery modalities, and unlimited access to concierge medicine and nutrition all the way to an all-access $2,200 option where members can take advantage of many unlimited services.

Is a Longevity-Focused Gym Worth the Investment?

Signing up for a premium facility like these shouldn’t be an impulsive decision, and if you’re waiting for a sale, don’t hold your breath. These memberships don’t tend to go on discount. What’s a better strategy is intentional budgeting.

If you’re already spending on the pieces separately, like a personal trainer, bloodwork, functional medicine consults, VO₂ max testing, body composition scans, and a recovery lounge membership stacked on top of regular gym dues, the number adds up faster than most people track.

The fragmentation however, may have a cost beyond the financial too. It comes with lack of continuity between the person programming your training and the one managing your injury, between the dietitian reviewing your nutrition plan and the physician looking at your labs.

“You should be the expert of your own health,” Greene says. “And then when you have questions, or you need someone to execute something that requires medical intervention, you come to me, and I’m also at the gym that you’re at, because I’m part of your program. I can look at your data, we can make a decision together, and then we go.”