Home cardio equipment sits within a broader activity picture: in the United States, 47.2% of adults met the federal aerobic-activity guideline during leisure time in 2024. The available evidence measures activity, outcomes, injuries and prices more often than equipment ownership, so the figures below distinguish those measures carefully.
Key Home Cardio Equipment Statistics
The most useful figures for understanding home cardio equipment and its surrounding market are:
- In 2024, 47.2% of U.S. adults aged 18 and older met the federal aerobic-activity guideline during leisure time.
- In 2024, 52.3% of U.S. men aged 18 and older met the federal aerobic-activity guideline in the United States.
- In 2024, 42.4% of U.S. women aged 18 and older met the federal aerobic-activity guideline in the United States.
- In 2024, 54.0% of U.S. adults aged 18–34 met the federal aerobic-activity guideline.
- In 2024, 38.4% of U.S. adults aged 65 and older met the federal aerobic-activity guideline.
- In 2024, 56.5% of U.S. adults at 400% of the federal poverty level or higher met the aerobic guideline.
- In 2024, 58.5% of U.S. adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher met the aerobic guideline.
- In 2022, 58.7% of U.S. adults walked for leisure during the previous seven days.
- In 2022, 16.2% of U.S. adults walked for transportation during the previous seven days.
- In 2024, people aged 15 and older spent 0.31 hours per day in sports, exercise and recreation on average.
- In 2024, 22.5% of people aged 15 and older engaged in sports, exercise and recreation on an average weekday.
- In 2022, 31% of adults worldwide, or approximately 1.8 billion people, did not meet recommended physical-activity levels.
- If the observed trend continues, global adult physical inactivity is projected to reach 35% by 2030.
- In an 18-month randomized trial, the treadmill home-equipment group lost 7.4 kg on average among sedentary overweight women.
- In 2023, U.S. emergency departments treated an estimated 482,886 injuries associated with exercise or exercise equipment.
- In 2023, an estimated 49,698 exercise or exercise-equipment injuries resulted in hospitalization or death on arrival.
- In December 2024, sports equipment represented 0.224% of the relative importance weight in the U.S. CPI-U basket.
Contents
- Aerobic activity adoption in U.S. adults
- Income, education and geography gaps
- Walking participation and accessible cardio
- Time spent on exercise and recreation
- Global inactivity trends
- Measured outcomes from home exercise equipment
- Injuries, prices and equipment context
Aerobic Activity Adoption in U.S. Adults
The 2024 National Health Interview Survey estimated that 47.2% of U.S. adults aged 18 and older met the federal aerobic-activity guideline during leisure time. The guideline means 150–300 moderate-intensity minutes or 75–150 vigorous-intensity minutes per week, or an equivalent combination.
The estimate is for the civilian noninstitutionalized population and is based on self-reported leisure-time activity, rather than ownership or use of a treadmill, bike or other home machine. The source is CDC/NCHS, Aerobic Physical Activity Among Adults Age 18 and Older: United States, 2024.
| U.S. adult group | Met aerobic guideline in 2024 |
|---|---|
| All adults 18+ | 47.2% |
| Men 18+ | 52.3% |
| Women 18+ | 42.4% |
| Ages 18–34 | 54.0% |
| Ages 35–49 | 49.8% |
| Ages 50–64 | 44.6% |
| Ages 65+ | 38.4% |
The age pattern is relevant to home cardio planning because the measured share meeting the guideline declined from 54.0% among adults aged 18–34 to 38.4% among adults aged 65 and older. These figures describe guideline attainment, not the effectiveness of any particular product.
Income, Education and Geography Gaps in Home Cardio Data
Activity adoption varied substantially by income and education in the 2024 NHIS estimates. Among adults with family income below 100% of the federal poverty level, 35.4% met the aerobic guideline, compared with 56.5% among adults at 400% of the poverty level or higher.
| U.S. adult subgroup | Met aerobic guideline in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Income below 100% FPL | 35.4% |
| Income 100% to under 200% FPL | 36.7% |
| Income 200% to under 400% FPL | 43.8% |
| Income at least 400% FPL | 56.5% |
| Less than high school/GED | 32.3% |
| Bachelor’s degree or higher | 58.5% |
Education showed a similarly wide difference: 32.3% of adults with less than a high-school diploma or GED met the guideline, compared with 58.5% of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher. Income uses prior-year family income and family size, with imputation for missing income.
The regional and urbanization figures also differed. The West had a 51.9% guideline-attainment estimate, while nonmetropolitan areas had a 40.2% estimate; the NHIS uses NCHS county classifications for urbanization.
Non-Hispanic White adults had a 49.2% estimate, and non-Hispanic Asian adults had a 47.9% estimate, using the survey’s single-race non-Hispanic categories. All figures in this section come from CDC/NCHS Data Brief No. 555.
Walking Participation as Accessible Cardio
Walking is a useful comparison for home cardio equipment because it is a form of aerobic activity that does not require a machine. In the 2022 NHIS, 58.7% of U.S. adults reported walking for leisure during the seven days before the interview.
The leisure question included walking for fun, relaxation, exercise or walking the dog. The CDC/NCHS walking activity data cover the civilian noninstitutionalized population and are self-reported.
| U.S. population group | Walked for leisure in prior 7 days, 2022 |
|---|---|
| All adults | 58.7% |
| Ages 18–44 | 61.8% |
| Ages 65+ | 51.6% |
| Women | 60.5% |
| Income below 100% FPL | 46.9% |
| Income at least 400% FPL | 67.2% |
| Less than high school/GED | 43.7% |
| Bachelor’s degree or higher | 71.2% |
Walking for transportation was reported by 16.2% of U.S. adults during the same seven-day period. That measure means walking to work, errands or place-to-place travel and excludes the separately asked leisure-walking question.
Time Spent on Exercise and Recreation in 2024
The American Time Use Survey provides a different lens: time spent in sports, exercise and recreation as a primary activity. In 2024, people aged 15 and older in the U.S. civilian population averaged 0.31 hours per day in this category, including related travel but excluding simultaneous secondary activities.
Men averaged 0.38 hours per day, while women averaged 0.25 hours. People aged 15–19 averaged 0.64 hours per day.
| 2024 ATUS measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Average, all days, age 15+ | 0.31 hours/day |
| Weekdays, age 15+ | 0.30 hours/day |
| Weekend days and holidays, age 15+ | 0.33 hours/day |
| Men, age 15+ | 0.38 hours/day |
| Women, age 15+ | 0.25 hours/day |
| Ages 15–19 | 0.64 hours/day |
On an average weekday, 22.5% of people aged 15 and older engaged in sports, exercise and recreation as their primary activity. The corresponding share on an average weekend day or holiday was 19.1%.
These are time-use measures, not equipment-ownership rates, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024 ATUS results.
Global Inactivity Trends Relevant to Home Cardio
The World Health Organization estimated that 31% of adults worldwide—approximately 1.8 billion people—did not meet recommended physical-activity levels in 2022. This is a population-level inactivity estimate, not a count of homes without exercise equipment.
WHO also estimated that global adult physical inactivity increased by about 5 percentage points between 2010 and 2022. Women had an estimated inactivity rate of 34% in 2022, compared with 29% for men.
If the observed trend continues, global adult physical inactivity is projected to reach 35% by 2030. That is a forecast contingent on continuation of the observed trend, not an observed 2030 result.
WHO reports that insufficiently active adults have a 20%–30% higher risk of death than sufficiently active adults. This is a comparative risk estimate, not a causal effect estimate and not an equipment-specific result; the figures are from WHO’s 2024 physical-activity release.
Measured Outcomes from Home Exercise Equipment
A randomized trial published through PubMed studied sedentary overweight women in a university-based U.S. program from September 1996 to September 1998. Of 148 participants, 115, or 78%, completed the 18-month trial.
| Trial measure at 18 months | Mean result |
|---|---|
| Treadmill home-equipment group | 7.4 kg lost |
| Long-bout exercise group | 5.8 kg lost |
| Short-bout exercise group | 3.7 kg lost |
| More than 200 exercise minutes/week | 13.1 kg lost |
| 150–200 exercise minutes/week | 8.5 kg lost |
| Less than 150 exercise minutes/week | 3.5 kg lost |
The treadmill group also received the behavioral weight-control program, and the trial’s selected sample should not be generalized to all households. The exercise-duration results are observed subgroup associations rather than necessarily randomized dose comparisons.
All three trial groups improved cardiorespiratory fitness from baseline to 18 months, with no statistically significant between-group difference; the abstract did not report a common numeric fitness effect size. The study is Effects of intermittent exercise and use of home exercise equipment on adherence, weight loss, and fitness in overweight women.
Exercise-Equipment Injuries, Prices and Market Context
The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that U.S. emergency departments treated 482,886 injuries associated with exercise or exercise equipment in 2023, equal to 144.1 injuries per 100,000 U.S. residents. The estimate uses the NEISS national probability sample from 96 hospitals and covers a broad product grouping.
The age and sex breakdown illustrates the scale of the estimate:
- People aged 0–4 accounted for an estimated 7,750 injuries in 2023.
- People aged 15–24 accounted for an estimated 95,671 injuries in 2023.
- People aged 25–64 accounted for an estimated 247,518 injuries in 2023.
- People aged 65 and older accounted for an estimated 91,354 injuries in 2023.
- Males accounted for an estimated 276,377 injuries in 2023.
- An estimated 49,698 injuries resulted in hospitalization or death on arrival; this disposition combines hospitalized cases and deaths on arrival and is not a fatality count alone.
The CPSC figures cover exercise and exercise-equipment products broadly, not only treadmills or home cardio machines, and product groups can overlap when up to three products are coded. See the CPSC 2023 NEISS Data Highlights.
Price data also require a broad-category caveat. In December 2024, sports equipment represented 0.224% of the relative importance weight in the U.S. city-average CPI-U basket, while sporting goods represented 0.480%; these categories include more than home cardio equipment, according to the BLS December 2024 relative-importance table.
The U.S. city-average CPI index for sports equipment was 0.7% lower year over year in November 2024. That BLS category includes exercise equipment plus other sports equipment, so it is a price proxy rather than a treadmill-only index; the measurement is reported in the November 2024 CPI release.