What people say about each route: sourced signals

OpenPowerlifting is a volunteer-built open database of competition results from many federations worldwide. We counted rows in the file dated 2026-10-24 by meet year OpenPowerlifting. This is the one participation series here that comes from results, not from a survey or an app.

Sources: OpenPowerlifting

Entries in 2024 were 10.7% above 2019, and recorded meets 22.8% above. Entries then slipped 2.8% in 2025 while meets rose 3.4%. The 2020 drop matches pandemic cancellations; we did not test that. Recent years may still be revised upward as volunteers add late results, so the 2025 dip is not a finding.

• +29%Garmin Connect strength-training activity, 2025 vs 2024Garmin 2025
• +8%all activities logged on Garmin Connect, same comparisonGarmin 2025
• 2xGen Z vs Gen X likelihood of naming weight training as their main sport (Strava)Strava 2025
• 21%how much more likely women were than men to record a weight-training activity on Strava in 2025Strava 2025

Garmin does not state a sample size or date range in its release, and Strava describes billions of activities plus a survey of over 30,000 people without giving an athlete count Garmin 2025 Strava 2025. Neither gives a denominator, so we cannot say how many people sit behind a percentage.

Both are company reports from people who own a watch or use an app. They show behavior inside those products. They do not show that more people lift in total, and a gain in logged sessions can also come from more people turning logging on.

• 247.1MAmericans aged 6+ who took part in at least one of 124 activities in 2024SFIA 2025
• 80%participation rate, the highest SFIA reportsSFIA 2025
• 25.4Mgain in active Americans since 2019, as reportedSFIA 2025

The release says all activities in the strength category rose for the first time since the pandemic, but gives no figure for how many people that is, and does not state a sample size or method SFIA 2025. The full report is paid, so we cannot quote strength totals.

This is the best national signal that lifting is not shrinking, and it is the only one here with a population base. It does not tell you which route, such as bodybuilding or calisthenics, people follow.

Hyrox is a fixed-format race of eight 1 km runs, each followed by a work station. Its English Wikipedia entry gives 650 participants at the first event, 6,270 at a two-day London event in 2022, and 175,000 competitors at 65 races worldwide in 2023, citing Forbes and Hybrid Fitness Media Hyrox (Wikipedia).

We could not open the company's own reports. Press accounts of the 2024/25 season gave different totals from each other, mixing projections, seasons and calendar years, so we print none. An organizer's entry count is also not the same as unique athletes, since people can enter several races.

• Powerlifting: counted from results in the open database OpenPowerlifting.
• General lifting: a survey direction (SFIA) and two app reports, with no route split SFIA 2025 Garmin 2025.
• Women and strength training: women's share of database entries rose from 31.6% to 36.0% (2019 to 2025), and a 2023 review notes men still train with weights more often than women overall Nuzzo 2023.
• Combat, bodybuilding, harsh-environment and calisthenics: we found no public participation series we could open, so none is printed.
• Interest is not safety or effectiveness. A rising count says nothing about injury rates or results.