Why Montreal Residents Are Ditching Gym Memberships for At-Home Personal Trainers in 2026

Walk into any gym in Montreal. Ask the front desk of your Griffintown gym or your Brossard gym how many active members they have versus how many people actually show up in a given week. If they’re honest with you, the numbers won’t match. Not even close.

Why are Montrealers cancelling their gym memberships to hire personal trainers instead?

That’s not to say that everyone who can afford to hire a trainer for home sessions is doing so. But for many people in Montreal right now, the reason that they are not at the gym as much as they used to be isn’t because they’ve given up on exercise. It’s because they’re doing something else that works better for them.

The gym membership everyone forgets they have

The obvious reason that most people won’t admit to is that they don’t use their gym membership enough.

Most people who join a gym are motivated to exercise for a short period of time. For example, after New Year’s, during summer, after a doctor’s visit, etc. It is normal for the gym membership to be forgotten after a few weeks. One missed session becomes two and before you know it, it is next month already and the membership is still being paid for.

Of course, the lack of use of gym memberships isn’t unique to Montreal. However, the following unique circumstances in the city make things worse for gym goers. The winters here are extremely long and freezing, often reaching down to -20°C. Long sidewalks may look like smooth roads for skating and strong winds may even make you feel colder after you walk a short distance. On top of that, long commutes to downtown Montreal combined with various constraints of parking near gyms and the highly changeable and often delayed public transportation system help solidify the notion that going to the gym is extremely difficult to do on a regular basis.

Of course, most people who sign up for gym membership are forgetful of their ongoing payments, but those who pay month after month and rarely go to the gym to work out are, in essence, throwing their hard-earned cash down the drain. With a home personal training session, the trainer will bring whatever equipment he/she deems necessary for your session, therefore you will not have to pay for the gym’s equipment that you hardly ever use.

What’s actually driving the switch in 2026

While the trend of hiring personal trainers instead of gym memberships is becoming more popular among wealthy clients, in Montreal it’s becoming a general trend as people realize that there are many good reasons for it.

Time is more valuable than money. Working from home, flexible schedules and telecommuting all became the new normal, ever since the onset of the health crisis. So many professionals now divide their time between work and family responsibilities, and fit in appointments and errands as best they can. As for going to the gym, to work out for 90 minutes, travel, shower and go back to work, that just doesn’t fit into their busy and fragmented daily schedules. Fitness sessions that last only 45 minutes, and that take place at home, are so much easier to fit in.

People got tired of paying for equipment they never touch. The vast majority of gym-goers use only a handful of machines, most often the treadmill, cycle, or elliptical and occasionally the leg press or rowing machine. An in-home personal training session includes everything you need for your training: bands, dumbbells, or a simple mat for floor work. You won’t have to pay for anything that you will use only occasionally.

Winter is over and so are the excuses. This point gets continually brought up throughout our conversations. Even though you may have a membership to a gym located within the downtown core of Montreal, the harsh weather tends to stop most people’s fitness regimens during the long winter months. Now that the seasons have changed, many people are surprised to realize that they have forgotten about their membership. Training at home eliminates this seasonality.

The intimidation factor is over. Many of our clients are beginners, returning to fitness after a time of inactivity, or, simply, nervous about going to a gym because everyone is watching you work out. The truth is, nobody likes to feel stupid or out of place when exercising. Your home or office provides a safe and comfortable environment to work out in. Don’t let intimidation prevent you from reaching your fitness goals!

Many people in Montreal already have a gym at home in their condos. With the ever growing Griffintown, Ville-Marie and South Shore condo towers, many residents of these buildings already have access to a small space to work out in. By hiring a personal trainer who comes to their home, they get to utilize a space that they already pay for in their condo fees.

People are done with cookie-cutter programs. Having a trainer working with you one-on-one in the comfort of your own home means that your trainer can build a program that takes into account your schedule, your injuries, your goals. This is in stark opposition to most gym programs that are simply templates designed for large group classes.

All of these factors add up to one conclusion: for a large section of the population in the Montreal metropolitan area, traditional gyms are no longer relevant to how most people live their lives today.

It’s not only about convenience — it’s about actually getting results

First of all, being easier to access does not necessarily mean in-home training is better. In reality, it often is better.

If you don’t show up to a mediocre workout, that means you got nothing out of it. Conversely, if you consistently do a sub-par workout, then 6 months of average workouts can get way better results than the absolute perfect workout that you barely made it to half the time.

Your schedule works for you with your trainer at home. Meaning you cannot cancel on your trainer because your trainer is coming to your home at an agreed upon time and your trainer is counting on you to have a successful workout. As a result of having someone to hold you accountable to your workouts you actually end up going to work out more frequently.

Furthermore, the home training session provides for much closer supervision than what is possible with a group fitness class. As a result, individuals recovering from an injury or those returning to physical activity after time away, as well as mothers who are regaining strength and physical fitness after postpartum, can greatly benefit from personal fitness training sessions held at their home.

Who this is actually working for across the city

This shift is happening to people of all kinds of backgrounds and living in all areas of Montreal. While there may be some specific reasons why this trend is occurring with particular individuals, in general, there are a number of reasons why in-home training is becoming so popular with so many people from so many different areas of Montreal.

Montrealers working downtown in the Griffintown, Ville-Marie, or South Shore area need to balance their fitness goals with the demands of a busy work schedule. As a result, time savings are of utmost importance to them when searching for a personal trainer.

In Montreal’s Rosemont, Ahuntsic and Verdun neighborhoods with high densities of parents and families with young children, trainers report that they are able to keep clients who have young children at home because they can train while the kids nap, after school or before bedtime with no need for babysitters.

Another point worth making is that individuals recovering from an injury or postpartum have specific needs to rebuild strength safely. They benefit from close supervision to make sure they are doing exercises correctly in order to avoid re-injury. Being able to complete sessions in the comfort of their own home also helps them to rebuild their strength without feeling self-conscious in front of others.

For those outside of Montreal, a lot of our home training clients are in the Brossard, Longueuil and South Shore areas. We often note that because of their homes, a lot of our clients have more space to work out, and with the right equipment, that can be a bonus for home training.

It is also the case that many experienced gym-goers have switched to in-home training because it is simply more efficient for them. Most gym-goers don’t need access to thirty different machines. They need someone who can work with them and design a program around their specific needs.

What about the cost?

The biggest objection…

A typical gym membership can cost anywhere from $30 to $80 per month for a basic membership. Although this seems inexpensive compared to hiring a personal trainer for sessions, there are many factors to consider when evaluating usage vs. access to work out.

Someone paying $50 a month for a gym but attending it only 4 times for the sake of that $50 per month (therefore paying $12.50 per session) has no coach, no plan, no guidance and can create their own program in 30 minutes. Someone paying for 2 in-home sessions per week at higher per-session rates but attending almost every session is attending dozens of fully-coached, personally-developed sessions per year. Those sessions are likely to lead to better results as more attention and care goes into planning each session.

Most people find that once they factor in the follow-through they actually get with in-home training, they end up spending way less money than they would with an unused gym membership. In fact, a lot of people who have cancelled gym memberships in the past find that in-home training is actually the more affordable option in the long run.

Furthermore, in-home trainers are usually open to negotiation and almost always sell packages of sessions which decrease the price per session compared to paying per session (versus gym memberships which ALWAYS increase in price over time).

Is this actually right for you?

If any of the following descriptions sound like you, then investigating this shift in thinking can only be beneficial:

• You are paying month after month for a membership to a gym that you barely use.
• Every winter you promise yourself that you will get back to your workout but you never seem to.
• You work out alone and would prefer to be working out with someone who can motivate and help you in your quest for fitness.
• Your schedule is such that you can’t make it to the gym during the times that they are open.
• You have tried the various fitness apps and programs but you never seem to get results that you are looking for.

It means you need a workout setup that is suited to your real life, not just some new expensive gym membership or fitness program that you’ll let lapse after a few weeks because it’s hard to use in your busy life.

The bottom line

The way people do fitness in Montreal has changed a lot lately. More than ever before, people care deeply about their health but are just looking for something that is going to work for them in their real lives. They have been misled by commercials for gyms and health clubs for too long. Many people also realize that they have been paying for a form of exercise that does not really fit into their schedules and that they can end up making excuses for not going. With the cold winters, terrible traffic, and the rapid expansion of condos, many people are no longer able to fit in a trip to the gym. Working out at home with a good personal trainer is now the most practical version of fitness for many people in Montreal.

Ready to train on your own terms? At Total Home Training (THT®), we bring certified personal trainers straight to your door anywhere in Montreal and the surrounding area — no commute, no crowds, no membership collecting dust. Contact us or call/email us at +1-450-465-1426/info@totalhometraining.com  to book your first session and build a plan around your real schedule, your real home, and your real goals.