America may be one of the most overweight countries in the world, but it is not from a lack of trying.
A study done by Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association shows that Americans have steadily been increasing aerobic activity since the year 2000. The study consisted of 40,794 online interviews, with the intention of focusing on core participants. Core participants consist of frequent and regular participants of a sport, such as running or jogging, and are typically the main buyers of equipment, services and user fees.
The study shows that Americans have become more regular exercisers. Core participants in a wide variety of aerobic exercises have increased steadily over the past year. For example, the number of runners and joggers have jumped a solid 5 percent since 2006, from 23.1 million to 24.2 million.
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises is the dramatic increase in non-traditional/off-road triathletes. Core members of this group have risen an amazing 48.5 percent over the past year. This increase puts the number at 279,000 runners which, though still a small group, is a promising sign. Traditional triathletes have also increased at a high rate, rising 28.9 percent to reach 467,000.
Other areas of aerobic fitness that have seen growth over the past year include walking for fitness, which grew a solid 8.4 percent, and track and field, which grew 27.7 percent.
Despite all of these positive numbers, it was not all good news for the aerobic fitness sector. Trail running took a hit and fell 15.8 percent from 1.5 million core runners to 1.3 million. Using a treadmill to get exercise took a smaller hit, but still decreased 2.4 percent from 2006 numbers.
Overall, the trends show that more and more Americans are doing some form of running on a regular basis. This is positive news for the running/jogging sector of the sporting goods market. The more runners out there, the more people there are to buy goods such as shoes and clothing from running specialty stores.
