Latest research center articles

Four months after our initial gyms reopening survey we ran a follow-up survey that found only 30.98% of gym members had returned to their gym. To learn more about the status of gyms currently, we asked 6,812 gym members about the reopening of their gyms.    Key Findings 23.93% of US gym members reported that their gyms have yet to reopen or are permanently closed  20.58% of gym members globally reported that their gyms are still closed - 18.28% have[…]

Prior to gyms reopening in May, we surveyed 10,824 gym members regarding how they felt about returning to their gyms and their memberships. Four months later, we have surveyed 5,055 gym members to learn just how many members have returned since gyms reopened, plan to return moving forward, and have canceled their memberships. This survey was run on RunRepeat.com, between August 1st and August 13th.   Key Findings Only 30.98% of gym members have returned to t[…]

This is a follow-up piece on our previous in-depth research on doping and performance of Russian athletes. We analyzed 24,020 track and field results from 3,731 events and 400 Russian athletes to understand the consequences of doping.     The 400 athletes competed at the Olympic Games at least once during the 1993-2019 period. ANA (authorized neutral athletes) who qualified for the Olympic Games 2016, but did not compete due to the blanket ban, were inclu[…]

“You can’t teach height” -  Red Auerbach We spent 2 months analyzing 24,489 records of 4,379 NBA players during 69 NBA seasons in order to show how the game of basketball evolved through the evolution of players’ height. Special note to Kirk Goldsberry, whose book “Sprawlball” inspired the creation of this research. This article is a height spinoff of “Sprawlball”.     Key findings: The average[…]

  RunRepeat, in partnership with The Professional Footballers' Association, has analyzed 2,073 statements from commentators in 80 soccer matches from the 2019/20 season. This is the first time a study of this kind has been conducted to understand if there is a difference in the way the soccer media talks about players of different skin color. The comments discussed 643 unique players of various races and skin tones.   Key findings The findings show bias[…]

This analysis covers 29,190 results achieved by 354 Russian athletes, dispersed over 4,691 events, during the 1993-2019 period.      Given the current controversy regarding doping at the Olympic Games, with a specific focus on Russian athletes, we decided to see what the actual numbers have to say. For this purpose, we focused only on athletics (track and field) and analyzed the results of Russian athletes who competed at the Summer Olympic Games duri[…]

  The world is in crisis because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between government lockdowns, layoffs, furloughs, work from home mandates, school closures, and sports facility shutdowns, we wanted to understand how this virus is affecting the exercise habits of people around the globe.  We surveyed 12,913 participants from 139 countries between March 24th and March 30th to gather data on how Coronavirus has changed their physical activity routines. Surprisingly,[…]

  In the face of this pandemic, some places are beginning their initial stages of reopening. With the disruption this crisis is having on the fitness industry, we wanted to understand how gym members feel about gyms reopening. We surveyed 10,824 gym members to learn if they plan to return to gyms upon reopening and whether they will be keeping their memberships or not. The survey was run on RunRepeat.com, between April 24th and May 1st, including respondents fro[…]

For this study, we analyzed 19.6 million results from over 16 thousand marathon races. We recently published our mega-study on the state of running, where we found that the world, and in particular, the marathoners from the US are getting slower. We became curious to see how the 50 individual states +D.C. are performing.   Feel free to use any material from this page, as long as you refer to this original source.     We've also created a tool[…]

  This stats page is a simple look at the participation patterns of runners in the 5 most common distances - 5K, 10K, Half marathon, Marathon and Ultra. In the next tables, we show what % of the runners run 1, 2, 3, etc. or more races in a particular distance, per year, to see which distance has the most insatiable participants that keep coming back for more. We've decided to call this metric Obsession.    Key Findings  Ultrarunnin[…]