How important is it that gym equipment was made in your Country?
Introduction
Since 2021, we’ve been asking the Garage Gym Experiment community the same question: when you buy gym equipment, how important is it that it was made in your country? After eight polls and five years of answers, we have a good picture of how home gym owners feel about it, and how that’s changed.
Below are two looks at the data. The first is a snapshot of where things stand in our January 2026 poll. The second tracks every poll since April 2021, showing which answers have held steady and which have moved.
2026 Results
The 2026 poll asked how important it was that your gym equipment was made in your own country.
- Not important: 40.7%. The largest group, about 4 in 10.
- Important: 30.5%. Roughly 3 in 10.
- Neutral: 22.3%. About 1 in 5 don’t lean either way.
- Almost essential: 6.5%. A small group that treats origin as close to a requirement.
The main takeaway is that it’s closer than the top bar suggests. Combine “important” and “almost essential” and 37.1% care about where their gear is made. That’s only 3.6 points behind the 40.7% who don’t.
So it’s a split community, not an indifferent one. Most buyers won’t choose gear on origin alone, but more than a third factor it in.
How has it trended?
We’ve been tracking this question since 2021.
The trend chart below tracks the same question across eight polls, from April 2021 to January 2026.
Not important (red) has been the top answer in every poll. It started at 37.1%, climbed to a high of 46.4% in February 2023 and January 2024, dropped to 37.2% in January 2025, and sits at 40.7% now.
Important (orange) has moved the most. It peaked at 35.8% in November 2021, slid to 25.5% by 2023 and 2024, then jumped back to 32.0% in 2025 and 30.5% in 2026.
Neutral (green) fell from 29.0% to around 19% in 2021 and 2022, then settled into a steady 22 to 25% range. It was exactly 22.3% in both 2025 and 2026.
Almost essential (blue) has always been small, between 3.8% and 8.5%. Its high came in January 2025, and it’s now 6.5%.
The story falls into three stretches:
- 2021: It’s important to see where it begins. In November 2021, the people who care (important plus almost essential, 42.8%) outnumbered the “not important” group.
- 2022 to 2024: Interest faded. The share who care dropped to about 30%, and “not important” held around 45%.
- 2025 to 2026: Interest came back. The share who care jumped to 40.6% in 2025, outnumbering “not important” again. It eased to 37.1% in 2026 but is still well above the 2022 to 2024 low.
In short, most home gym owners still don’t treat origin as a deciding factor. But the share who do has grown noticeably in the last two years.
