Looking at the US, we can see searches for local gyms have been growing at a strong pace since they dipped in March 2020. Search interest levels in 2021 are now far higher than they are normally for this time of year.

With gyms set to be busier going forward, we decided to take a closer look at the workout conversation.

Don’t skip leg day, bro

Even if you don’t go to the gym, you’ll likely know the concept of workout days specific to certain parts of the body. For example, one day may be dedicated to your arms, another to your chest.

We used Brandwatch Consumer Research to pick up Twitter and forum mentions of the following days:

• Ab day
• Arm day
• Back day
• Chest day
• Leg day
• Rest day
• Shoulder day

First, let’s take a look at the volume of these types of posts.

From 2017 to 2018, numbers fell fairly steadily, and then levelled out through 2019. Then, in 2020, we saw the early signs of a surge, only for the pandemic to knock the gains away.

We saw some recovery in the summer of 2020, but we’ve seen real gains in 2021. June 2021 levels are where they were in August 2017 and, based on the Google data we looked at earlier, we can expect this to rise.

This all suggests that an increasing number of people are exercising and trying to get fit. Let the gym owners and sport clothing sellers rejoice.

But let’s not end there.

It’s a common trope that people will spend far more time on their chest and arm muscles than their leg muscles for aesthetic reasons. The idea of ‘skipping leg day’ is a meme in and of itself.

This helps to explain why leg day is mentioned far more than any others, but it’s not all memes and jokes. Many of these mentions include people declaring it’s their leg day. It seems like the meme has broken through and encouraged gym goers to engage in a more balanced workout.

Unsurprisingly ‘rest day’ ranks highly as well. Rest days are just as important as your workout days, giving your body time to recuperate and helping to avoid injuries, so it’s good to see this get mention than back, arm, chest, shoulder, and ab days combined.

Finally, let’s see what body part people are focusing on each day of the week.

Wednesdays are clearly a popular day for working out. Not only is it the top day for abs, arms, and legs, it saw the most mentions overall with 145k. That said, Thursday’s 140k came a close second.

Sundays lead the way for rest days. Is this due to gym goers training hard all week, or due to a couple of heavy nights on the town at the weekend? We won’t deign to guess, especially when both reasons are deserving of a rest day.

What we can say for sure is that if you’re looking for a quieter gym, Sunday is your best day. But even if no one’s around, that’s no excuse to skip leg day.

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Stay safe,

The Brandwatch React team