By Erin Phelan
Fitness Industry Council of Canada
Exercise science is entering an extraordinary period.
Two years ago, the NIH-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) gave us a glimpse of just how far the field had come. In a landmark 2024 Nature study, researchers made thousands of molecular measurements across blood, plasma and 18 different tissues in male and female rats during eight weeks of endurance training. They identified widespread changes involving metabolism, mitochondrial function, immune activity and stress-response pathways.
In other words, scientists were beginning to map what exercise actually does inside the body – not simply whether it improves health, but how its biological effects unfold across tissues and systems.
That was two years ago. More recent research continues to challenge and deepen what we know about exercise: how little can make a difference, what strength training really requires, how fitness relates to healthy aging, what exercise may do for a sleep-deprived brain, and whether being fit protects us from spending too much of the day sitting.
And fun fact: a remarkable amount of this research has a Canadian connection.
Can exercise help the brain when we haven’t slept?
In August, McGill University researchers reported a fascinating experiment involving 54 healthy young adults who underwent 30 hours of sleep deprivation. Participants then either completed 20 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous cycling, took a 90-minute nap, or did neither.
Three days later, those who had exercised or napped performed about 22 per cent better on a memory test than participants who did neither.
Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research also suggested the two interventions worked differently. The nap appeared to restore brain resources, while exercise helped the sleep-deprived brain use its remaining resources more efficiently.
Exercise is not a substitute for sleep. But for the fitness industry, the study is another reminder that the benefits members receive from physical activity can extend far beyond the reasons that bring them through our doors.
What does fitness mean at 65, 75 or 85?
A major study published August 10 in JAMA Network Open examined physical fitness and mortality among 13,423 adults aged 65 and older.
Researchers didn’t treat “fitness” as one thing. Participants were objectively assessed for cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, flexibility, balance and agility, and were followed for a median of seven years.
Higher fitness across multiple domains was associated with lower all-cause mortality. Balance and agility, lower-body strength and cardiorespiratory fitness showed particularly strong associations with lower risk.
The study was observational, so it cannot prove that improving those measures itself caused people to live longer. But it points to something important for Canada’s fitness industry.
An aging population isn’t simply a demographic opportunity. Physical fitness itself may increasingly become part of how we understand healthy aging.
Strength, cardiovascular fitness, balance and agility aren’t abstract clinical outcomes. They are capacities fitness facilities help people develop every day.
It begs the question: Are we building environments where a 70-year-old can develop them as confidently as a 25-year-old?
Does strength training need to be so complicated?
This spring, the American College of Sports Medicine published its first major update to its resistance-training Position Stand since 2009.
Rather than conducting one experiment, researchers synthesized 137 systematic reviews representing more than 30,000 participants to determine what the accumulated evidence says about resistance training.
The headline is refreshingly straightforward: resistance training works – and for most healthy adults, complicated doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Compared with no exercise, resistance training improved strength, muscle size, power, endurance, gait speed, balance and other measures of physical function.
Specific programming variables mattered for specific goals. Heavier loads were particularly useful for maximizing strength, while greater weekly volume supported muscle growth. But equipment type, training to momentary muscle failure, exercise complexity and periodization did not consistently affect outcomes.
For the fitness industry, that’s a powerful message.
Strength training is increasingly relevant across the lifespan, but we can still make it intimidating. The evidence gives us an opportunity to create simpler entry points for people who don’t want to become expert lifters—they simply want to become stronger.
Can 60 seconds of hard exercise improve fitness?
McMaster University researchers put another long-running exercise-science question to a rigorous test: can a very small dose of intense exercise meaningfully improve cardiorespiratory fitness?
In a randomized controlled trial published in 2025, 37 insufficiently active young adults were assigned either to six weeks of low-volume sprint interval training or to a non-exercise control group.
Three times a week, the training group completed a 10-minute cycling session containing three 20-second “all-out” sprints—just 60 seconds of very hard exercise within each session.
After six weeks, peak oxygen uptake, or VO₂peak, had increased significantly compared with the control group. Sixteen of the 17 people who trained were classified as responders, and exercise endurance improved as well.
This isn’t evidence that Canadians should replace every workout with 60 seconds of cycling. The participants were young, the sprints were extremely intense, and the sessions included warm-up and recovery.
But it does challenge an assumption built into many fitness products: that worthwhile exercise always requires a large block of time.
Short coached sessions and credible express workouts may give members another way to remain active when the alternative is doing nothing.
Can a workout protect us from sitting all day?
A 2026 Dalhousie University study asked whether becoming more aerobically fit could protect blood vessels against the effects of prolonged sitting.
Researchers studied 21 healthy young adults. Eleven completed 12 weeks of high-intensity interval training while 10 maintained their usual activity. Before and after the training period, researchers examined blood-vessel function in the popliteal artery behind the knee before and after approximately two hours of uninterrupted sitting.
The HIIT participants became fitter.
But improved aerobic fitness did not prevent the acute vascular response to prolonged sitting. After approximately two hours in a chair, the artery’s ability to dilate was still impaired.
It’s a small study examining one particular vascular response, so it certainly doesn’t show that exercise cannot counter the broader health risks of sedentary behaviour.
But it does challenge a familiar assumption: that completing a workout gives us a free pass for the rest of the day.
For the fitness industry, that opens a bigger conversation. Our role doesn’t necessarily end when someone leaves the facility. Walking, movement breaks, active transportation and reducing prolonged sedentary time can all become part of how we help Canadians think about movement.
The science is expanding our opportunity
These studies ask very different questions, but together they tell an interesting story.
The more we learn, the harder it becomes to think of exercise as simply a workout. It is a biological stimulus with effects that reach far beyond the gym.
For the fitness industry, this expands the conversation about what we provide.
We aren’t only helping people burn calories, change their appearance or complete workouts. We help Canadians build strength, cardiovascular fitness, balance, physical capacity and more movement into their lives.
There is a responsibility that comes with that opportunity. We need to resist turning every study into a marketing claim. We need to understand who was studied, what researchers actually measured, and what the results do—and do not—demonstrate.
Because the stronger exercise science becomes, the stronger our industry’s understanding of it needs to become too.
Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) is the not-for profit trade association that represents the voice of fitness facility operators across Canada. Representing more than 6,000 facilities with more than six-million members nationwide, FIC pursues a legislative agenda in the hope of bettering the fitness industry for both consumers and operators. FIC aims to work with both industry and government to improve the health and physical activity levels of Canadians.
Sources
- Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC). “Temporal dynamics of the multi-omic response to endurance exercise training.” Nature, Vol. 629, 2024, pp. 174–183. Published May 1, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06877-w.
Nature — Full Study - McGill University. “Workout or nap? Either can help your sleepless brain, study finds.” McGill University Newsroom, August 2026. The McGill-led research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and examined exercise and napping following 30 hours of sleep deprivation.
McGill University — Study Summary - Wu, Min-Chen, et al. “Physical Fitness and All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults.” JAMA Network Open, Vol. 9, No. 8, 2026, e2628227. Published August 10, 2026. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.28227.
JAMA Network Open — Full Study - Currier, Brad S., et al. “American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance Training Prescription for Muscle Function, Hypertrophy, and Physical Performance in Healthy Adults: An Overview of Reviews.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Vol. 58, No. 4, 2026, pp. 851–872. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003897.
PubMed — ACSM Position Stand
PMC — Full Open-Access Article - Renwick, John R. M., et al. “Six Weeks of Low-Volume Sprint Interval Training Improves Peak Oxygen Uptake Compared to a Non-Exercise Control: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, Vol. 35, No. 9, 2025, e70130. DOI: 10.1111/sms.70130. The research was conducted at McMaster University, with collaboration from Queen’s University.
Wiley — Full Study
PubMed — Study Record - Liu, Haoxuan, et al. “The impact of a 12-week high-intensity interval training program on popliteal vascular responses to prolonged sitting.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2026. Dalhousie University.
PubMed — Dalhousie Study
