GymNation redraws the thobe for a fitness generation
GymNation’s new CMO Rory McEntee on the region’s first Muscle Thobe and Ghutra collection, and what it says about how the GCC now trains, dresses and lives
14 August, 2026
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GymNation has launched the region’s first Muscle Thobe and Ghutra collection, a product designed around how a growing number of people in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC now approach fitness, as part of daily life rather than something separate from it.
The launch comes as health and wellbeing move up the agenda across the region, supported by national strategies such as Saudi Vision 2030 and We The UAE 2031.
We spoke to Rory McEntee, GymNation‘s new chief marketing officer, about the thinking behind the collection, the consumer trends shaping the fitness market, and how the brand sees the industry evolving over the next five years.
GymNation has just unveiled the world’s first Muscle Thobe and Ghutra collection. What consumer insight led to the idea, and what does it tell us about how fitness culture is evolving across Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC?
The insight came from something far more insightful than a data point; it came from speaking to our own members. Across Saudi Arabia in particular, we noticed a pattern: men would train hard, in full performance kit, and then the second the session ended, they’d change straight back into a thobe. They told us they wanted a premium athleisure outfit as a comfortable and stylish option before and after training, commuting to the gym or socialising with friends.
That gap told us something important about where fitness culture in the region is heading. This generation isn’t choosing between tradition and training – they’re holding both, comfortably, at the same time. The Muscle Thobe isn’t a novelty product. It’s a direct response to how a young Saudi actually lives: proud of his culture while all serious about his health. We built it in consultation with members and cultural advisors precisely because it had to respect the garment, not just reference it.
Your latest survey found that 94 per cent of people aspire to live healthier lives, while 43 per cent have increased their spending on health and fitness over the past year. What broader consumer trends are you seeing, and how are they shaping GymNation’s strategy?
What we’re seeing underneath those numbers is a move from fitness-as-vanity to fitness-as-identity. Training is becoming part of how people see themselves and how they want to be seen – socially, culturally, professionally.
From a trend perspective, mental health has overtaken aesthetics as the primary reason people train – in our survey of over 15,000 members, 93 per cent told us they want to improve their mental wellbeing, which tells you training is now as much about stress management and control as it is about how you look. Second, and this is the one that really shapes our strategy: 51 per cent of our members had no gym membership at all in the 12 months before joining us. That’s not people switching brands; that’s genuinely new demand being created – which means the market isn’t a fixed pie we’re fighting over; it’s actually growing.
Third, the barriers are still real. Affordability remains the single biggest reason non-gym-goers stay on the sidelines – 58 per cent cite price as the blocker – and gymtimidation hasn’t gone away either, particularly for women, where it still affects half of those we surveyed. So the trend isn’t just “more people want to be healthy,” it’s “more people want to be healthy, but a lot of them still don’t feel the industry is built for them.”
That’s exactly what shapes our strategy. If price and intimidation are the two biggest barriers, our job isn’t to build for the people already comfortable in a gym – it’s to build for the 51 per cent who’ve never walked into one before. Affordable access, non-intimidating environments, and content and community that meet people before they’re already converted. We’ve built our entire model around removing those two barriers specifically, and the data keeps telling us it’s the right call.
Government initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030 and We The UAE 2031 have placed greater emphasis on sport and wellbeing. How have these initiatives changed the fitness landscape, and where do you see the biggest opportunities for the private sector?
These initiatives did something the private sector alone couldn’t have done at the same speed – they made fitness and wellbeing a national conversation, not just a personal one. Once health becomes part of a country’s stated ambitions, participation stops being a niche interest and starts becoming a mainstream expectation. That’s a fundamentally different market to build in.
The opportunity for the private sector is to translate that top-down ambition into something accessible at street level. Government vision sets the direction; it’s on operators like us to make sure a 24/7, low-cost, high-quality gym is actually within reach of the people the vision is meant to serve – not just the top end of the market. The biggest opportunity I see over the next few years is infrastructure at scale: more locations, in more neighbourhoods, priced so that “aspiring to be healthier” doesn’t stay aspirational. That’s exactly what our expansion plan is built around.
We’re seeing more brands move away from global, one-size-fits-all campaigns in favour of products and experiences designed specifically for local communities. Do you think localisation is becoming a competitive advantage for businesses in the Middle East?
Yes, and I’d go further: I think it’s becoming the competitive advantage, not just one of several. For a long time, brands entering this region ran the same campaign, the same product line, the same messaging they’d run in London or New York, with a light regional coat of paint. That approach is losing effectiveness fast, because consumers here are more discerning, more online, and more aware than ever of when something has been built for them versus adapted for them.
Nike’s Pro Hijab and Gymshark’s modest activewear line both showed the same thing in the global sportswear space – that community-led design outperforms top-down design. The Muscle Thobe sits in that same tradition, but specific to this market and this garment. Brands that treat the GCC as a genuine design input – not just a distribution market – are the ones that will win loyalty here over the next decade. The ones that don’t will keep wondering why their global campaigns underperform locally. Even between the UAE and KSA, we adapt all our comms, events, and overall approach, as the markets and consumers especially are very unique.
Looking ahead, how do you see the fitness industry evolving over the next five years, and what role do you think innovation, community and technology will play in attracting and retaining the next generation of members?
Most of the industry is still thinking about AI the wrong way. It’s been treated as a back-office efficiency tool – chatbots, scheduling, the odd automated report – when the real opportunity is using it to actually understand the member in front of you. The winners over the next five years won’t be the ones with the best or most equipment – they’ll be the ones who use AI to understand behaviour at an individual level and act on it.
That’s exactly the thinking behind the new GymNation app we’re rolling out this month. It’s not a bolt-on loyalty scheme with a few badges – it’s built around genuine behavioural science: understanding why a member trains three times one week and zero the next, what actually keeps someone consistent versus what just looks motivating on paper, and using gamification that’s rooted in real psychology rather than generic point-scoring. The goal is an app that knows a member well enough to nudge them at the right moment, not just log what they’ve already done.
But I’d push back on anyone who thinks technology alone solves retention – it doesn’t. Community does the heavy lifting, and no amount of AI replaces a member showing up because their friends are there and someone will notice if they don’t. So alongside the app, we’re investing heavily in more IRL: fitness challenges, social events, and moments that turn a gym membership into a community you actually belong to. The formula I’d bet on for the next five years is that combination – AI that understands you as an individual, and community that makes sure you’re not doing this alone. Brands that only build one half of that are going to struggle to hold members through the next cycle.
