With 200 clubs, Cumberland County company is the largest Planet Fitness franchisee in the world

With 200 gyms, a Cumberland County company is now the largest Planet Fitness franchisee. Lower Allen Township-based National Fitness Partners recently opened its 200th Planet Fitness location. The gym opened on East Main Street in Collegeville, Montgomery County.

“Opening our 200th club is a remarkable milestone and a powerful reflection of the strength of our team and our longstanding commitment as a Planet Fitness franchisee,” Stephen Kindler Jr., president and CEO of National Fitness Partners, said in a news release. “As we mark 20 years as a Planet Fitness franchisee later this summer, this achievement reaffirms our mission to provide everyone with a welcoming, high-value fitness experience—wherever they are on their journey.”

National Fitness Partners is a portfolio company of Argonne Capital Group, an Atlanta-based private investment firm. Stephen Kindler Jr., the president and CEO of National Fitness Partners, is the grandson of Trudy and Franz Kindler, who opened the West Shore Health Club in 1967.

In 2005, the Kindler family became a Planet Fitness franchisee for the first time. That year, the Kindler family converted two of their gyms, the East Shore Health Club on Allentown Boulevard in Lower Paxton Township and the World Gym on Paxton Street in Swatara Township, into Planet Fitness locations.

A year later, the family’s other gym, the West Shore Health Club, was also converted into a Planet Fitness (It later relocated to its current site on the Carlisle Pike).

From 2007 to 2015, the family focused on growing its footprint in the Harrisburg-area market and expanded into Williamsport, Carlisle, Chambersburg, Shippensburg and State College. National Fitness Partners was founded in 2016 in partnership with Argonne. At the time, it acquired 10 Planet Fitness locations in central Pennsylvania from the Kindler family. In September 2023, the company had 121 gyms in eight states. Since then, National Fitness Partners has acquired or opened 79 Planet Fitness clubs and expanded into eight additional states. National Fitness Partners recently completed its 15th acquisition when it acquired 21 gyms in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois.

The company has gyms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delawre, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

“We can confirm that National Fitness Partners is currently the largest franchisee,” Heather Pearson, a spokesperson for Planet Fitness, said in an e-mail. Planet Fitness was founded in 1992 in Dover, New Hampshire.

As of March 31, 2025, Planet Fitness had approximately 20.6 million members and 2,741 clubs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Panama, Mexico, Australia and Spain.

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Source: Daniel Urie | PennLive