The internet is the world’s greatest source of information for fitness enthusiasts. Whether your goal is to build muscle, lose fat, or get in the best shape possible for your sport, you can find everything you need online.
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However, finding this type of information can be liking walking through a minefield – oftentimes in your search for reliable guidance, you will come across all sorts of bro-science, fake news, and downright dangerous content!
That’s why we’ve put together this master guide to the best fitness websites available.
TL;DR – Top 10 Fitness Websites
In a hurry? Here are the top 10 fitness websites by category:
- Best Overall for Fitness – Bodybuilding.com
- Best for Health & Wellness – Dr. Axe
- Best for Fitness & Exercise – Livestrong
- Best for Men’s Fitness – Men’s Health
- Best for Women’s Fitness – Muscle & Fitness Hers
- Best for Bodybuilding – Muscle & Fitness
- Best for Nutrition & Weight Loss – Food Heaven
- Best for Personal Training – Scott Laidler
- Best for Functional Fitness Training – F45 Training
- Best for Medical Health – WebMD
Comparison of the Top 10 Fitness Websites
Your health and fitness is not something to be taken lightly. Unless the information that you are following is 100 % reliable, you’re opening yourself up to wasted effort at best and serious injury at worst. The problem, of course, is that you don’t have the time to check through the credentials and reliability of every fitness website out there.
That’s where we come in! Our team of fitness professionals has meticulously analyzed the fitness website landscape to identify the most comprehensive, professional, and reliable sites on the web. This has allowed us to provide fitness enthusiasts with a master list of 10 of the best fitness websites online.
Bookmark and use these sites exclusively to give yourself the fitness advantage that you need to achieve your goals!
What is a Fitness Website?
A fitness website is a site that is designed to provide fitness enthusiasts with advice, inspiration, workouts, or nutritional guidance. They may be the creation of anything from a guy living in his mother’s basement to the world’s oldest and most respected bodybuilding conglomerate (I’m talking about you, Muscle & Fitness!)
Obviously, this covers a huge range of quality and quantity of content. It’s not surprising, then, that you need to choose your fitness sites carefully!
Types of Fitness
Health and Wellness
Health and wellness sites are designed to provide guidance on general health issues, rather than specifically being focused on fitness. Topics may include mental health and wellbeing, preventative health measures, immunity-boosting nutritional and lifestyle practices, and natural medicine.
Fitness and Exercise
Fitness and exercise websites are all about working out. They provide guidance on all aspects of fitness and cover topics which may include:
- Gym workouts
- CrossFit
- Bodyweight training
- Fitness tips
- Resistance band training
- Bootcamp workouts
- Cardiovascular fitness
These sites will often provide you with sample programs for weight loss, general fitness, and muscle gain, though bodybuilding is not their main focus. There may also be limited dietary and nutritional advice on a fitness website. The best fitness websites will also provide you with information on workout recovery.
Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding websites are all about building muscle. Of all the fitness websites out there, this is the category that contains the greatest amount of questionable content.
There are literally thousands of websites that are pushing useless, outdated, debunked, or downright ridiculous advice on how to build muscle. Many of them are designed to push expensive and useless supplements to their readers.
In order to avoid all of these time-wasting bodybuilding websites, look for those that are associated with such acknowledged bodybuilding authorities as Brad Schoenfeld, Ben Greenfield, Robb Wolf, Doug Brignole, Menno Henselmans, or Lee Labrada. A quality site will provide you with detailed, referenced topics like training, nutrition, and recovery advice. It should also feature videos detailing proper exercise and workout form.
Nutrition and Weight Loss
Nutrition and weight loss is another category of the fitness website space where there is a lot of questionable content. Many of them are built around specific diets and are primarily interested in selling products related to that diet.
Look for websites that are created by professionals in the field of nutrition and weight-loss science. Such professionals may include dietitians, nutritionists, or personal trainers.
Be wary, too, of websites that promise rapid fat loss. If a site tells you that you can lose more than a couple of pounds per week, we suggest clicking out of it and finding a more realistic authority site.
Personal Training
Personal training fitness websites are created by personal fitness trainers to generate more business. They also act as a portal through which personalized trainer sessions take place.
However, they often contain quality content to do with training techniques, motivation, workout recovery, and nutrition. You can generally put more trust in information on a personal trainer website than one that was started up by Joe Bloggs in his basement.
Functional Fitness
A functional training website is one that focuses on workouts that are designed to simulate everyday life. These may include sports performance, improving balance and proprioception, plyometric workouts, and developing explosiveness.
Functional training workouts often occur in an outdoor environment. Functional training is designed to provide you with skills and benefits outside of the workout environment.
A good functional trainer website will clearly explain the exercises and the skills that are being developed through them. They should include video descriptions of the exercises.
Medical Health
Medical health websites are designed to provide reliable, comprehensive information regarding medical conditions. These websites should be created by medical professionals with all content being vetted by a medical board.
A good medical health site will provide detailed information that is broken down to make it easy for the everyday reader to understand. It should include lots of visual content in the form of graphics and video to achieve this goal.
Why Use a Fitness Website?
A quality fitness website will provide you with a free source of health and fitness guidance. Fitness, muscle gain, and weight loss can be very confusing topics due to the wide range of opinions and advice.
When you find a reliable online source of information, you are able to cut through all of the fake news and move ahead with confidence.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Fitness Websites
Benefits of Fitness Websites
- Free information and guidance
- Exercise videos and descriptions
- Up-to-date guidance on the latest fitness-related science
- Free sample workouts
- Source of inspiration and motivation
- Provides sample meal plans, diets, and nutritional advice
- Guide you through proper workout recovery
Drawbacks of Fitness Websites
- A lot of fitness websites are not reliable
- May give you unsafe exercises and workouts
- They may simply be covers to push products and training programs of dubious value
What are the Best Fitness Websites?
When you are searching for a reliable fitness website, look first to check that the site is not simply a cover to sell products. If every article is trying to push a product or training course, give it a miss.
A good fitness website will provide detailed information on working out that is more than the same broscience regurgitated. Articles should provide you with a list of references to peer-reviewed research studies.
A quality fitness website will be supported by people who have standing in the fitness community. This may include personal trainers, gym owners, and medical professionals.
Look also for a fitness website that provides you with video descriptions that detail proper exercise form. The site should also be regularly updated and keep up with the latest fitness research.
Top 10 Fitness Websites
Best Overall – Bodybuilding.com
Don’t be put off by the name – Bodybuilding.com encompasses a lot more than straight out bodybuilding. It may have started out that way but has now morphed into the web’s most comprehensive health and fitness site, bar none.
In addition to being a respected source of information on all things training, nutrition, weight loss, muscle gain, how to get strong, and workout recovery related, they are also the world’s largest online fitness store. On this mega-site you will find more than 19,000 fitness articles, 10 million tracked workouts, 1,700 recipes, and more than 3,000 workout videos.
Best for Health and Wellness – Dr. Axe
For more than a decade, Dr. Axe has been the go-to resource for millions of people wanting to get straightforward, reliable advice on their health and fitness needs. Dr. Josh Axe is a certified doctor of chiropractic, a certified doctor of natural medicine, and a clinical nutritionist.
The website covers such topics as natural medicine, nutrition, fitness, healthy recipes, DIY health remedies, and trending health and wellness news. The website currently has in excess of 17 million unique monthly visitors. The content team includes a number of medical and health professionals, including Josh’s wife, Chelsea Axe, who is a fitness expert and personal trainer.
The health section on the site includes mental health, allergies, brain health, and gut health ( which is Dr. Axe’s specialty). There is also a comprehensive nutrition section, as well as sections on recipes, essential oils, beauty, and fitness.
Dr. Axe also has a large library of videos on all manner of health and fitness related topics. He even hosts a podcast where he interviews some of the leading voices in the health and wellness industry.
Best for Fitness and Exercise – Livestrong
Livestrong has, over the last decade or so, been working to fulfill its mission of helping its visitors to live stronger, healthier, and happier lives. To achieve that goal they have sections dedicated to getting fit, eating better, losing weight, and living well.
The ‘Get Fit’ sections provide workouts and exercise guides to help you get in shape regardless of your current condition. Livestrong’s article database is comprehensive and deep. As an example of this, they provide more than 20 subcategories in their fitness section alone!
The Weight Loss section of Livestrong provides a range of evidence-based programs to help you achieve your weight loss goals. The nutrition-focused guides, recipes, and tips in the Eat Better section will set you up for sustained long term success so that you don’t pile the weight back on.
The Live Well section of the site provides you a full range of medical health information to help you live your best life. The site even includes a My Plate calorie counter, which is a user-friendly app to help you achieve your body composition goals.
Livestrong features content from some of the most respected names in the fitness community and is one of the most trusted fitness sources on the internet.
Best for Men – Men’s Health
Men’s Health is the online companion to the popular magazine. It provides in-depth content geared towards professional men who are interested in taking greater control over their physical, mental, and emotional lives.
In doing so, they cover everything from fashion and grooming to health, fitness, and weight loss in addition to cutting edge gear, the latest in entertainment, science, and more. The website draws upon the vast magazine library to provide a massive amount of content. They regularly feature interviews with and training programs of the world’s leading sports and entertainment personalities.
Best for Women – Muscle & Fitness Hers
Muscle & Fitness Hers is the companion to the main Muscle & Fitness website. With sections on workouts, nutrition, supplements, athletes, and celebrities and in-depth features, this is one of the most comprehensive websites for women intent on getting fit that you will find.
They also have an extensive women’s exercise database, lots of female-centric workouts, and a whole lot of training and nutritional motivation.
Best for Bodybuilding – Muscle & Fitness
In 1935, a 16-year-old Canadian kid by the name of Joe Weider started a magazine at his parent’s kitchen table that would eventually become Muscle & Fitness. The magazine has become the most read and widely respected bodybuilding publication on the planet and Joe Weider is widely recognized as the Father of Modern Bodybuilding.
The online version of Muscle & Fitness has likewise established itself as a leader in the industry and is our pick as the best bodybuilding website online. The power of Muscle & Fitness online lies in its massive archive of magazine material, much of which it publishes online. It also frequently features articles and video material from the world’s top bodybuilders, both past and present.
Muscle & Fitness does a great job of keeping up with the latest trends, scientific findings, and research in the fitness and bodybuilding world!
The workouts section of the website is comprehensive, with a huge exercise database, workout tips, training programs, athlete and celebrity workouts, and exercise videos. There are also large sections on muscle building nutrition, mass building supplementation, getting ripped, and workout recovery and recuperation.
The Muscle & Fitness site also hosts a podcast series called ‘Reps’ which goes in-depth on all things bodybuilding.
Best for Nutrition and Weight Loss – Food Heaven
Food Heaven is a complete nutritional guide created by a couple of registered dieticians. Both Wendy and Jess have Master’s Degrees in Nutrition, which is a great start to instilling confidence. They started Food Heaven in 2011 as a creative outlet and a way to build a community around their love of food.
Over the last 9 years, the site has grown to become an in-depth, reliable, and simple yet comprehensive guide to sound nutrition and weight loss. The underlying philosophy of Food Heaven is that healthy, nutritious food should be delicious and accessible. Wendy and Jess take a ‘Health at Every Size’ approach, so you will find plenty of resources on intuitive eating and body respect.
The Top 10 articles on the website will get rid of all of your eating confusion and transform the way you eat. The cooking section of the site is divided into full plates, small bites, and reader favorites. There is also a cool meal planning challenge along with a raft of resources to keep you motivated and on track with your nutrition.
Additionally, Wendy and Jess host a podcast in which they interview health and nutrition experts to help listeners to lead healthier, more balanced lives. They also provide a regular newsletter to their subscribers.
Best for Personal Training – Scott Laidler Personal Training
Scott Laidler is a trainer to the stars. He has got some of the world’s most well-known movie stars, athletes, and celebrities into the shape of their lives and he promises to do the same thing for his clients.
He is acknowledged by many as the premier personal trainer in the world. His website is a great gateway into Scott’s world. He offers 6, 12, or 24-week programs to achieve your body composition, strength, and fitness goals.
Scott is well known for his flexibility and has demonstrated it through adapting training regimens to local Covid-19 restrictions as well as moving in between the home and gym as necessary.
Scott also offers a complimentary consultation call. Scott’s website includes some excellent fitness and training articles and he also hosts a training podcast.
Best for Functional Training – F45 Training
F45 Training is a functional fitness training website. It is based upon the F45 workout phenomenon that has swept around the globe.
This is a mixture of circuit and HIIT style workouts that are geared toward everyday movement. The website breaks down every single F45 workout to give you a good overview of how everything works.
The online database covers thousands of exercises and the site will guide you to your nearest F45 training center. You can even get a free trial workout through the website!
Best for Medical Health – WebMD
The number one Medical Health website of 2020 is WebMD. Over the last decade, the health professionals behind WebMD have created the world’s most comprehensive medical health portal. With contributors from all over the world, WebMD has a massive database of in-depth articles on all matters medical.
Each article is referenced in peer-reviewed research studies and a medical board reviews everything that ends up online. Another strength of WebMD is that all of the articles are written in such a way that they are easily accessible by the everyday reader. They include plenty of visuals in the form of graphics and videos to make the content enjoyable and easy to digest.
The site is dedicated to being the world’s best and most reliable source of health performance information (i.e. how to lose tummy fat) as well as health research needs (i.e. what is type 2 diabetes?).
The site includes a comprehensive health A-Z, along with drug and supplement reviews. The Living Healthy section breaks down into sub-sections on diet and weight management, weight loss and obesity, food and recipes, and fitness and exercise.
There is also a comprehensive family and pregnancy section. Additional resources include a symptom checker, WebMD blogs, podcasts, newsletters, an insurance guide, questions, and answers, find a doctor, a children’s conditions A-Z and a surgeries and procedures A-Z.
All of that provides plenty of reasons why you should bookmark WebMD as your number one medical and health resource.
Take-Home Message
When it comes to your health and fitness you don’t want to take any chances. Rather than relying on Google to take you to the advice you need, stick with the Top 10 sites that we have vetted and confirmed. That way you’ll know that you are getting only the most reliable, up to date and comprehensive content from the best fitness websites online today.
