Best Workout Apps: Guide and Review

Choose from bodyweight, running, dumbbell, barbell, or kettlebell training plans. You also might like to do this in your local park or at home as a home workout. The app incorporates HIIT into 30-minute sessions, and there are over 1000 workout variations to choose from. At the start, you’re asked to fill out a quick questionnaire to establish your goals, and then you’ll be given a handy plan to follow for up to 12 weeks.

Apple Fitness+ App

She currently lives in Michigan with her husband, daughter, and blind rescue dog. MTNTOUGH is tailor-made for hunters and outdoor enthusiasts to help them get the most from the days they spend in the backcountry. It features a variety of programs spread across seven exciting categories, including Backcountry Hunter Training, Military & LEO Application Training, and Minimal Equipment Training. If you’re feeling tight after high-octane workouts like CrossFit, you should check out this app to get a good stretch. The daily guided routines are designed to improve your body’s range of motion and then gain better body awareness. Our team of Men’s Health fitness editors, including certified trainers and former athletes, have tried every new app that’s entered the market over the past several years.

The 11 Best Workout Apps of 2026

Nike Training Club is a free fitness app with a robust workout library that includes one-off workouts as well as periodized programs led by certified instructors. In the free version, there’s not a lot to hold you accountable for your workouts aside from notifications. “It spells out just about everything through text, photos, and video instructions.” Brittany is a fan of the workouts led by the app’s founder, Chris Hemsworth. “Who doesn’t want to feel like Thor himself is talking right at you? So if you’re looking for a way to improve your fitness with a plan, here are some great choices for the best workout apps for men. This app integrates with Apple Health, Strava, and Fitbit to make tracking progress easier, provides easy-to-follow instructions and video, and incorporates strength, cardio, mobility, and endurance training.

WITH A PLAN

The prescribed workouts can be tailored to your available equipment, and you’re in constant communication with your personal trainer through the app’s chat feature and video call capabilities. We love how tailored Future is to your specific needs — our testers gave their overall experience a 5 out of 5. Once you complete a quick quiz about your fitness level, goals, injury history, and your preferred coaching style, you’re paired with your instructor.

Nike Run Club app

top fitness apps comparison

Caine is an Olympian, placing 9th in weightlifting at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Having competed in Olympic weightlifting for over two decades, Caine has amassed several national and international titles over the years, including being a three-time Pan American Champion. A former gym owner, he also has more than 15 years of experience coaching other athletes in weightlifting, CrossFit, and functional fitness. Metric VBT is so unique that it made its way into the WH 2025 Fitness Awards, so naturally, it deserves a shout-out here, too. It also shows the bar path so that you can address any technical issues. In LES MILLS+ workouts, you’ll find motivating coaches and good pump-up music, just as if you had gone to your local studio.

  • It also offers audio and video sessions for meditation and sleep, as well as dance tutorials, supporting recovery and overall well-being beyond workouts.
  • With a seven-day trial and affordable rate, Aaptiv is a great fitness app for anyone beginning to regularly work out, or for people curious about workout apps.
  • You can also add or skip workouts, so it really feels like an app that works with you, meeting you where you’re at.
  • Puzzles like our mini crossword puzzles are popular for their ability to stimulate both short-term and long-term memory as well as provide creative ways to think about how each clue can be solved.
  • Overall, the app is really well designed, easy to follow, and has managed to keep me motivated for the last five years!
  • Map My Fitness is a well-established and widely-used fitness tool that allows you to choose from a huge variety of workouts with some really notable features.

BetterMe: Health Coaching

We also appreciate apps that combine live and on-demand classes, with fresh content added regularly to keep your routine interesting. In the end, the “best” app comes down to what excites you, whether it’s a favorite instructor, a style of class you can’t get enough of, or a program that fits seamlessly into your schedule. “I find it hard to come up with routines myself, so having coached sessions made it easy and comfortable for me to try new things like boxing that I wouldn’t have sought out on my own,” another tester noted. Gym-goers will also appreciate the self-guided option, which lets you move through exercises at your own pace. With animated instructions, catchy music, and all the basics of the other full-body workouts, this is another top choice overall. The exercises include some more advanced moves, like tricep dips with a chair and push-ups with rotation, so it’s a great one to do with your kids.

Planet Fitness

top fitness apps comparison

You can also stream your daily workouts to a nearby TV or monitor for larger viewing needs. We found this especially helpful when tackling new, challenging exercises we hadn’t experienced before. Once I had full access, I checked out the workouts recommended to me to see if they matched up with my answers on the quiz and tried a strength and cardio workout from each app. This left me with five top picks—Nike Training Club, Sworkit, Skimble, Daily Burn, and Aaptiv. Most apps have quizzes to gauge your fitness level and goals, so I also considered how detail-oriented each quiz was, and looked at what programs or workouts the app served up to me (if any), based on my answers. The first was that, in almost every video, the instructors push Beachbody’s protein shake brand, Shakeology—if I’m already paying for a fitness plan, I don’t want to be told to buy something else.

BetterMe – best workout app for beginners

The instructors explained the exercises and progressions in detail in every workout I tried and were clear enough that I only had to glance at the screen occasionally, though eyeing the physical demonstrations was useful, too. The instructors are also consistent about offering modifications for advancing or decreasing the challenge of the workouts, too, so I could level up or down based on the kind of day I was having. Most workouts in the intermediate program I chose—called “Burn” with the trainer Kirsty Godso—were bodyweight-based, had movements that worked in a small space, and were between 25 and 40 minutes long. The time flew by in each video I tried, and I felt well-trained and accomplished for the rest of the day, even if the workout was shorter than ones I usually do. Fitness Online is a comprehensive fitness training app with meal plans, analytics, and animated tutorials at your fingertips. The experts in the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition & Fitness Lab have tested more than 40 workout apps, combining hands-on evaluations with real-life feedback from GH staffers and consumer testers.

Goals

Serious brain training tasks are not just tasks given over and over again, but rather a highly individualized system that aims to optimize the challenge for each user. This is not something that a simple computer game can provide, nor can we expect that consecutive testing will do the job. Cognitive training is gaining traction among doctors and researchers as a reliable method to promote mental wellbeing.

Best training ‘app’, hands down

A community created for women by women, Bodylura (formerly Fit Body) features 12 programs led by four mad muscles review expert trainers to help you reach your fitness goals. Healthline tester Melissa Lee used the app as a tool to learn different types of exercises while gyms were closed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said this is a useful app for beginners or those trying something new who might want some guidance without paying for a personal trainer. Healthline looked high and low for the best fitness apps to help you out.

The first thing you do after launching the app is fill in a questionnaire, based on which you’ll get an easy-to-follow, personalized workout plan. The clean and simple interface will lead you into a structured weekly routine to help you reach your fitness objectives. The best workout app for you covers the exercises you’re interested in doing at a level that’s accessible to you.