It turns out that home fitness is rather more challenging than many of us bargained for when lockdown started. This is partly down to the lack of equipment many of us have in our homes: if you don’t have a huge pile of weight plates and a power cage, you can’t very easily squat 120kg!
But it also comes down to motivation and guidance. There’s no one to encourage you to do that one more rep when you’re at home. No one to remind you to “clench your butt cheeks!â€�
Fortunately, that latter issue is something we can address (the lack of guidance, not the butt cheeks). This is where home fitness streaming services come in. These are services that provide you with on-demand content to help walk you through a range of workouts, ranging from yoga, to HIIT, to boxercise, to calisthenics.
Also read: Best home gym equipment: keep your gainz despite the coronavirus
In this post, we’re going to take a look at the very best home fitness streaming services, so that you can keep off the pounds and tone up your butt (I’m not obsessed…).
The best home fitness streaming services and apps
Below, you’ll find our list of the best home fitness apps and streaming services. This list should cover something for everyone: from yogis, to busy parents, to serious lifters and calisthenics athletes. Be sure to let us know your favorites in the comments below!
Fitt
Fitt has a great interface and offers a wide range of classes for you to try out from home. The tagline tells you that you will be “training with the best,� which it aims to deliver on by relying on experienced coaches and trainers.
Another great feature is the heart rate monitor integration. This lets users track their effort during sessions, which is then used to monitor progress and even highlight PBs!
Basic membership is free, but there are premium options for those that want access to everything the app has to offer.
Bodyfit (Bodybuilding.com)
A lot of home fitness streaming services focus on toning up and burning calories. That’s fine, but it’s not right for everyone and there’s considerably less out there for those serious about building muscle.
Bodybuilding.com offers a solution with its Bodyfit platform. This costs $12.99 for the Elite membership or $3.99 for the Plus membership. Either way, you’ll be gaining access to a wide variety of workouts and how-to videos (over 3,500), covering everything from running, to HIIT, to actual weightlifting and bodybuilding.
There’s an app too, of course. The only limitation is that there is some reading to do when it comes to creating the actual workout plans – these aren’t generally provided in digestible follow-along video format.
GymCube
GymCube provides over 700 home workouts, as well as regular live sessions. These workouts can also be filtered based on difficulty, muscle group, trainer, and much more. All those things make this a great resource for those looking for home fitness classes. There’s also a useful 7-day “Kick Start� program that determine goals and fitness levels upon starting.
That said, while 700 might sound like a lot of programs, that’s only a few per category. The selection for dumbbell workouts is limited to just four for instance, and there aren’t tons for workouts for abs. Most of the best content also requires a membership, which isn’t cheap.
Still, with nutritional information and more, this will prove a great resource for the right person.
ThenX
The ThenX app comes from the creators of the Official ThenX YouTube channel. For those unfamiliar, this is a channel dedicated to calisthenics and bodyweight fitness. It’s also fairly advanced in many cases, with tutorials for moves like the planche and handstand press.
Also read: Best home fitness tips, gear, and apps to keep you feeling your best
That said, there is plenty here for beginners too: including videos on beginner bodyweight training from home, HIIT fat-burning workouts, and more. A lot of this content can be accessed completely for free (especially since a lot of it simply links to YouTube) but you’ll need to pay for the more advanced lessons.
As is true of the channel as a whole, this app benefits from a fantastic presentation and video editing, which really helps to put you in the zone when training!
Nike+ Run Club (NTC Training Club App)
The Nike+ Run Club app gives you access to over 50 guided runs. Many of these are guided by top trainers, such as Eloid Kipchoge. They work well with a treadmill, which means they can be used from home too. The best part? It’s free!
Also read: Nike + running app launches for the Samsung Galaxy Gear S
Sign up for Nike Plus Run Club
Booya Fitness
Booya fitness clearly has big ambition: acting as a go-between for fitness studios hoping to reach thousands of home users. There’s already a lot of variety here, ranging from HIIT sessions, to strength conditioning, to yoga.
The platform costs $9.99 per month, or $99.99 billed yearly. For that, you’ll get access to all studio classes but you’ll still need to pay extra for the more comprehensive workout plans.
OMstars
Yoga seems to be a great fit for home fitness apps, and there are plenty of platforms out there for those that want to get their stretch on. The problem is that in many cases, these don’t have much to offer more experienced yogis.
OMstars aims to cater to that audience with more advanced classes, while still being welcoming to beginners. There are tons of videos available, along with live classes, and challenges. There’s also a 14-day free trial, so you can see if you like it before spending any cash.
FitOn
FitOn provides access to a bunch of group fitness classes, ranging from cardio and dance classes, to strength and mobility. As with many of the options on this list, you’ll be guided by a number of celebrity trainers, such as Katie Dunlop, and Jacquelyn Umof (no, I don’t know who they are either), and you can also find nutrition and wellness advice. There are also social features here, which can provide that much-needed gym camaraderie usually absent from home fitness!
Also read: 15 best fitness apps for Android
The good news is the app recently became free, so there’s no reason not to give it a try!
YouTube
It bears mentioning that YouTube is probably the very best home fitness streaming app by just about every measure.
YouTube is filled to the brim with follow-along home workouts. Many fitness coaches like Joe Wix are now providing live sessions that you can tune in with, and all of that content can be accessed for free.
You already have access to everything you could possibly need
There are kettlebell routines, dumbbell routines, bodyweight programs, yoga classes, workouts for kids, guided meditations… every aspect of fitness is covered. So while some people might benefit from the commitment and structure they get from an app or home fitness streaming service, the truth is that you already have access to everything you could possibly need!