While you may not have to work out at home anymore (thank you, pandemic), it doesn’t mean you won’t want to. Given the plethora of fitness apps, digital studios and virtual personal trainers that you can live stream into your home, you’d be forgiven for rethinking whether your gym membership is actually worth it. We’ve found some of the best apps on the market that will be with you for every step of your fitness journey, whether that’s marathon training with Strava or customising your own strength workout with Gymshark. Here are the best fitness apps for 2023. 

Strava

Best for: Runners

Price: £8.99 per month

Runners, and probably everyone else in the capital, will be well aware of Strava — one of the best fitness apps designed to track your progress. Simply tap a button on the app before you set off on your easy jog or marathon-training run to track your distance, time and calories burned before sharing it with friends afterwards on Strava’s social wall. However, what many may not know is Strava can be used for much more than just running; it also has tracking modes for 31 different sports, including canoeing, rowing, alpine skiing, swimming, stand-up paddleboarding and yoga.

A free version is available but if you’re serious about your training it’s worth upgrading. Behind the paywall, you can access the Routes feature, which offers suggestions for runs tracked in your local area, as well as advanced performance metrics and training plans for those considering long-distance jaunts. Another handy feature is Beacon which enables friends or family members to track your location while you’re on a run so you can feel safe while getting your sweat on. 

Visit strava.com

Silver Linings Wellbeing

Best for: Variety of workouts

Price: £40 per month

Founded eight years ago by former professional ballerina Chrissy Sundt, Silver Linings Wellbeing is a holistic wellness platform offering retreats and at-home classes — and this year saw the launch of the brand’s first app, perfect for those who enjoy dance-based exercise. Offering ballet-style workouts such as barre and yoga flows to stretching, HIIT and meditation, the app delivers daily live classes and a 48-hour catch-up feature so you can workout wherever you are. There’s also an on-demand library consisting of short 10 and 15-minute classes to 30-minute meditations and hour-long yoga practices too.

Visit silverliningslive.com

Peloton

Best for: Cycling or treadmill workouts

Price: £12.99 per month

While many found the Peloton exercise bike or treadmill a worthy investment during lockdown, now that we’re free to workout at the gym it may not be at the top of your spending list. However, the Peloton app offers countless classes which don’t require its eponymous machines to get you sweaty. 

Choose from an array of strengthening and sculpting classes, including yoga, HIIT cardio and Pilates, or use the stack feature to seamlessly integrate classes or add a cool-down or warm-up stretch to your workout. If you don’t know where to start, pick from one of the Peloton Programmes: available to meet your every need, whether that’s to get stronger, target your core muscles or work on your glutes. Plus, newbies get the first 30 days free so you can try before you buy too. 

Visit onepeloton.co.uk

Shreddy

Best for: Community-driven workouts

Price: £9.99 per month

The brainchild of fitness influencer Grace Beverley, Shreddy is an all-encompassing fitness app incorporating workouts, meal plans and even its very own social community (so despite working out from home, you never feel alone). Pick a workout, from full body to glute day led by expert PTs, or join one of Shreddy’s fitness challenges: online events which have brought together over 500,000 people to follow the same programme for eight weeks and share results. 

Not only is this app about exercise, it’s about nutrition too. Do away with endless salads or meal-supplement shakes and enjoy hearty meals, such as creamy ham and runner bean pasta or high protein mac and cheese, by following the in-app recipes. The app has helpfully written your weekly shopping list too so getting those all-important, nutritious ingredients is that bit easier. 

Visit shreddy.com

Les Mills+

Best for: Motivational coaching

Price: £6.95 per month

Les Mills is known for the heart-racing workouts it offers at gyms in 110 countries across the world, and its fitness app aims to deliver the same motivational, calorie-torching experience at home. If motivation is what you need to get off the sofa, this app’s vibrant visuals, loud music and passionate coaches will ensure you find exercising worthwhile and fun. Choose from Bodypump — one of the brand’s most popular classes which helps to build strength with dumbbells — or Bodybalance, Bodycombat and Barre and Tone (to name just a few). Les Mills+ also caters to novices with its introductory tutorials, low-impact options and shorter workouts which can be found at a flip of a switch. 

Visit try.lesmillsondemand.com

TRX Training Club

Best for: An at-home workout with a difference

Price: £5.99 per month

If you’re bored of burpees or have mastered press-ups at home, perhaps it’s time to try a different workout. TRX is based on suspension training and uses a long strap with handles on each end (which can be bought via the TRX website) that loops around the top of a door or a tree to help you target new muscle movements in rows, planks and squats. While you may need a bit more space than with other apps, there are more than 800 workouts to choose from, ranging from yoga to strength and cardio. Live daily classes are also available across seven different programmes and accessible at different hours of the day. As the website states, all you need is a “strap and an app”. 

Visit trxtraining.com

Gymshark

Best for: Customisable workouts

Price: Free

We’re willing to bet you probably have a pair of Gymshark leggings lurking in your wardrobe somewhere, but have you tried the brand’s workouts? We doubt it. Primarily designed to help you build strength at home, the app boasts over 40 plans and 300 workouts mostly focusing on heavy lifting (so it would be helpful to have a set of dumbbells at home). However, if you’re a seasoned gym goer and already know all of the moves, you can customise your own workout and build sessions from scratch. With easy exercise breakdowns and subtitled video instructions, we have no doubt you’ll be able to perfect that all-important form. 

Visit gymshark.com

Centr by Chris Hemsworth

Best for: Men’s workouts

Price: £8 per month

If Thor is your idea of #bodygoals, it’s time to download Centr. Launched by Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth, this app comprises mindfulness exercises, meal planning and hard-hitting workouts to help develop your physical and mental shape. Although it’s not stated, most of the workouts — think boxing, HIIT and strength training — on this app are designed for men and can be practiced either in the gym or at home. If you need to unwind at the end of a long, stressful day, we recommend listening to one of Centr’s guided meditations (some are even led by Hemsworth himself). 

Visit centr.com

Sweat

Best for: Women’s workouts

Price: £14.99 per month

Sweat, designed by Australian personal trainer Kayla Itsines, first launched in 2015 with a series of ‘Bikini Body Guides’ but has since transformed into an extensive app for women to achieve their fitness goals. Targeted workouts are aimed at different needs, whether that’s new mums looking to start a postpartum exercise routine or helping women gain confidence in the weights section or build muscle in specific areas, such as arms, abs and glutes. The fitness programmes are arranged across seven days and the app will also track your steps, set reminders and schedule your upcoming workouts into a calendar so you’ll never miss a session. 

Visit sweat.com

Nike Training Club

Best for: Free workouts

Price: Free

When the pandemic first started in March 2020, Nike made the content on its training app free for 90 days to help those stuck at home stick to a fitness regime. Three years later and the app is still completely free, offering instructor-led workouts and exercise routines focusing on each muscle group. From abs and core to arms and shoulders, you can also pick the workout’s intensity level and duration — ranging from five to 50 minutes — so you can work out when it best suits you. With more than 200 workouts on offer, this is definitely one worth downloading thanks to its non-existent price tag. 

Visit nike.com

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