The Best Fitness and Nutrition YouTube Channels

YouTube is the world’s second most popular search engine in the world, and it’s a place where billions of people learn new skills, get advice, and be entertained. It can also be an amazing resource for learning about fitness and nutrition.

It’s 2021 and plenty of people are looking to spice up their workout routines, lose weight, and improve their eating habits. Many turn to YouTube’s personal trainers, yoga experts, health and fitness gurus, and diet experts. Do you want to lose a few extra pounds? Are you interested in a workout routine but not sure how to get started? YouTube is an incredible resource for workout videos, nutrition info, and everything else you need to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

Of course, there’s no shortage of channels to choose from, so which ones to follow? The world’s biggest video streaming platform attracts its fair share of junk videos, but the cream always rises to the top. The best fitness channels are the ones that provide the most value.  We’ve scoured our playlists, our friends’ playlists, and done the research for you. The result is we've maxed out our health and fitness goals and we look amazing. But seriously, here’s a list of what we believe to be the best fitness and nutrition YouTube channels that you should follow today. Take charge of your health and fitness with just a click!

Adam Frater

Let’s start with one of the top channels for the increasingly popular calisthenics-style workout movement. Adam Frater has 140,000 subscribers and is “shredded”. At least, that’s the word he uses a lot. Let’s just say that he won’t be winning any pie-eating contests soon. The man has abs and pecs, and a few other impressive muscle groups. And his goal on YouTube is to teach you how to get strong, get a six-pack, and improve yourself. But it’s not all about hard work and sweat. It’s about enjoying yourself and learning new skills. 

Calisthenics is strength training with minimal equipment. It’s based around working large muscle groups with exercises that look similar to gymnastics. You’ll build muscle, but you’ll also get flexible, agile, and fit. Be warned, however. Calisthenics is difficult for beginners, so it’s a type of exercise regime best suited to people with determination and a willingness to keep going. If you have the drive to make small incremental improvements every day, this might be what you need.

If you’ve ever wanted to do handstands, muscle-ups, one-arm push-ups, and hard exercises like handstand pushups, start following Adam as he guides you through exercises that go from simple to seemingly impossible.

Get shredded!

Joanna Soh Official

Struggling to stay motivated? Fitness coach Joanna Soh can help you achieve your goals with her Crazy Workout Challenges. Popular videos in the series include Burn 10,000 Calories in 30 Days, 4-Week Burn Belly Fat Challenge, and 500 Abs on Fire Challenge. Despite the name, the challenges are suitable for a variety of skill levels, and each has a fun angle to help keep you interested.

Aside from workout videos, Joanna also has a wealth of informative videos on health and nutrition. You can learn how to develop a workout plan, boost your metabolism, and more.

You’ll find no shortage of fitness celebrities on YouTube, but Joanna stands out from the crowd for her positive energy and welcoming teaching style. Based in Asia, she’s the first Malaysian woman to win YouTube’s Gold Play Button award. She also received a Woman Leadership Award from the World Women Leadership Congress. 

Joanna’s channel is relatively new but has already established an impressive following. In just five years, she’s created 400 videos that have garnered 150 million views and 1.6 million subscribers. New content goes up at least once a week. 

Overall, the videos feature an engaging combination of exercise routines and health information. If you’re interested in changing your diet and improving your fitness, Joanna Soh is ready to help. 

Love Sweat Fitness

With over 600,000 subscribers, this channel is doing something right. Losing weight involves more than physical exertion. You also need a healthy mindset. With Love Sweat Fitness, creator Katie Dunlop focuses on both by incorporating a variety of personal stories about her weight loss. Two years ago, she lost 45 pounds and began a commitment to healthy living. 

Her philosophy is that anyone can learn to lose weight as easily as she did. Her videos detail her diet, exercise routine, and healthy-living mindset. She stands out from other videos because she understands that losing weight can cause emotional struggles, and she offers tips to help you stay on track. 

Her most popular video is My 45 Pound Weight Loss Story, a 20-minute talk with over 2.3 million views. She also offers fitness challenges, recipes, and targeted exercises. Note that her videos also cover non-fitness topics, such as a tour of her home, budgeting tips, and travel info. While her videos are engaging, they might not be interesting to viewers who want fitness info. 

Ultimately, her videos are well-suited for women who struggle with weight loss and find it difficult to connect with most fitness gurus. Katie’s experienced these struggles herself and is ready to help lead you to success. She’s fun, friendly, and well, a bundle of positivity, which is probably why Love Sweat Fitness is one of the most followed health and fitness YouTube channels.   

BodyBuilding.com

Bodybuilding.com is a huge (huuuge!), ultra-popular, and well-established leader in online fitness. The official video channel offers the same quality information and instruction found on the website. New videos arrive at the rate of about a dozen each month, and there are years of existing material for you to dive into.

Topics covered are as follows: anything and everything related to bodybuilding.Learn about how to target specific muscle groups, what to eat to get big, the science behind bodybuilding, and much more. Videos range from quick two-minute lessons to in-depth shows that last over an hour. Even better, everything is free. 

With 5.29 million subscribers, Bodybuilding.com’s channel is one of the biggest on YouTube in any category, not just fitness YouTube. There’s something for bodybuilders of every skill level. Most videos have over 10,000 views, with their more popular videos reaching over 150,000.

Want big guns? There’s a video for that. Need to break your squat record? Yep, that’s covered. How about getting the much-coveted killer abs? You guessed it. It’s all here.     

Keep in mind that Bodybuilding’s videos have no consistent host. Instead, you’ll find a wide variety of instructors. While most of them do a great job, there is some variance in quality. And may fitness YouTube fans prefer to learn from one person. This is one channel that isn’t going for the personal touch. 

A benefit of multiple hosts is that you can learn from a wide range of experts on lots of aspects of bodybuilding. Professional bodybuilders and IFBB members such as Scott Mathison, James Grage, and Abel Albonetti have videos on the channel. If you’re interested in the world of bodybuilding and fitness, this channel gives you a front-row seat. 

The Fitness Marshall 

Here’s one for the folks that need lots of fun in their workouts. Working out can sometimes be a boring chore and for some people, that’s enough to send them back to the couch with a bag of donuts. But what if your workout partner was a fitness coach who focuses on fast-moving exercises that incorporate music, dancing, and loads of positive energy? You get that with The Fitness Marshall. Caleb Marshall’s channel has an impressive 3.02 million subscribers on his YouTube channel and while this isn’t for everybody, if you’re looking for something different, give it a try! 

Of course, the beauty of learning dance moves and working out like a maniac is that nobody can see you bump and grind. 

Marshall says he has loved dance his entire life and claims it helped him learn self-acceptance as a young man growing up in Marion, Indiana. He considers dancing a vital “medicine” that helps him stay healthy and happy. 

Each exercise video is based around a different artist. You can exercise in sync with Meghan Trainor, Sia, Justin Bieber, and other popular musicians. No equipment required, but you will need some space to move. Exercises are fast and high-intensity, but three different skill options are available. Levels work like this: each of the three hosts does the exercises differently, so you follow the one at your ability level. 

New routines go live weekly. Each video is between 30 and 60 minutes and they’re all designed to make you sweat. And sweat you will. 

Added bonus: apart from burning calories, the routines also teach you new dance moves. Take them to the floor next time you’re “in da club”.

So if you’re struggling to stick with some exercise routines because you get bored, the Fitness Marshall could be just what you’re looking for. You’ll be so focused on moving and dancing that you won’t have time to be bored. 

But I should point out that not all the videos are free. If you want access to everything, you’ll need a paid subscription. Three tiers are available, ranging from $4.99 to $14.99 a month. Fortunately, plenty of free content is also available, so you can see what the program is like before committing to a plan. 

Yoga with Adriene

The last few years have been huge for this YouTube channel. With people spending more time working out at home and looking for home workout routines, many turned to Yoga. And YouTube users (and the algorithm) favored the well-produced videos of Yoga with Adriene. With almost 10 million followers, this is one of the most popular yoga channels ever. There are hundreds of videos suitable for practitioners of all skill levels. According to Google, Adriene’s site was the most searched for workout of 2015, and she won a Streamy Award for excellence in health and wellness in 2016.

In 2022, it's probably the biggest Yoga channel on YouTube.

The yoga mat has become a fashion accessory and Adriene's channel is the place to get your education on this fast-growing trend.

Adriene Mishler is a yoga instructor, actor, and writer. She has an easy-going, welcoming style that’s both educational and entertaining. Her videos are well-organized and easy to follow. You can search by skill level, ailment, and even video length. 

New to the world of yoga? Try Yoga Poses for Beginners – Where to Start for a fast introduction. 

Every year, Adriene posts 30 days of content designed to help you develop a routine you can stick with for the entire year. 

Aside from the physical benefits of yoga, videos also focus on the mental and emotional aspects too. You’ll learn routines designed to increase your feelings of self-respect, inner peace, and more. 

And keep an eye out for her delightful little dog, who loves to make guest appearances in many of her videos. 

And did you know that fans of HIIT, CrossFit, and other high-intensity workout regimes can also benefit from doing yoga?

Bradley Martyn

Next, we have Bradley Martyn, a bodybuilding expert and easily the biggest individual on our list in terms of sheer size. This mountain of a man has seven years of videos available on his site. Martyn’s YouTube videos include workout routines, information on diet and nutrition, and general stuff that people with his incredible physical condition deal with daily. Yeah, you get some videos of the man eating his lunch or signing autographs, but it’s fun and can open your eyes to the world of professional bodybuilders.

Two factors help differentiate this site stand out from other bodybuilding channels. First, it’s an excellent place to watch live workouts. Bradley streams his entire workouts, which often last an hour or more. Second, the channel stays fresh because Bradley posts new content often. You’ll find new, free videos to watch every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10 am PST. 

However, keep in mind that not every video is related to bodybuilding tips and advice. For example, one video features his thoughts about keeping his gym (Zoo Culture) open when it was forced to close. Another video involves Bradley dressing up as Santa. 

Bradley is a big guy with an outsized personality to match. It’s not surprising that he has a whopping 3.7 followers on Instagram. If you’re looking to laugh while you learn, this is the workout vlog channel for you. 

Athlean-X

Boasting a whopping 10 million views in just three years, Athlean-X is easily one of the most popular fitness channels on YouTube. Host and creator Jeff Cavaliere believes in simple, “No BS” instructions that anyone can easily follow. 

Efficiency is the name of the game here. Jeff’s methods don’t require tons of time, and he likes to use minimal workout equipment where possible. He has an entire section dedicated to workout routines that you can do at home using your own weight as resistance.

Additionally, he offers a series of courses titled Sore in Six Minutes. As the name implies, you only need six minutes to complete each routine. They’re designed to help you overcome any plateaus in your training so you can start a fresh round of gains on any stubborn muscles that aren’t responding to your current exercises.

Jeff is in great shape and is in his mid-40s.  He was a physical therapist and personal trainer in the world of professional sports, and his instructions not only tell you what to do, but he explains the science behind every action. 

His channel posts new content about once a week, and most videos get over one million views within a month. 

It’s worth pointing out that Calaliere’s achievements and videos have come under scrutiny. He’s been accused of some fakery and quite a few vloggers and bloggers have made it clear that they disapprove. Make your own mind up about the authenticity of the videos but one thing is for certain, this channel is popular and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

Tori DeSimone

And finally, one for the ladies. Formerly called Tori Sterling, this nutrition and beauty expert is ready to help you look and feel your best. She takes a holistic approach to health, offering videos on skincare, nutrition, makeup, and more. 

Most of her nutrition advice chronicles an entire day of eating. She’ll cover all meals and snacks. It’s a useful way to learn how to eat right, even on busy days when you’re not at home. Your host emphasizes realistic, affordable meals you don’t need extensive culinary expertise to make.

Tori first found fame online with makeup tutorials, and she returns to roots at them with new videos on the subject. Although makeup tutorials are beyond the scope of nutrition and fitness, they’re not a major focus of the channel.

She posts a new video about once a week. Most have around 20,000 to 30,000 views. Her total subscriber-base hovers around 500,000. While not the biggest name on our list, her fun and friendly style is immediately engaging. If you’re looking to learn how to apply nutrition and health concepts to your everyday life, check out what Tori has to offer. 

Final Thoughts

Take control of your health and improve your life with the help of the best fitness YouTube channels. Use our list above to find videos about weight loss, home workouts, healthy recipes, and everything else you need for a healthy lifestyle.   

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