Credit: Kalen Emsley
Note: There is an updated version of this article with 37 websites, and more details about them, on my personal blog. That article will be updated periodically as I find new health and fitness resources to add to it; this one won?t be.
It used to be that if you wanted to learn about fitness, you had to either go to school for it, or at the very least hire a personal trainer. No longer.
Now the internet is full of health and fitness articles you can read for free. Too many of them in fact, and many are downright bad. (Dr. Oz comes to mind).
However, there are a lot of amazing websites that will teach you everything you could possibly want to know about health and fitness. Here are thirty of the best.
1. Bayesian Bodybuilding. Created by statistician and bodybuilding coach Menno Henselmans, Bayesian Bodybuilding is arguably the best source on the internet for advanced training & nutrition advice based on hard scientific evidence.
2. 12 Minute Athlete. This website and its companion mobile app provide a bevy of very short bodyweight and equipment-minimal workouts that can be done outside of a traditional gym setting. They are the brainchild of former gym trainer Krista Stryker, who I?ve interviewed before. Krista is a fascinating person who does an impressive job of making fitness fun again, and I credit her in particular with convincing me to start using compact resistance bands and foam rollers to work out at home.
3. On The Regimen. A mix of top-quality fat loss, motivation, and life advice by Mike Vacanti.
4. Syatt Fitness Systems. Strength coach and former world record powerlifter Jordan Syatt teaches you how to get lean & strong through barbell training- while avoiding the form errors that can lead to training injuries.
5. Summer Tomato. This site by neuroscientist Darya Rose takes a different approach from most. It focuses on mindful eating over following a specific diet and exercise regime, and is geared towards women who find that trying to follow a specific diet leads to anxiety or disordered eating. I?ve interviewed Darya both in 2017 and again in 2019. Her book Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting changed the way I think about dieting and building healthy habits.
6. Bach Performance. Site owner Eric Bach is one of the few coaches out there who is equally good at coaching people for muscle gain, fat loss, and athletic performance.
7. JohnFawkes.com. This is my site, and the main focus is evidence-based, research-supported fitness advice combined with a sprinkling of self-experimentation and biohacking. Also, occasionally I talk about fun stuff like my travels or my favorite fantasy novels.
8. Girls Gone Strong. Run by a collective of seven female strength coaches, Girls Gone Strong helps women of all shapes and sizes to get strong and healthy and feel good about their bodies.
9. Fat Burning Man. Abel James, the owner of this site, lost 20 pounds in 40 days using short, intense bouts of exercise and a paleo-ish diet that he dubs The Wild Diet. His site currently centers around a podcast where he interviews some of the world?s smartest health experts and fitness coaches.
10. Muscle For Life. The home of natural bodybuilder Mike Matthews, Muscle for Life teaches men and women to build the body of their dreams. He takes a back to basics approach- lift heavy weights 3?5 times a week, eat well, rest and recover.
11. Fit Bottom Girls. Whereas many of the sites on this list cater to people who want to look like fitness models, this women?s fitness site is geared towards women with more modest goals. They teach women how to maintain a healthy weight while minimizing gym time, working long hours, raising kids, and eating delicious food. Also the name of their company is a Queen reference; that alone makes them worth checking out.
12. Strength Sensei. The home of famed (late) strength coach Charles Poliquin, this site has some amazing information on intermediate to advanced topics like insulin sensitivity, hormone optimisation, wave-like loading, and supplementation protocols. I?ve learned a lot from Charles over the years, but I credit him in particular with introducing me to magnesium threonate, which has proven to be a highly effective, non-habit-forming sleep aid for me.
13. The Four Hour Workweek Podcast. Fitness and productivity guru Tim Ferris publishes interviews several times a week with some of the world?s most accomplished people. It?s not always about fitness, but several of the people on this list have been interviewed, along with some real gems that didn?t make it onto this list.
14. Look Great Naked. Muscle development specialist Brad Schoenfeld uses a combination of scientific expertise and real-world coaching experience to help people pack on muscle.
15. Mark?s Daily Apple. Mark Sisson is 63 years old, and looks better than most guys in their twenties. He credits this to his primal diet and lifestyle, and as he puts it, is on a mission to help 100 million other people become as healthy as he is.
16. Robb Wolf. Robb Wolf was the person who introduced me to the paleo diet and the concept of leaky gut syndrome. His website is still my favorite resource for information about sleep and digestive health. He also introduced me to the surprisingly effective combination of alpha-lipoic acid and acetyl-L-carnitine. I take 600 mg of ALA and 1 gram of carnitine (2 capsules of each) every morning, and often again with lunch or dinner, and I credit this stack with improving my focus in working from home while also helping me get up in the morning without the need for caffeine.
17. Ketogains. This site is all about getting into shape on the ketogenic diet- an extreme low-carb diet that can be very effective for rapid fat loss with simultaneous gradual muscle gain. I recently interviewed Luis Villaseor, the founder of Ketogains, about how to build muscle on the ketogenic diet.
18. Examine.com. This site fills a very specific niche in the fitness industry: independent synthesis and analysis of the scientific research on popular dietary supplements.
19. Masala Body. Former business consultant Nagina Abdullah lost 40 pounds in 9 months by eating flavorful, spicy home-cooked food. Her website teaches busy professional women to cook healthy food and harness the fat-burning power of spices.
20. Ben Greenfield Fitness. Ben Greenfield started out as a specialized coach for triathletes, but now he publishes some of the most cutting edge information on fat loss, biohacking and reversing age-related problems.
21. Strongfirst. Strongfirst is the home of Pavel Tsatsouline, a strength coach famous for first training Russian special forces, and then popularizing kettlebell training in the West. He and his team work largely with athletes and military personnel, so their focus is more on strength rather than body composition.
22. Born Fitness. Adam Bornstein is one of the big names in fitness, and one of the biggest voices speaking out against the prevalence of medical quackery and phony ?magic pills? in the industry. His training philosophy is big on unconventional exercises, like hauling tires and swinging ropes.
23. Precision Nutrition. This site serves a broader variety of needs than most- rather than specializing in one style of training or one diet, it helps people find the style that works for them, and offers coaches versed in a variety of fitness methodologies.
24. Sleep Junkies. This site focuses on sleep, plain and simple. Sleep is quite possibly the most underrated part of fitness; people pay lip service to its importance, but don?t really believe it. Sleep Junkies explains the importance of sleep, how to sleep well, and even tells you which mattresses, pillows and other bedroom supplies to use.
25. Nerd Fitness. This site is geared towards nerds who want to be in above-average shape without becoming hardcore fitness buffs. It goes all-in on the nerd theme- nearly every page of the site looks like a comic book and is filled with references to superheroes and video games.
26. Jason Ferrugia. Jason is one of the industry?s best-kept secrets- a no-nonsense trainer who helps hardcore trainees get extreme results. Without veering into magic pill territory, he shows that it is indeed possible to gain muscle and lose fat faster than most people think.
27. Smashfit. Fitness model and coach Heather Frey coaches celebrities and has competed on American Ninja Warrior. On Smashfit, she shares the training methods she?s used to do that.
28. Tanner Baze. Tanner is a self-described bro from Texas who helps guys get jacked and crush life.
29. Sohee Fit. Sohee Lee is a former anorexic and current bikini and powerlifting competitor, personal trainer, and is currently working on her masters in health psychology. She advocates flexible dieting and
30. Anthony Mychal. Anthony Mychal was the first person in the industry to really talk about skinny-fat syndrome- people who are at a ?healthy? weight, but still have too much fat and very little muscle. He has a unique writing style that incorporates gripping analogies about space aliens, discussion of mental models, and anecdotes about him doing cool martial arts tricks and getting horribly injured.
31. Medium.com. When it comes to fitness writing, Medium used to be the digital equivalent of a ghost town. In fact, I think at one point I was the only person on here who was regularly writing fitness articles that got tens of thousands of views. It?s gotten somewhat better since then; fitness still isn?t huge on here, but there are quite a few people who post good articles on a regular basis.
Here are a few people on Medium who I?d recommend following: Krista Stryker, Andrew Merle, Brad Stulberg, Markham Heid, and of course, Myself.
32. The Unwinder. This is a new site within the last year. Articles on The Unwinder have a heavy evidence-based bent, with claims being backed by primary source citations. It also has a major focus on reviews, particularly supplement reviews.
There are other types of content too, like interviews, but The Unwinder?s best draw for me is its willingness to talk about supplements in a dead honest, hype-free fashion; I?ve seen that occasionally from evidence-based fitness coaches, but never before from a site with such a heavy focus on product reviews.
Full disclosure: I?ve written some of those reviews.
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