The Best Workout Apps for Women to Help You Reach Your 2024 Fitness Goals
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Fitness apps have become an increasingly popular way to meet health and fitness goals on your time in a convenient, cost-effective way to approach your exercise routine. Although there are tons of fitness apps to choose from, not all of them are necessarily geared towards the fitness and wellness needs of women. While most workout apps are suitable for people of any gender, the best workout apps for women considers some of the unique needs, preferences, concerns and fitness goals that women have. Women choosing a fitness app should consider their primary fitness and health goals, current fitness and experience level, the exercise equipment they have available and where they plan to train, their budget, the instructional style and level of support and guidance they work best with and the features and functions of an app that meets these requirements.
In this article, we share our top picks for the best fitness apps for women, what to look for when choosing a workout app as a woman and how to best use fitness apps to reach your health and wellness goals.
Our Picks for the Best Workout Apps for Women in 2024:
- Best Workout App for Women Overall: Future
- Best Workout App for Women with Nutritional Guidance: Caliber
- Best Toning Workout App for Women: Future
- Best Cardio Workout App for Women: Joggo
- Best Workout App for Women Over 50: P.volve
- Best Comprehensive Workout App for Women: Future
- Best Yoga Workout App for Women: Alo Moves
- Best Barre Workout App for Women: Barre | Down Dog
Best Overall Workout App for Women: Future
Get 50% off your first month
Future
Key features
- Price: $149/month
- Free trial: Depends on current promotional offers and specials
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.3 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Individualized virtual personal training with a designated coach
Future is one of the best premium workout apps for women. It essentially functions as an online personal training app, giving you individualized and customized virtual personal training from the comfort and convenience of your home or gym on your own time. Some women may feel uncomfortable or intimidated about training with an in-person personal trainer, particularly at a large gym, but the Future app provides the one-on-one training support for women without needing to meet in person or work out in a public space.
Future matches you with your own personal coach based on your answers to an initial questionnaire that asks questions regarding your preferred instructional style and fitness goals. After you are matched with your coach, you connect on a “Strategy Call” to discuss your goals and preferences. You will get your own customized training plan and your coach adjusts your training plan in real time each week depending on your training metrics and how your workouts go, just as if you were working with a personal trainer in person. You also get video messages from your coach and have the option to do periodic video calls and check-ins.
The reason this is our top pick for the best workout app for women is because it is truly customized to exactly your needs, schedule, available equipment and preferred motivational style. Whether you are a beginner or advanced athlete with specific training goals, the expert coaches do all of the workout planning for you, helping you set and achieve appropriate fitness and health goals, while encouraging you to build momentum and find the motivation to make an exercise routine a consistent habit.
One of the unique features of the Future workout app is its seamless integration with cutting-edge fitness technology to better adjust your workouts in real time and track your progress. Future uses biometrics captured by your smart watch to provide data and workout metrics to your coach, and you also have access to a direct line to chat with your personal coach should questions arise.
Although the Future subscription is pricey, it’s as close as you can get to a personal trainer and is a great way to have a customized training plan and guided support by expert coaches. But if you're still on the fence, check out our in-depth Future Review to get a sense of all that Future has to offer.
Pros:
- Highly rated by real users
- Tons of coaches to choose from and a personalized matching program
- Truly individualized fitness training
- Ability to listen to your own playlists or podcasts during your workouts
Cons:
- Expensive
- Biometrics can only be tracked with an Apple Watch
Best Workout App for Women with Nutritional Guidance: Caliber
Caliber
Key features
- Price: Caliber Premium is $7/day (about $200/month)
- Free trial: No, there is a free version of the app but no nutritional guidance is offered
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.7 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Custom-tailored training and nutrition plan with a daily calorie or macronutrient goal
If you’re looking for a personalized workout plan and nutrition tracking, Caliber Premium offers a three month program to help you reach a specific goal. After signing up, you’re matched with a coach is appointed based on your goals, fitness experience and training style. Each week, they’ll give you a custom workout plan and check in regularly to assess your progress, keep you motivated and make adjustments as needed.
The sign-up quiz asks the following questions about nutrition:
- How long has it been since you were in good shape?
- What apps and plans have you tried in the past?
- What worked and what didn’t?
- What is specifically holding you back now?
- How many times a day do you like to eat?
It will also ask about allergies and food restrictions. Your coach reviews all of this information and asks further questions during your consultation. You can track specific macronutrients or calories depending on your preference. It is important to note that you can view your nutrition targets in the app, but Caliber cannot log your food. Fortunately, there are over 100 fitness apps that can sync with Caliber, such as Cronometer and MyFitnessPal through Apple Health and Google Fit. After syncing, you can view your progress toward daily goals in the Caliber app.
For more information about tracking, check out our MyFitnessPal Review.
Your coach will adjust your training and nutrition plan as much as needed to keep you on track to reaching your goal. If you complete the three month program and feel like you didn’t experience the success you’d hoped for, Caliber offers a 100 percent money-back guarantee.
Pros:
- Track your workouts, progress toward your nutrition goals, steps and more in one place
- Public groups are available to discuss any fitness-related topics
- Nutrition plans are customized based on your preferences and dietary needs
- Your coach will offer support and suggestions as needed
Cons:
- You cannot hand-pick your coach
- Food cannot be logged into the app
Best Toning Workout App for Women: Future
Get 50% off your first month
Future
Key features
- Price: $149/month
- Free trial: Depends on current promotional offers and specials
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.3 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Women who want to work one-on-one with a trainer that can design a workout plan specifically geared toward toning
For many women who aren’t interested in, say, heavy weightlifting or building muscle and are instead looking for more toning and flexibility workouts to move their bodies, Future offers a wide range of trainers who can create workouts geared towards increasing strength, losing weight and improving body composition.
Each workout is designed to help you build strength and confidence from the inside out by an experienced professional. After signing up, you can choose from a huge selection of coaches, each offering a different instructional style and specialization. Next, they’ll set up a meeting to discuss your goals, experience, the equipment you have access to (or don’t have access to) and anything else you’d like to share. From there, they’ll create a training plan. Workouts can include strength training, barre, yoga, HIIT and LISS (low-intensity steady-state cardio workouts), or anything else you want to incorporate. Your workout plan is based on your fitness level, and Future’s trainers are equipped to work with beginners or fit women who have been training for years.
After each workout, you’ll leave feedback for your coach so they can assess if it was appropriately challenging, and they will make changes if necessary. If you have a question about form or a specific movement, you can send a video to your coach to receive feedback. If you feel like you’re not seeing the results you hoped for or your coach isn’t the right fit, you can switch at any time.
Pros:
- High user reviews
- Wide range of skilled experts to choose from
- One-on-one coaching for support and accountability
- Workouts are created based on your needs and preferences
Cons:
- More expensive than other options
Best Cardio Workout App for Women: Joggo
Joggo
Key features
- Price: Two month subscription is $66, four month subscription is $92 and six month subscription is $132
- Free trial: No
- Ratings: 3.7 on iOS store | 4.4 stars on Google Play
- Best for: A personalized training and meal plan that supports cardio training goals
Joggo is a running app that creates a customized training program and meal plan based on your personal information and goals. Workout plans are written for a wide variety of runners, including those who want to run a half marathon or beginners who want to have a structured routine. When signing up, the app will ask for your personal information and about your running experience, lifestyle and goals. The meal plan is optional, and you can opt out at any time. If you follow the meal plan, you’ll receive a weekly menu that includes recipes for high-protein meals that integrate a variety of fresh produce and whole grains. Each day will consist of three meals and two snacks based on your dietary needs and preferences. The diet options for Joggo’s meal plans include:
- Low-fat
- Vegetarian and vegan
- Mediterranean
- Balanced Food
- Diabetes
- Gluten-free
- GERD
Meal plans are designed to fuel you for cardio and support muscle growth and fat loss.
The running plan has the following goal options: lose weight, improve your mental health, run a distance, improve your pace or stay fit. After choosing your goal, you’ll complete an initial run while Joggo tracks your pace, distance and other metrics. These are used as a base to create your training plan, and every two weeks the plan is automatically adjusted based on your progress. Each workout includes a warm-up, cool-down and stretching routine and you can choose whether you’re running outside or on a treadmill. There’s also the option to work out on an elliptical.
Pros:
- Automatic cues guide you throughout the workout
- Meal plan includes whole foods and is optimized for your training
- Injury prevention and recovery programs are available
- Educational content helps create healthy habits
Cons:
- No free version
- You can only choose one goal
Best Workout App for Women Over 50: P.volve
P.volve
Key info
- Price: $19.99 per month, $53.99 for a three-month membership or $149.99 per year
- Free trial: Seven-day free trial
- Ratings: 3.4 on iOS store | 3.6 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Women in different life stages such as those who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant or navigating menopause
P.volve, which is short for Personal Evolution, is one of the few workout apps designed specifically for women. The unique workout method combines low-impact, functional movement with resistance bands and other strength training equipment to activate and strengthen multiple muscles simultaneously. This leads to an effective, efficient full-body workout that improves mobility, stability, balance, strength and muscle tone.
The P.volve approach is great for women of all ages, but particularly older women and those who may not have as much fitness training experience because the workouts focus on functional movements that mimic how your body moves in everyday life. This helps teach you to engage your muscles properly to protect your joints, decrease pain and strengthen the muscles used in everyday activities to improve independence and movement safety as you age.
This is a great workout app for women because it has several specific exercise class series for women in different life stages. For example, there is fertility content and a pregnancy series. One of the reasons P.volve is one of the best workout apps for women over 50 is due to the menopause workout class series designed for women in the perimenopause and menopause transition to help combat the body changes that accompany hormonal shifts during this time and to build strength and healthy habits for later in life. The Moving with Menopause program includes is a library of exercise classes created in partnership with Elektra Health to help better manage symptoms you may experience throughout menopause such as body composition changes, brain fog, bone density and muscle mass loss, sleep issues, night sweats, fatigue and issues with movement and mindset.
This Moving with Menopause collection incorporates four different workout class formats: lifting heavy weights to reduce muscle loss and support optimal body composition with age, cardio circuits for heart health and increasing bone density, pelvic floor strengthening and breathing, meditation and stretching to aid healthy recovery, sleep and mindset.
Aside from the fitness classes in the app, you get access to informative talks and lessons led by a nurse practitioner about the menopause transition and how to use movement and mindfulness to ease the transition. One of the best features about the series is that you can choose workout classes that target your specific menopause symptoms and challenges to tailor the workout program to your own menopause needs and fitness journey; there’s no set order or path you have to take through the classes in the workout library. When you have a lot of energy for more vigorous exercise, you can do the heavy strength training or cardio circuits, and when you need a low-intensity day, you can do the pelvic floor or breathing and mindfulness exercises to lower cortisol and help with menopause symptoms like sleeplessness, insomnia, hot flashes and stress reduction.
Pros:
- Seven-day free trial
- Workout series for women in different life stages
- Instructional talks led by nurse practitioners
- Menopause series geared towards older women
- Helps build strength, decrease stress, improve cardiovascular fitness and facilitate weight loss
- All new app subscribers get a complementary one-on-one session with a trainer
Cons:
- Most workouts require strength training equipment specific to P.volve training
Best Comprehensive Workout App for Women: Future
Get 50% off your first month
Future
Key features
- Price: $149/month
- Free trial: Depends on current promotional offers and specials
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.3 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Guided fitness with a real-life personal trainer who maps out a custom training plan
Future is a workout app that’s designed to meet you where you are. This app is created for women who need at-home workouts, gym workouts, post-pregnancy programs and bodyweight workouts even if you don’t have access to exercise equipment in your home gym. There are also experts with experience in nutrition that can offer diet advice to help you reach your body composition goals. Currently, there are 106 coaches to choose from who have weight loss knowledge and there are 26 that have experience with nutrition coaching. Other areas of expertise include:
- Adaptive exercise
- Bodybuilding
- Combat sports
- General strength training
- Injury prevention
- Metabolic syndromes and heart conditions
- Orthopedic limitations
- Pilates and barre
- Powerlifting
- Prenatal and postpartum
- Sports performance
- Sports psychology
- Tactical performance
Your coach will design beginner-friendly workouts or workouts for women who have a fair amount of training experience or are of a higher fitness level. If you do not have a gym membership or strength training equipment, your coach will work around that. On the other hand, trainers can also develop workouts based on the gym you go to and the equipment you can access.
Related Post: The Best Weight Loss Programs for Women
Workouts include video demonstrations of each exercise to ensure that you perform movements with the proper technique. If you are unsure of how to perform them, you can send a video of yourself to receive feedback. You’ll be in regular communication with your coach so you can discuss how you’re feeling, and they’ll make adjustments to keep you on track to reaching your goals. You can reach out to them at any time with questions or concerns, but depending on the message time and their availability, you might not get an answer right away. However, they do their best to follow up with you as soon as they are available. If you’d like to switch your coach, you can do so at any time.
Pros:
- One-on-one training with an expert of your choosing
- You’ll receive specialized guidance to help you reach your fitness and nutrition goals
- Coaches use measurable progress and feedback to make improvements to your training plan
- New workouts each week keep training exciting
Cons:
- Expensive
Best Yoga Workout App for Women: Alo Moves
Alo Moves
Key Features
- Price: Monthly subscription is $20/month. Annual subscription is $199/year
- Free trial: 14-day free trial
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.2 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Yoga classes and guided meditations
If you want a comprehensive catalog of yoga workouts, you’ll love Alo Moves. Although the workout app specializes in yoga classes, there are also general fitness classes, guided meditations, skills and a “set your intention” section. For fitness classes, you can choose from sculpt, barre, core, HIIT workouts, pilates, stretching, strength and walking workouts. The yoga section is the most robust, with a variety of styles of yoga classes to choose from, including Hatha, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Vinyasa, restorative, prenatal yoga and kids yoga.
In addition to having over 60 world-class instructors and more than 2,500 different workout videos to choose from, Alo Moves also offers personalized recommendations that help you meet your wellness goals. Plus, new classes are added each week to help keep your workout routine feeling fresh.
You can choose from a variety of workouts, sorting the library of on-demand content by workout type, duration, difficulty (beginner, moderate, intermediate or advanced) and intensity level (from one to four).
Pros:
- Over 60 world-class yoga instructors
- More than 2,500 yoga classes to choose from as well as a variety of workouts of other types
- Can stream on Apple TV
- Video library of yoga skills for beginners
- Live workouts for members if you stream on a desktop or laptop
Cons:
- No one-on-one training
Best Barre Workout App for Women: Barre | Down Dog
Barre|Down Dog
Key Features
- Price: $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year
- Free trial: Depends on current specials and promotional offers
- Ratings: 4.9 on iOS store | 4.9 stars on Google Play
- Best for: Low-impact full-body barre workouts for women
Barre is a great workout for women because it is a low-impact, beginner-friendly, full-body workout designed to strengthen, tone and lengthen muscles. Barre integrates aspects of ballet, pilates and yoga, giving you a long, lean and flexible body. Many women who don’t necessarily gravitate towards traditional forms of training such as running, cycling, weightlifting or cardio workouts on an elliptical machine, enjoy the low-impact yet total-body strengthening focus of barre exercise.
The Barre Down Dog app is a barre app for beginners. It is simple to use and offers a personalized training experience. You can select the specific muscle groups or body parts you want to focus on as well as your desired workout duration. You can even choose the type of music you want to listen to as you work out. The workouts are as short as 10 minutes and are designed to be performed at home with little to no exercise equipment. All you need is a chair to get started. The workout classes guide you step-by-step through all of the movements and offer plenty of modifications and instructions along the way to help you reach your fitness goals no matter what your level of experience or physical limitations may be. The instructors are motivational, supportive and informative, and all of the high-definition videos are easy to follow and engaging.
You can work on sculpting, strengthening and toning your whole body or specific body parts such as your abs, butt or legs. Plus, unlike workout apps that only have pre-recorded video classes, Barre Down Dog tailors a personalized workout for you every time based on your intended fitness goals and training preferences, not only helping customize your training program to your needs, but also preventing boredom.
Pros:
- High user reviews
- Reasonably priced
- Intuitive interface is easy to use
- Short workouts are ideal for busy women
Cons:
- No free trial
How to Choose the Best Women’s Workout App for You
There are several important factors to consider when choosing the best fitness apps for women:
Focus
The breadth of workout apps is relatively extensive, each offering either a variety of workouts and types of exercise to choose from or focusing on a specific type of exercise such as yoga, barre, running or strength training. When choosing the best workout app for you, it’s important to consider whether you want to mainly focus on a specific type of exercise or want a workout app that will give you access to different types of workouts to choose from.
Many fitness apps are not necessarily geared specifically towards women, but choosing an app designed with women in mind is often ideal if you are a beginner or are in a life stage such as menopause, pregnancy or the pre- or post-natal period where it can be helpful to have a fitness plan optimized for your unique needs by expert trainers.
Additionally, many workout apps for women, such as WW (Weight Watchers), also offer diet and nutrition support such as meal plans, weight loss guidance and recipes. Other apps offer guided meditations, stress management, activity tracking, integration with Apple Health and/or the Apple Watch and water tracking. These features may be more or less helpful to you, depending on your fitness goals.
Compatibility
Most of the top workout apps for women are compatible with both Apple iOS and Android devices, but some apps may or may not also be compatible with an iPad, Android tablet, Apple Watch or other smart watch. If you would like to use some of these types of technology with your fitness app, it is important to read all of the compatibility specifications before choosing the best fitness app for you.
Cost
Most of the best workout apps for women have subscription fees. Although there are some good free apps, the free apps are usually ad supported and may require in-app purchases for full functionality, which can be cumbersome and tedious to navigate when you are trying to use the app during a workout. Premium fitness apps for women usually have the advanced features, such as personalized diet or exercise recommendations, women-specific workouts and instructional concepts to choose, meal tracking, customized goal setting and progress reports and analysis so you can monitor your workout metrics, number of reps and sets and progress over time.
Many premium workouts apps for women offer a free trial so you can get a feel for whether the app will work well for what you are looking for. Taking advantage of the free trials can help you compare several different apps to compare the features, functions, usability, ease of navigation, workout video library and how motivated you feel to use the app on a consistent basis. Then, you can choose the best workout app for you based on your actual experiences.
With that said, it’s important to keep in mind that you need to cancel all of the apps that you do not want to keep using before the free trial is over. Almost every premium fitness app uses an auto-renewal payment system, so you will get charged after the free trial ends if you do not cancel in time.
Even though many of the best fitness apps for women can be costly—upwards of $15-20 per month or $100 per year or more depending on the features—even the most expensive workout apps are usually a more budget-friendly alternative to paying for in-person personal training, and is usually more accessible and convenient for many people.
User reviews
User reviews in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store can be helpful in choosing the best health app. Although many reviewer‘s tend to either be particularly disgruntled customers who want to share their complaints or enthusiastic fans who want to rave about a product, reading numerous reviews, and looking at the overall rating of an app can give you a good overall picture of how well people like using the app and the frequently-cited pros and cons of the app.
Instructors
Vetting the quality personal trainers and workout plans is particularly important because your health is important. The best workout apps have exercise classes led by certified personal trainers and coaches who also design the workout programs. The coaches should also match your preferred motivational and instructional style so that you actually feel compelled to use the app and supported in your fitness journey. Any workout apps for women that include recipes, meal plans, diet tips and nutritional information should have this content created by registered dietitians and certified nutritionists. Ultimately, it’s important that the fitness and diet advice you are getting is safe and effective.
How We Chose the Best Fitness Apps for Women
To choose the best workout apps for women, we reviewed several top rated fitness apps and considered the following:
- Who the target audience for the app is
- The primary features and functions of the app
- The price and overall value of the fitness app based on its capabilities and offerings
- The level of instruction and guidance provided during the workouts
- User ratings and reviews
- Necessary exercise equipment
- The range and type of workouts offered in the library
- Additional wellness features such as diet support and meal planning
- The instructional style and quality of coaches and personal trainers in the app
- Whether or not the interface was user-friendly and easy to navigate
We tried to select the best workout app for women with different primary fitness goals, levels of fitness and overall attributes to provide a top pick for different common needs, budgets and training goals. Above all, we really try to focus on selecting workout apps that are particularly suitable or intended for women to best support you on your health and fitness journey. Learn more about our product review process.
Workout Apps for Women FAQs
Do workout apps really work for women?
Workout apps can definitely work for women if you are motivated and consistent in using them. Choosing a workout app for women that has the type of training that you most enjoy doing will help you feel more compelled to use the app. Additionally, a workout app for women will work best when it provides the level of support and guidance you need. For example, if you are a beginner, look for a training app for women that provides step-by-step guidance or instructions for each exercise, personalized training or even one-on-one coaching, exercise video demonstration and beginner-friendly workouts.
What is the best workout for women?
There isn’t necessarily a single, definitive best workout app for women. Choosing the best workout app for women is a personalized process that involves considering your own specific needs and training interests, the level of support and guidance you are looking for, the style of workout classes and exercise you enjoy most, your budget, the length of workouts and equipment that you have available to you versus what the app requires and offers as well as the primary focus of the fitness app, such as strength training, yoga, weight loss, building muscle, running or cardio exercise, diet and nutrition support or flexibility. The best workout app will meet your needs while being user-friendly and motivating to use.
Final Thoughts
Overall, while there are quite a few fitness apps geared towards women, the best workout apps for women truly take into account the unique needs and preferences of women while offering a range of workouts classes for different fitness levels, styles of workouts, workout durations and instructors to choose from. Depending on your fitness level and primary goals, you may also want a workout app that incorporates meal plans or diet tracking, or other wellness features such as guided meditations, sleep support, period tracking stress reduction, fertility planning or activity tracking with step counts. Choosing the best workout app for women also involves considering your budget, the amount of support you are looking for, whether you want personal training or a library of on-demand workout classes to choose from, audio-guided workouts, the ability to play your own music, fitness challenges or other comprehensive health and wellness support features.
Prices are accurate and items in stock as of publish time.
