The 6 Best Workout Streaming Services for Strength Athletes

Sometimes you’re without a gym. Like, right now, for example, because of the explosive spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, but fortunately the “people wanting to work out at home” demographic has always been alive and well, and many streaming services have been inadvertently preparing for the mass quarantine you might be experiencing!

Some are great, some not so much, so we’ve put together a lit of the most useful services with the best quality content.

1. JetSweat

This is one of the very few streaming services that offers CrossFit classes. If you’ve got dumbbells and kettlebells at home, you can use JetSweat to take part in classes from New York’s CrossFit Solace.

And there are over a dozen other classes you can take as well, all from boutiques around New York City and San Francisco, including SALT Fitness, Fhitting Room, and Body Space Fitness — all of which employ dumbbells and/or kettlebells — plus there’s yoga, barre, Pilates, bodyweight stuff, and even a martial arts teacher.

A lot of streaming services are bodyweight only to appeal to more people, which is totally fine because bodyweight workouts are awesome for you. But if you want to up the ante, JetSweat might be the best call.

Cost: $19.99 per month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSb-YMEocIM

2. BeachBody On Demand

P90X. Shaun T. Tony Horton. All of the OG names in home workouts live on BeachBody, and we know that when a home workout program goes as viral as BeachBody’s has, serious strength athletes tend to assume it’s B.S. But in an industry that’s awash with programs that are mostly yoga and planks, BeachBody delivers solid, high intensity strength workouts.

BeachBody on Demand offers ten different programs that include strength-and-cardio focused ones like Shift Shop, Core de Force, and Cize. The programs come with nutrition tips and meal plans, and there’s another bonus: the first two weeks are free if you don’t love commitment. 

Cost: $8.25 – $13 per month, depending on how long you sign up for.

3. Daily Burn

Daily Burn has been on the home workout scene for 13 years and counts 2.5 million people in its membership. Classes include high intensity training, muscle building, barre, pregnancy and post-natal, as well as introductory courses on exercise, yoga, and Pilates. Plenty of the classes include dumbbells and other home exercise equipment, while others are happy work with just your bodyweight.

The service includes nutrition apps, workout trackers, and live chats to keep you on task. You can tune in live or watch them on demand any time on your schedule, plus you can work out anywhere with their Audio Workouts. (Just add headphones.)

Cost: $14.95-$19.95 per month, or $125.95-$149.95 per year.

4. ROMWOD

The ROM stands for ‘range of motion’, WOD is CrossFit speak for “workout of the day,” and yes, this is probably the most popular home workout system for CrossFit athletes. You might know of ROMWOD as the service that boost your mobility: if you’re doing CrossFit, you’re doing Olympic weightlifting moves, which might require the most mobility of any sport. (It’s why Team USA weightlifter Mattie Rogers features in the company’s commercials.)

With star physical therapist Kelly Starrett at the helm, ROMWOD can indeed get your ankle, hip, and shoulder (etc.) mobility in peak shape, and you can even search for routines based on which movement you’re struggling with, be it overhead squats, burpees, or specific CrossFit workouts like Murph. It’s not exactly what you might be looking for if you want to stream a high intensity workout but if your mobility is taking a hit from a lot quarantine-on-the-couch (or just having a regular job where you sit all day), ROMWOD is worth knowing about.

Cost: $13.95 per month

5. Aaptiv

Streaming without vision! Aaptiv puts workouts in your ear, providing audio-only instruction to walk (or talk) you through a diverse range of workouts so you can stop craning your neck to look at a screen, focus on form, and move freely. The workouts are diverse, including strength focused, running, yoga, even meditation.

You’re in charge of the length of the workout, the trainer you get, and the music. And the fact that it’s audio only means you can do it anywhere you want (no lugging a laptop to the park) and, perhaps most importantly, it’s one of the most inexpensive on this list.

Cost: $8.33 per month

6. Mirror

For seriously high tech, seriously personalized at home fitness, it doesn’t get much more high end than Mirror. When it’s turned off, it looks like a mirror. When it’s turned on it becomes Mirror, a system that provides over 20 different types of workouts and more than 10,000 on demand classes that can include kettlebells, dumbbells, resistance bands, yoga, dance cardio, even meditation.

Prefer to do a workout live with other people, or one on one with a trainer? You can do that. There are over 70 different classes streaming live every week, but perhaps the crowning achievement is that you can literally have a trainer in the device (well, not literally in it, but it looks like it) watching your form and encouraging you through the workout. It can also track your heart rate and you can even pick your own music.

If you can stomach the cost, there’s not much better.

Cost: $1,500 for the device, then $39 per month.

Featured image via Elnur/Shutterstock