The Top 10 Fitness Influencers

When influencer marketing was in its infancy, the fitness influencer space was one of the first niches to fully take advantage of this new marketing channel. Fitness influencers quickly realized they could leverage their knowledge to partner with brands looking to reach their dedicated audiences.

Fitness influencers have undergone some changes since then, both in the type of content that’s popular and the actual influencers that dominate the niche. This is true in most areas of social media, but fitness influencers have a universe all their own and it can be a little confusing to those on the outside looking in.

In this guide, we’ll look at the current state of fitness influencers and what’s trending across various platforms. We’ll also list some of the top influencers who are making a mark as well as those influencers who are on the rise due to unique and creative content.

The Different Types of Fitness Influencers

The fitness influencer space may appear to be one large block, but there are several archetypes within the niche that can have different audience demographics and traits associated with them.

For brands or marketers, this mostly means that some influencers are very specific to fitness, while others venture out into lifestyle or vlog categories. This result is that you can target a wider variety of audiences within the same niche if you do your research first.

Below, we’ll look at the most common types of fitness influencers along with their content and what kind of audiences they tend to have.

The Fitness Model

Fitness models can be some of the largest accounts across the entire fitness influencer niche. These influencers tend to focus on the aesthetic aspects of fitness such as bodybuilding or other competitive aspects.

Fitness models will generally have competition experience along with awards or accolades. They also may have existing or past partnerships with large brands, events, or operate their own companies.

Fitness models tend to have audiences who are interested in lifestyle or vlog content rather than pure fitness instruction or tutorial-style content related to working out and exercise.

This means brands and marketers can partner with fitness models for a wider variety of products and services that may not be exactly aligned with fitness. For example, meal preparation services, productivity tools, functional beverages, and other brands meant to enhance the customer’s life.

Fitness model influencers tend to skew more toward females, who make up a larger percentage of the total fitness model community. Their audience also tends to be majority female.

However, there are male fitness influencers with sizable audiences who follow the same blueprint, focusing on lifestyle and vlog-style content.

Fitness Instructor Influencers

Fitness instructors are influencers who focus on specific techniques that help their audience achieve their fitness goals. These influencers can be famous, such as fitness coaches with celebrity clients. They can also be nano or micro-influencers who focus on specific topics or are just starting their fitness influencer career.

Fitness instructors generally sell their own custom fitness materials. These can be educational or even products such as supplements. Their audiences are highly targeted and work best for partnerships involving fitness-related products or services that don’t compete with the influencer’s own brand.

The distribution between male and female fitness instructors is almost even, so there is a wide variety in the choice of influencers depending on your partnership and audience requirements.

Fitness instructors also tend to focus on one skill level. For example, one fitness instructor may focus on new fitness enthusiasts with more fundamental content. Other influencers may focus on more advanced topics for those who have been involved in the fitness lifestyle for longer.

While there can be some crossover, fitness instructors and influencers tend to focus on a specific skill level and don’t deviate too much from that audience.

Diet Coach

Any fitness expert will tell you that getting shape is 90% diet and only 10% about the specific exercises you do. That’s a hard pill to swallow for those of us who love our food but it also allows for fitness diet coaches to have successful careers as influencers.

Diet coaches can fall into two categories within the influencer world. They can either be general fitness influencers who focus on diet or they are registered nutritionists or dieticians with formal training and certifications.

General fitness influencers who focus on diet tend to just use their own trial-and-error experiences to help their audience reach their goals faster and avoid common diet mistakes.

Registered nutritionists or dietitians offer specific, science-based diet advice related to fitness. This can range from weight loss to bodybuilding or sport-specific diet choices.

Brands and marketers can partner with diet coaches of all types for various products and services. While most of these influencers will sell their own services, they can still be beneficial for promoting related lifestyle products.

Credentialed diet influencers are also helpful for building brand authority or credibility since these influencers are licensed to give out information and that adds an extra layer of credibility to their recommendations or reviews of products.

Sport-Specific Fitness Influencers

Within the fitness influencer community, there are experts who specialize in specific sports. This can range from CrossFit to something such as Pilates. It also can include bodybuilding and fitness competition preparation.

These influencers have highly targeted content and their audience expects the content to align with the sport or activity the influencer has expertise in.

These influencers are generally best for brands that are directly related to the sport or activity. This can include clothing brands for the activity, gear, or products related to the sport.

In some cases, general lifestyle brands can find success partnering with these influencers, but it takes careful research of the influencer’s audience to ensure alignment and overlap with your core customer targets.

Gym Culture Influencer

Gym culture influencers tend to take a broader approach to their content. They are sometimes humorous channels that focus on memes or gym faux pas. Sometimes they create their own skits or other content that pokes fun at gym culture.

Others are more serious and may point out actual issues with gym culture that could be toxic or prevent others from reaching their fitness goals in a safe environment.

These influencers can also sometimes weigh in on fitness influencer drama or controversies, but not as often as our final category of fitness influencers which we’ll cover next.

Fitness Industry Observer

Fitness Industry observers are those who look at the fitness industry as a whole. This includes other influencers, supplement companies, gym franchises, and trends within the fitness community.

Fitness industry observers also commonly do reaction-style videos where they discuss other influencers and their content. Sometimes these are critiques or sometimes they are endorsements.

In some cases, these influencers can do their own investigations into certain topics, such as PED use among others within the industry, which can be a very controversial subject.

Due to the controversial topics some of these influencers cover, they aren’t always the best fit for certain brands or influencer campaigns. However, they can have large, dedicated audiences, and certain brands that don’t mind the edgy content can find successful partnerships in this space.

How To Work With Fitness Influencers

Working with fitness influencers is similar to finding and working with other influencers. However, there are a few key differences to be aware of to ensure your messaging aligns with the audience.

Fully Understand The Influencers Content

In the fitness community, there is often a thin line between what’s acceptable and what’s seen as inauthentic. For those on the outside, these lines can be hard to detect. The fitness community takes what it does very seriously and fitness is an integral part of their life and their identity.

The last thing you want to do as a brand is misread the community and develop a message that completely falls flat or is seen as inauthentic.

Carefully examine the influencer’s content to see where they focus their attention and what angles they take on certain topics. Are they a no-nonsense communicator or are they more into entertainment value?

Making these determinations will help you align your messaging with the influencer’s style to ensure their audience views it positively.

This is true of all influencers in every niche, but the fitness community can be particularly harsh on messaging they feel is inauthentic.

Audience Demographics

Fitness influencers and their audience can either be heavily skewed based on gender or have a near-equal distribution of men and women.

For brands, you want to carefully examine the demographics to ensure they align with your target customer and the different cohorts you are targeting.

Sometimes this can be tricky as certain sport-specific or diet influencers may have different audience makeups than you would think. So careful analysis and vetting are necessary to avoid targeting the wrong audience.

Build A Relationship With The Influencer

Fitness influencers understand their audience. They also understand many who follow them are trusting them to make life-long decisions to impact their health for the better.

This means fitness influencers want to partner with brands they trust and have some relationship with. One way to do this is by following the previous two tips and fully understanding the influencer’s content before contacting them.

This shows you understand what they do and what their audience expects and makes the process of building a relationship much easier.

Choose Your Preferred Platform

A fitness influencer on TikTok will likely have far different content than one on YouTube, even if they are within the same fitness niche. Choosing your preferred platform can have a big impact on how your message is received and whether the audience is responsive or not.

Most fitness influencers promote across most of the major social media platforms, but many have one platform to which they dedicate their primary content. Make sure you determine whether the platform is right for you and is compatible with your messaging or influencer campaign type.

Embrace Ongoing Relationships

It’s common for popular fitness influencers to have ongoing partnerships with specific brands that can last months or even years. Some fitness influencers have had the same brand partnerships since they first launched.

This is somewhat unique to the fitness niche and a few other industries due to how strongly the audience connects with the influencer. Fitness influencers are a part of the audience’s self-identity around fitness, so brands that support that influencer over the long haul are seen as allies in the audience’s fitness journey.

That doesn’t mean you need to have long-term relationships with each influencer you partner with for a promotion. But if you find a good fit and the metrics are strong, don’t be afraid to extend the relationship and find new ways each party can offer value to each other.

Understand Regulations & Compliance

Many brands that partner with fitness influencers may sell supplements or similar health products. These can have specific regulations both for online sales and how they can be promoted. Specifically, what claims and what language can be used during promotion.

Make sure your chosen influencer and your content brief both adhere to these regulations to avoid any possible fees or penalties.

Be Flexible With The Influencer

Fitness influencers who have found success know their audience as well as anyone can. If they have a suggestion about your content brief or want to make changes, don’t be afraid to listen to their advice.

The influencer doesn’t want your message to come across as inauthentic or not resonate because that reflects on them as much as it does your brand.

Allow your influencer some creativity and flexibility when it comes to the content brief. If they accept it as is, then that’s great. But if they suggest changes, definitely take those to heart and consider them.

Competitor Research

Within the fitness niche, product categories can be very competitive with only minor differences separating different brands. This means that close competitor research can help you easily find new influencers and audiences.

Look at your closest competitors and examine what influencers they tend to partner with over and over again. Use that as an indication of what audience is likely most receptive to your message and your product.

You may find new audiences and influencers you may have overlooked or thought were outside of your targets.

Of course, you still want to vet audiences carefully, but competitor research within the fitness niche is a powerful tool when seeking out marketing opportunities.

The Top 10 Fitness Influencers On Social Media

Now we want to go into our top 10 list of fitness influencers. But we’re going to do it a little differently than most similar lists you may find out there.

Instead of just listing the most-followed influencers, we want to provide some variety. So we’ll cover a few influencers from the different categories we listed earlier along with a few rising influencers that are making waves.

1: Michelle Lewin

Michelle Lewin is a fitness model originally from Venezuela. Her early life involved modeling gigs outside of fitness and bodybuilding. However, after arriving in America, she quickly found a passion for fitness and the gym-life community.

Her traditional modeling career hit a few snags and left Michelle somewhat disappointed. But through fitness, her husband started to post photos of her progress and competition preparation to social media, specifically on Instagram.

Starting in 2012, her popularity quickly grew and she started to build a strong following during the nascent days of Instagram fitness culture.

Part of Michelle’s appeal is that she is self-described as somewhat shy and also sometimes struggles with self-confidence. Her openness and transformation into a mega influencer is an inspiration to those facing self-doubt and looking to transform their lives for the better.

2: Simeon Panda

Simeon Panda is a British bodybuilder and fitness entrepreneur who began his fitness journey way back in 2002. Like many budding fitness enthusiasts, he started with limited equipment and even some homemade gear.

Through consistent dedication to natural bodybuilding and proper nutrition, he transformed himself from 159 pounds to over 230 pounds of lean muscle mass, becoming one of the most recognizable figures in the fitness industry.

Simeon’s commitment to natural bodybuilding and an overall healthy approach to achieving fitness goals is what helped set him apart.

His social media fame has brought him numerous magazine features and he served as a judge at several well-known bodybuilding competitions. His success in the fitness world led to the creation of his own fitness apparel and accessories company, SP Aesthetics, as well as Just Lift, a fitness equipment brand. He has also collaborated with major supplement companies such as Muscletech.

3: More Plates More Dates

Derek of More Plates More Dates is a reference to the weight plates that bodybuilders stack onto a barbell before doing a lift. It’s a nod to the bodybuilding lifestyle and dating advice he sometimes offers to his millions of subscribers and followers.

More Plates More Dates is also one of the new breed of industry observer fitness influencers. He often tackles extremely controversial topics such as PED use among other fitness influencers and even among celebrities.

His raw and uncensored takes have made him a go-to account for those who want the inside scoop on the latest topics in fitness, even landing him an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience.

Primarily a YouTube influencer, Derek has also built his own supplement and fitness company called Gorilla Mind. He’s also partnered with many top brands and currently hosts a podcast in addition to his social media uploads.

4: Athlean-X

Jeff Cavalier is the mind behind Athlean-X, one of the original fitness influencers who based their advice and content on hard science. Cavalier was already a physical therapist for high-profile athletes and professional sports teams before he shared his knowledge on social media.

His unique and professional background instantly set his content apart in the early days of fitness influencers, who at the time were mostly amateurs who were learning along the way.

Athlean-X boasts 14 million subscribers on YouTube and offers years of content for all aspects of fitness, nutrition, and sports medicine. His content is strictly focused on fitness topics and he doesn’t venture into lifestyle, vlog, or controversy much at all.

Athlean-X is often credited with building the “science-based” movement within fitness on social media, which is now its own niche and has elevated the entire industry’s credibility.

5: Chris Bumstead

Chris Bumstead (Cbum) was a Mr. OIympia champion in the natural physique category. His millions of followers enjoy Bumstead’s content which ranges from tutorials to vlog content about his life as a professional bodybuilder and top fitness influencer.

He’s had partnerships with all of the top bodybuilding supplement brands as well as his own business ventures.

Bumstead recently announced his retirement from professional bodybuilding to focus on his family and to start several businesses.

6: Greg Doucette

Greg Doucette is an IFBB professional bodybuilder, but he creates most of the content as an industry observer. He’s often critical of many aspects of the fitness community and usually has controversial takes.

His openness and honesty regarding industry trends along with his pro background have helped him carve out a lucrative spot for himself in the crowded fitness influencer space.

Doucette is also an author and coach and often takes questions from his subscribers and offers no-nonsense answers and feedback.

7: Joe Wicks

Joe Wicks, who is known as “The Body Coach,” rose to prominence as a British fitness coach and author. He helped transform the way millions approach health and exercise through social media.

He started his career as a personal trainer, building his brand through 15-second recipe videos on Instagram and his “Lean in 15” cooking and workouts. 

Wicks gained widespread recognition and became a household name during the pandemic with his “PE with Joe” YouTube sessions. These daily workout sessions attracted millions of viewers worldwide and earned him an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to fitness and charity. His impact during this period led to him raising significant funds for the NHS and setting a Guinness World Record for most viewers for a fitness workout live stream on YouTube.

Beyond his social media presence, Wicks has built a substantial fitness empire that includes multiple bestselling books and other health-focused publications. 

8: Lauren Kagan

Lauren Drain Kagan is a WBFF bodybuilding pro and also a registered nurse. Her background has helped ground her advice and coaching methods in science. While having a slightly smaller follower count than some other fitness influencers on this list, her positivity has created a strong bond with her audience.

Lauren has developed successful fitness coaching programs including her “Lauren Drain Fit” program and the “Lauren Drain Body” app. She has collaborated with various supplement and fitness apparel companies. Her work has been featured in major fitness publications, and she has appeared in numerous fitness expos and events.

9: Jen Selter

Jen Selter started her fitness journey as a part-time employee at a local gym. But the fitness bug quickly took hold and she turned her love of fitness and training into a social media empire.

Many of her self-described “booty-focus” workouts gained viral fame and attracted audiences looking to shape their body and get fast results.

In terms of partnerships, she has collaborated with several major brands in the fitness and wellness space. Some of her notable partnerships have included deals with FitPlan, where she created workout programs for their platform. She also partnered with Game Plan Nutrition, through which she launched her own line of supplements. She has also worked with various athletic wear companies and has been featured in publications like Elle, Vanity Fair, and Maxim.

10: Emily Sky

Hailing from Australia, Emily Sky focuses on content for moms who want to stay in shape both during and after pregnancy. Her focus on this niche audience has helped her gain a dedicated following as well as high-profile partnerships with brands such as Reebok.

The Future Of Fitness Influencers

While fitness trends may come and go, fitness and working out will always be a hot industry on social media. New fitness enthusiasts are entering the market every day, and looking for advice they can trust. Experienced fitness types are also looking for that edge so they can reach their next goal.

Fitness influencers continue to be the first resource many of those on their fitness journey look to as they strive to become better through a healthy lifestyle.