What are fitness communities?

One of the larger topic areas on the site, covering lifting, running, yoga, calisthenics, and pretty much every other form of exercise. Reddit has massive communities for general fitness and specific disciplines, with Discord servers for accountability and program sharing. Good for program recommendations, form checks, and finding training partners.

Where do most fitness communities live?

Reddit is the most common platform in this report (29% of 129 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

88% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical fitness community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.8M members and the median is 28K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (78%). Others that show up often include live chat.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Fitness topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Fitness Communities Report: Stats, Platforms, Trends &...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 129 fitness communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: fitness communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated periodically

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Communities: 129
Platforms: 11
Avg members: 1.8M
Median members: 28K

Where Fitness Communities Are Hosted

Reddit
37(29%)
Independent Platforms
36(28%)
Facebook
21(16%)
Skool
12(9%)
Discord
10(8%)
WhatsApp
5(4%)
LinkedIn
2(2%)
Meetup
2(2%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
95(74%)
Chat communities
16(12%)
Private membership
13(10%)
Other platforms
5(4%)

Most listings are forum / feed-based (74%).

Reddit leads, but Independent Platforms and Facebook also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
1(1%)
Small
20-100 members
3(2%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
14(11%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
8(6%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
27(21%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
22(17%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
9(7%)

45 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (1.8M vs 28K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Fitness Differs From Other Categories

Fitness is more platform-diverse than typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Fitness	Hive Index average
Free to join	88%	84%
Median members	28K	25K
Average members	1.8M	662K
Paid or apply-to-join	12%	16%
Live chat	29%	41%
Discord share	8%	18%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
78%
Live Chat
29%

Niche Features

Online/Offline Events
13%
Paid Community
12%
Courses
7%
Newsletter
5%
Member Perks
4%
Tools
2%
Job Board
1%
Pairing
1%

Forum appears on 78% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 326

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Reddit	37	29%	39	12%
Independent Platforms	36	28%	36	11%
Facebook	21	16%	15	5%
Skool	12	9%	2	1%
Discord	10	8%	84	26%
WhatsApp	5	4%	150	46%

Share is calculated within this topic.

WhatsApp gets 46% of clicks but only 4% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Chat communities
234(72%)
Forum / feed-based
90(28%)
Private membership
2(1%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
240(74%)
Forum
95(29%)
Courses
56(17%)
Tools
29(9%)
Paid Community
26(8%)
Online/Offline Events
24(7%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Medium
124(38%)
Huge
65(20%)
Large
26(8%)
Massive
20(6%)
Small
6(2%)

Top-clicked listings

30-Day Fitness Accountability
81(25%)
Fitness Club
44(13%)
Peptigrity forum
29(9%)

Most clicks go to chat communities and forum / feed-based communities.

Trends

Founded year

1958

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2015

2019

2020

2021

2022

109 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 2015.

Community Quality & Ratings

Only 1 community has ratings so far, so read this as a small sample.

5.0 average rating across 1 community.

Rated examples

Effective Fitness
Discord · 5.0 stars · 31K members

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Fitness. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

Updated periodically

FAQ

: One of the larger topic areas on the site, covering lifting, running, yoga, calisthenics, and pretty much every other form of exercise. Reddit has massive communities for general fitness and specific disciplines, with Discord servers for accountability and program sharing. Good for program recommendations, form checks, and finding training partners.
: Reddit is the most common platform in this report (29% of 129 listings).
: 88% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.8M members and the median is 28K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (78%). Others that show up often include live chat.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Fitness topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

Browse

All Fitness communities

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