How to Start a Fitness YouTube Channel

If you’re a personal trainer, teach fitness classes or run a gym and you’re wondering if you should start your own YouTube channel focused on fitness, the answer is a resounding YES. With over 2 billion users all over the world, YouTube offers big opportunities for your small business. A YouTube channel can help you build brand awareness, expand your audience, grow your client base and help boost client retention. It can also help you capitalize on the at-home & virtual workout market, which has grown exponentially over the last few years.

Before you dive in, understand that running a vlog is more than curating a collection of hastily made videos. Like building the body you want, creating a successful fitness YouTube channel takes a lot of time, commitment, vision & self-belief. Consider this article as your form check. Below, we’ll cover the basics of a YouTube content plan, as well as the best tips for setting up, growing and monetizing your channel. Let’s get into it.

Why You Should Start a YouTube Channel

There are three major benefits to starting your own fitness YouTube channel. In social media & marketing, video is an incredibly effective tool. Most people prefer video over all other content types. In fact, so does Google.

Increase Searchability

Video helps improve your SEO (search engine optimization), helping more people find you in Google searches. This is because Google’s algorithm values video content—highly. Moreover, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, and is currently the world’s second most popular social media platform.

As we’ve covered in a previous article, social media marketing is a cornerstone of your overall marketing strategy. It helps build your status as a subject matter expert and your fitness YouTube channel will significantly grow your community of followers. Check out Vagaro’s Comprehensive Marketing Guide to learn how best to incorporate video & social media into your marketing strategy.

Expand Your Influence

The clients that you teach onsite are dependent on your business’s physical location and hours of operation, but digital fitness reaches people at any time, anywhere. As we mentioned, YouTube has billions of users all over the world, and the platform enables you to carve into that exceptionally large pie—from wherever is convenient for you.

Connect with the Home Gym Crowd

Digital and hybrid fitness experienced a renaissance during the pandemic, and they’re here to stay. The important thing about digital fitness is that it can be done anywhere—just like, say, viewing a YouTube video. See what we’re driving at here?

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How to Create a Content Plan for Your YouTube Channel

Before kicking off your career as a vlogger, you should create a business plan for your channel. This will lay out your long- & short-term goals and define why you’re doing this in the first place. Just like a regular business plan, this should include:

Your Main Objective: Why are you starting this channel? Answer this simple question in a mission statement. Why did you get into the fitness business in the first place? Is it to help people and really make an impact, or to make connections? Reiterating your objective will help get you through the grind of constant content development.

Your Target Audience: With so many YouTube users, you must decide who among them will enjoy or benefit the most from your videos. They may be bodybuilders and CrossFit enthusiasts. Then again, they may be people looking for body-positive ways to lose weight and tone up. A good way to do this is to create buyer personas based on age, fitness levels, exercise experience and other factors. Identify your ideal client and market to that crowd.

The Products You’ll Sell: These could be anything from nutrition plans or comprehensive exercise guides and eBooks. To decide, think about pain points shared across your target audience. Is it burning fat and getting shredded, or weight loss? Maybe you should author the official hard gainer’s mass bible.

Next, check out some established fitness channels. Where are those links below the video descriptions sending viewers? What language do these vloggers use to create urgency and persuade their viewers to click?

Your Video Format: What type of content will you publish? Quick tips, or in-depth workouts? Will you include equipment or supplement reviews? What you ultimately choose should depend on who your target demographics are. Whatever you choose, keep the same template so all your videos have the same flow.

Your Budget: Eventually, your channel may grow enough that you need to budget for a camera crew, producer, editor & other staff. In the beginning phases, your budget will mainly go to lighting & audio equipment, like:

Video editing software
A good computer for video editing
Backdrops
Tripods & other equipment

Your Filming Locations: Will you film indoors or outdoors? Are you going to build a dedicated studio in your home or use multiple locations? Make sure that your lighting, background and camera angle are appealing and consistent for every video. If you venture outdoors, it's important to understand that filming conditions will vary, so check out this article for some easy-to-apply video production tips.

Where Ideas Will Come From: You’ll need a system for coming up with new and engaging video ideas. This system can include:

Asking your audience directly to comment on what they want to watch next
Research into what’s working on other fitness channels
A deep dive into your channel’s analytics to see what video topics are performing well
Keyword searches to find out what people are searching for

How to Create Your YouTube Channel

Once you’ve done the heavy lifting of creating a content plan, the mechanics of creating your own fitness YouTube channel aren’t complicated:

Create a YouTube Account: If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up a Google account to create your YouTube account. Your fitness brand’s Google account is recommended over your personal account. Customize the dashboard & homepage banner with a strong photo that represents your brand. Include links to your website, blog & social media accounts in the About and Description tabs.
Plan Your Channel’s Content: What types of videos will you feature on your new channel? Will it be educational content, such as how-to videos & form demonstrations? What about supplement or equipment reviews? Then there’s brand storytelling videos, which are more inspirational in tone and feature client successes. Maybe you’ll include both. Whatever you choose, create a content calendar that subscribers can count on and, most importantly, stick to it.
Create a Channel Trailer: Make your trailer compelling and interesting, and really capture your brand’s personality.
Upload Videos: Uploading your first video is easy. Your new videos automatically appear in YouTube Studio, which is where you manage everything on your channel, including past videos and live streams, playlists, comments & mentions, layout customization and analytics. When editing your video’s details, include a short, optimized description and add all necessary tags. Head over to your video manager to add a thumbnail to the video that’s eye catching and apt to get clicks.

Equipment Check for Your Fitness Videos

female vlogger setting up camera and ring light

Vloggers need the right hardware and software to produce high-quality content. This will make up a big part of your budget and as your channel grows and develops, you may invest in more expensive equipment.

Camera: A smartphone and a tripod should suffice in the beginning. As your channel grows, you may consider upgrading to action cameras like GoPro or Insta360. DSLR cameras, including the Cannon Rebel series, are strong options. Do your own research and get what’s best for you, your budget & your goals.
Lighting: As in photography, lighting is the most essential element in a video. A good ring light will suffice in the beginning, though you should plan to acquire an LED light panel. You can better capture those angles with a two- or three-point lighting setup once you have the budget for it.
Smartphone & Computer: Great video editing desktops include the Apple iMac and Microsoft Surface Studio, while the MacBook Pro and Dell XPS are strong laptop options.
Video Editing Software: Apple iMovie and Splice are well known and free. LumaFusion is good for mobile devices, while Final Cut Pro X is a good choice for those new to editing. DaVinci Resolve offers a free version that has every feature a vlogger would need.
Microphone/Audio: Affordable lavalier (lapel) microphones like Purple Panda plug into your smartphone and are easy to move around with. Upgrading to a wireless option like the RØDE Wireless GO II may be pricey, but ultimately worth it.

How to Grow Your Fitness YouTube Channel

list of content strategy areas on paper with pen and cup of coffee

Even the best fitness experts need time to build their fitness YouTube channels. While there’s always the possibility of striking viral gold with a video or getting love from a well-established fitness influencer, you’ll have to create a lot of content, consistently. Like a fitness plan, the process is a grind that gets you results in the end.

Luckily, there are several commonsense practices that you should exercise regularly to keep that ball rolling—and growing:

SEO & Keyword Optimization: Which words do you think your target audience might use when looking for the kind of content you’re posting? To set your channel’s keywords, head back to YouTube Studio. Once in the Settings tab, choose Channel, then set up to 10 keywords that describe your fitness channel.
Promote, Promote, Promote: You want to promote your channel on social media accounts, in newsletters, email & text marketing or any blogs you may have.
Audience/Subscriber Engagement: It may seem obvious, but always encourage viewers to like, share and comment on your videos, and subscribe to your channel! If you ask for comments or feedback, be ready to respond promptly & professionally.
Use YouTube Ads: Many of the tips we’ve described are used to increase organic traffic. Using paid YouTube ads lets you target certain demographics and subjects.
Check your Analytics: Monitor your YouTube analytics to see which videos are a hit with your audience. When you have this data, you can better optimize future content that connects with viewers & subscribers.

If you’re still a bit unsure about how to manage your videos and other content, check out YouTube Creators. The tips, tricks and educational material you find here will help you use all aspects of your YouTube channel effectively.

How to Make Money with Your YouTube Videos

Using your channel to increase your reach and grow your client base is highly effective. But what about using it as another source of income? Every influencer in the fitness industry is making money on YouTube these days, right? Well, there’s a little more to it.

Per YouTube’s Partner Program, for a channel to qualify for monetization, it must:

Have more than 1,000 subscribers
Have reached 4,000 viewing hours over the last year

Once your channel meets these requirements and you’re accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, you can start monetizing it in several ways:

Ads: You can turn on paid ads for individual or multiple videos if they meet YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines. This requires you to start a Google AdSense account. You can turn ads on or off in YouTube Studio, or via the app on your mobile device. YouTube will pay you directly for every 1,000 views.
Channel Memberships: Your members make recurring monthly payments in exchange for special perks that you offer.
Shopping: The Shopping option lets you connect an online store to YouTube, where fans can browse and buy your products.
YouTube Premium Revenue: Enables you to earn a portion of a YouTube premium member’s subscription fee when they watch your content.
Super Thanks: Super Thanks lets you earn revenue by letting viewers pay to get their message highlighted in chat streams.
Super Chat & Super Stickers: Fans pay to get their messages or animated images highlighted in chat streams.

Check out YouTube’s ads help page for more detailed directions on how to use these functions.

The following monetization methods can work once you’re more established:

Affiliate Marketing: You help sell other people’s products and receive a commission
Sponsor Videos: Brands pay you to mention or show their products
Crowdfunding: Open a Patreon account, link it to your channel and ask for support from your viewers

A List of Successful Fitness YouTube Channels

Nobody becomes a fitness YouTube sensation with a cool million subs overnight—it takes years of dedicated content creation and audience engagement, as well as commitment to refining your process and product.

These fitness vloggers stayed on the grind and parlayed that consistency into incredible followings. You’re probably already familiar with this group, but check out what makes their fitness content unique and how they grow their following:

Chloe Ting: Chloe Ting’s free, easy-to-follow videos, workout programs, fitness challenges & recipes have endeared her to over 24 million followers. The award-winning influencer even launched her own brand of fitness equipment in 2022.
Blogilates: Run by certified Pilates instructor, Cassie Ho, Blogilates combines POP Pilates, PIIT28, and Bootcamp Sculpting. Ho releases a monthly schedule of various videos, with each day focusing on a different muscle group. She even has her own app and line of fitness apparel.
Pop Sugar: Pop Sugar offers high-energy tutorials and exercise classes that pull from bodyweight cardio, dance, Tabata, Pilates, barre & other disciplines. Classes are fast paced, fun, and designed for people of all body types & fitness levels.
Athlean-X: Ever wonder what might be killing your gains? Athlean-X's Jeff Cavalier doesn't have to wonder. Cavalier’s deep catalogue of videos covers common training mistakes, good exercise techniques and numerous workouts for people at all stages of fitness.
Jeremy Ethier: Ethier uses his background in Kinesiology to point out the science behind muscle growth and overall fitness in his content. Informative. Accessible. Built With Science. Boom.
MadFit: Run by Canadian fitness blogger & vlogger, Maddie Lymburner, MadFit’s real-time videos include at-home workouts that cover a range of muscle groups. Lymburner also offers healthy recipes & meal planning.

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Starting a fitness YouTube channel isn’t just a great idea, it’s almost necessary for personal trainers and other fitness instructors who want to build a successful brand & business.

If you plan all your content around a sound strategy and pay attention to your channel’s data, you can produce content that provides value and grows your audience. It also helps if you enjoy making videos. If you aren’t in it just for the promise of money, that’s an even bigger indicator that you’ll stick around to see your channel flourish.

Video is part of a greater marketing strategy, the goal of which is to reach more clients and generate more bookings. Among its many features, Vagaro’s fitness software has a whole slate of marketing tools that can help you advertise your fitness YouTube channel. If you’re ready to take your fitness business to the next level, sign up for a free 30-day trial and discover everything Vagaro can do for you!