50 Famous Fitness Quotes For Instagram (+Free Swipe File)

Some of the most famous fitness quotes are by athletes and sportspeople who have exercised all their lives. Others are by philosophers, scientists, and coaches who have a talent for inspiring, educating, or motivating. Their quotes make ideal social media content, captions, or words of wisdom to share with fitness clients, so we’ve collated the best ones…

In this article, we share 50 famous fitness and workout quotes by iconic sportspeople and well-known celebrities (plus a downloadable swipe file with 365 days of quotes).

We’re a specialist fitness marketing agency with 15+ years of industry experience, so we know first-hand what works (and what doesn’t!). Our social media post bundles help gyms, fitness studios, and personal trainers to promote their businesses effectively.

Get 365 Days of Fitness Quotes [Free Swipe File]

Posting daily just got easier – grab 365 powerful fitness quotes designed to inspire, engage, and grow your audience fast. Download it for FREE:

Fitness Quotes By Famous Athletes & Celebrities

These fitness quotes by famous athletes and celebrities are inspiring, funny, and insightful on what it takes to succeed in sport…

1. Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you have got a kingdom – Jack Lalanne.
2. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat. – Richard Marcinko
3. Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live – Jim Rohn
4. You have a choice. You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face. – Gatorade
5. Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart. – Gene Tunney
6. I hate every minute of training. But I said, don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. – Mohammad Ali
7. Running is the greatest metaphor for life because you get out of it what you put into it. – Oprah Winfrey
8. Unless you puke, faint or die, keep going! – Jillian Michaels
9. I train to be the best in the world on my worst day. – Ronda Rousey
10. It is health that is real wealth – Gandhi
11. Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t. – Jerry Rice
12. Practise puts brains in your muscles. – Sam Snead
13. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle
14. The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit – Tim Ferris
15. Just remember the letter ‘S’: salads, stir-fries, scrambles, soups, smoothies, and sushi. You can’t go wrong with the letter ‘S’ – Harley Pasternak
16. Progress, not perfection – Kimberly Snyder
17. The quality of your sleep depends on the quality of your day – Deepak Chopra
18. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable! – Jillian Michaels
19. The body benefits from movement, and the mind benefits from stillness. Sakyong Mipham
20. You miss 100% of the shots you never take – Wayne Gretzky
21. Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection – Mark Twain
22. When you start eating food without labels, you no longer need to count the calories – Amanda Kraft
23. Why are you stopping? You think I can’t see you? – Shaun T
24. It’s not until you get tired that you see how strong you really are. – Shaun T
25. Tough times don’t last but tough people do – Robert H. Schuller
26. You just can’t beat the person who never gives up – Babe Ruth
27. I win or I learn but I never lose. – Marie Forleo
28. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants – Michael Pollan
29. The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow. – Ritu Ghatourey
30. If you don’t practise you don’t deserve to win. – Andre Agassi
31. I didn’t have the same fitness or ability as other girls, so I had to beat them with my mind. – Martina Hingis
32. I still look at myself and want to improve. – David Beckham
33. I think in life you should work on yourself until the day you die. – Serena Williams
34. I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. – Michael Jordan
35. If you turn up worrying about how you’re going to perform, you’ve already lost. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself. – Usain Bolt
36. Everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. – Michael Phelps
37. Blood, sweat, and respect. First two you give. Last one you earn. – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
38. I already know what giving up feels like. I want to see what happens if I don’t. – Neila Ray
39. If you’re using two-pound weights, how did you even open the door to the gym? – Dave Attell
40. Do not fear what you cannot lift, fear that which can lift you. – Uziel Matos Lima
41. Inward calm cannot be maintained unless physical strength is constantly and intelligently replenished. – Buddha
42. Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up. – Dean Karnazes
43. Eat clean, stay fit, and have a burger to stay sane. – Gigi Hadid
44. If you want to know the correct way to perform an exercise, the answer is: “whatever hurts most.” – Jason Love
45. My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit. – Phyllis Diller
46. The best abs exercise is five sets of stop eating so much. – Lazar Angelov
47. Exercises are like prose, whereas yoga is the poetry of movements. Once you understand the grammar of yoga; you can write your poetry of movements. – Amit Ray
48. Yoga is not about touching your toes. It is about what you learn on the way down. – Jigar Gor
49. Yoga is not about tightening your ass. It’s about getting your head out of it. – Eric Paskel
50. The keys to health and weight-loss: stress reduction, sleep, deep breathing, clean water, complete nutrition, sunshine, walking, stretching, meditation, love, community, laughter, dreams, perseverance, purpose, humility, action. – Bryant McGill

These words of wisdom make great gym quotes that inspire a good workout. Hearing how sporting heroes trained hard and overcame challenges can help motivate others to do the same.

You can also use funny fitness quotes on social media as they always get lots of likes, comments, and engagement. Turn them into Instagram posts, carousels, reels, stories, or use them for captions instead. To make it easy, we created ready-made social media posts and templates that you can customize for your account…

Editable Social Media Templates

30 templates for gyms, fitness studios & personal trainers that drive engagement & sign-ups.

Famous Motivational Fitness Quotes

There are also lots of famous fitness quotes that aren’t attributed to the original source. They’re still inspiring and motivational, but we don’t know who said them first! We still think they’re awesome, so we’ve created this bonus list of the best ones…

• We don’t need to be perfect… we just need to get started.
• It never gets easier. You just get better at it.
• Shift the focus from what your body looks like to what it can do.
• Each day is another chance to change your life.
• The same voice that says “give up” can also be trained to say “keep going”.
• Our bodies are capable of anything… It’s our minds we have to convince.
• Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.
• If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you
• What seems impossible today will one day become your warm up.
• A one-hour workout is 4% of your day.
• It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday.
• Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
• You can’t out-train a bad diet.
• A healthy lifestyle is something we refine over time, not overnight.
• You don’t have to go fast… you just have to go.
• It’s ok to fail… consistent doesn’t mean perfect.
• The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.
• A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
• Have a purpose and you won’t need motivation.
• Nothing changes if nothing changes.
• Push harder than yesterday if you want a different tomorrow.
• The best exercise is the one you actually do.
• Remember why you started.
• If it was easy, would it be worth it?
• Wake up with determination. Go to be with satisfaction.
• Strength grows in the moment when you think you can’t go on, but you keep going anyway.
• If you’re persistent you’ll get it. If you’re consistent you’ll keep it.
• The body achieves what the mind believes.
• Don’t wish for it – work for it.

You might also like… Perfect Wellness Quotes & Captions, Funny & Insightful Quotes About Yoga, or our Favourite Personal Trainer Quotes.

Get 365 Days of Fitness Quotes [Free Swipe File]

Posting daily just got easier – grab 365 powerful fitness quotes designed to inspire, engage, and grow your audience fast. Download it for FREE:

Science Behind Using Quotes 

There’s some interesting scientific research that supports the use of quotes, affirmations, and mantras. It suggests that they can reduce stress and positively affect parts of the brain associated with self-processing and valuation. They’re more effective when used to think about the future than the past, so could be beneficial for people working towards fitness goals.

Motivational quotes can be used in a myriad of ways within the fitness industry. They’re probably most often seen on social media, being used as content on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

But you can also use them as part of your gym’s interior design as huge wall graphics or murals. Or simply to motivate personal training clients in one-to-one coaching situations.

You might also like… Gym buddy quotes or meditation quotes for stress & mindfulness.

Downloadable Quotes Posts For Social Media

To save you time and effort, we’ve put together a social media bundle that includes hundreds of health and fitness quotes. Our marketing agency clients often request these as part of their social media packages, so we know they’re popular with gyms, personal trainers, and fitness bloggers.

Save time and improve marketing results using ready-made fitness content for Instagram. Our done-for-you social media bundles are designed to drive engagement, follower growth, and client leads.

We’ll create custom-branded content using your colors and logo, that aligns with your marketing goals. You’ll receive a tailored bundle of 375+ Instagram posts suitable for carousels, stories, and reels – that’s over a year’s worth of content taken care of!

Fitness Content For Instagram

Grow your social media, increase engagement & generate leads in less time.