The UK's Fittest (and Unfittest) Cities

General Fitness

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When it comes to keeping fit and healthy, we all know that staying motivated, exercising regularly and maintaining a balanced diet are the key to success.

Here at OriGym, we specialise in assisting aspiring and experienced personal trainers in reaching their goals. As experts in the health and fitness industry, we analysed every city across the UK to reveal which cities are the fittest - and which ones aren’t!

Whether you’re hitting the gym, biking around, taking a dip in the local pool or are looking for the healthiest restaurant to eat out, every city has something different to offer. But which are the best UK cities to live in for physical fitness?

Ranked: The UK’s Top 20 Fittest Cities

To rank the UK’s fittest cities, we analysed each city based on the following seven factors, giving a score for each, before combining this to give an overall fitness score:

Number of gyms
Number of swimming pools
Number of tennis clubs
Number of athletics clubs
Number of cycling clubs
Search volume (number of people searching) for 'home workouts'
Number of restaurants given a ‘healthy eating’ rating on TripAdvisor

From the most cycle-friendly to the most-proactive city during lockdown, we reveal which cities come out on top form…

Rank	City	Overall Score (/483)	Gyms Score	Swimming Pool Score	Tennis Court Score	Athletics Clubs Score	Cycling Clubs Score	Home Workouts Score	Healthy Restaurants Score
1	Birmingham	457	68	69	69	53	67	69	62
2	Leeds	453	66	68	68	66	63	62	60
3	Manchester	440	62	66	50	67	65	64	66
4	Bristol	410	51	58	62	55	59	64	61
5	Glasgow	409	69	67	26	58	62	69	58
6	Liverpool	408	58	60	56	47	60	64	63
7	Edinburgh	407	67	59	54	40	57	62	68
8	Sheffield	402	60	51	65	60	58	60	48
9	Bradford	390	59	57	50	63	64	40	57
10	Newcastle upon Tyne	385	50	45	52	64	56	59	59
11	Nottingham	358	57	54	48	55	34	56	54
12	Belfast	346	65	60	19	44	42	60	56
13	Leicester	342	45	35	57	52	47	56	50
14	Brighton	341	40	48	55	51	42	40	65
15	City of London	325	37	22	1	68	67	67	63
16	Coventry	325	45	52	45	37	46	56	44
17	Salford	323	33	29	23	65	66	40	67
18	Cardiff	320	63	64	36	42	27	33	55
19	Oxford	316	29	44	65	47	49	40	42
20	Portsmouth	314	35	35	41	49	55	51	48

Revealed: Birmingham is the fittest city in the UK

The City of Birmingham: https://unsplash.com/photos/u44HcmdG0Oo

When analysing which cities in the UK are the fittest overall, it’s no surprise that some of the country's largest cities make their way into the top three.

The city of Birmingham came up top with an impressive score of 457. As the second largest city in the UK, Birmingham boasts 182 gyms, 89 swimming pools, 79 tennis courts and 83 cycling clubs!

With a mere four points between them, the city of Leeds comes in second place with an overall score of 453. The Yorkshire city offers 137 gyms, 71 swimming pools, 71 tennis courts and 68 athletics clubs.

Following closely behind is the city of Manchester. Despite offering slightly fewer gyms and swimming pools, Manchester earns an overall score of 440 thanks to it’s 59 healthy eating restaurants and 70 athletics clubs - which is the third highest number of athletics clubs within our research.

These are the UK’s unfittest cities and Bangor comes out on top

The Welsh Flag: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/welsh-flag

As well as the fittest, this report also revealed the unfittest cities across the UK, highlighting the areas that don’t have an abundance of gyms and healthy food options - and Bangor, Wales comes out on top.

Rank	City	Overall Score (/483)	Gyms Score	Swimming Pool Score	Tennis Court Score	Athletics Clubs Score	Cycling Clubs Score	Home Workouts Score	Healthy Restaurants Score
1	Bangor (Wales)	25	3	2	1	12	3	1	3
2	Newry	40	4	4	1	16	1	8	6
3	Hereford	71	10	11	25	8	3	8	6
4	Ely	86	49	7	5	16	6	1	2
5	Inverness	89	21	6	5	8	24	8	17
6	Derry	95	36	2	4	16	1	30	6
7	Salisbury	101	2	12	45	12	12	14	4
8	Perth	101	42	1	13	5	20	14	6
9	Lichfield	103	1	12	11	28	44	1	6
10	Carlisle	105	10	17	18	16	17	14	13
11	Lisburn	107	17	5	5	22	31	14	13
12	Truro	108	6	20	27	11	9	1	34
13	Lancaster	110	19	23	20	12	9	14	13
14	Lincoln	114	4	8	9	28	12	26	27
15	Newport	116	24	18	27	34	6	1	6
16	Ripon	135	17	32	56	12	16	1	1
17	Canterbury	143	8	18	38	25	9	14	31
18	Chelmsford	147	20	32	37	1	26	14	17
19	Worcester	150	22	14	8	21	36	26	23
20	Stirling	156	40	8	13	16	48	14	17

According to our research, Bangor is the UK’s unfittest city with a mere score of 25. Across the city there are just 20 gyms, two swimming pools, one tennis court and only two healthy eating restaurants - which means that maintaining a healthy lifestyle can be restricted.

Bangor is closely followed by Newry and Hereford in second and third place, with 40 and 71 points respectively. The cities of Inverness, Lincoln, Ripon and Chelmsford have all made the top 20 unfittest cities too.

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Search Volumes: These cities are the most committed to home workouts

Rank	City	"Home Workouts" Yearly Search Volume	Score
1	Birmingham	4680	69
2	Glasgow	3840	68
3	City of London	3240	67

When gyms and fitness studios across the country were forced to close their doors at the start of the pandemic, many people turned to home workouts and daily walks to burn energy and stay in shape.

We wanted to find out where in the UK stayed committed to their fitness goals throughout lockdown, by analysing the number of “home workout” searches.

Taking the top spot again is the city of Birmingham, who racked up an impressive 4680 searches for the term over the last 12 months, resulting in a workout score of 69.

The city of Glasgow comes in second place with 3840 yearly searches and a workout score of 68. And in third place is the City of London with 3240 searches for “home workouts” and a score of 67.

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Cambridge is the healthiest city to eat out in

The City of Cambridge - https://unsplash.com/photos/Ml_MmQXkfK4

As healthy eating plays a vital role in our physical health and wellbeing, we sought to find which cities in the UK were the best for healthy eating.

Rank	City	Number Of "Healthy" Restaurants	Score
1	Cambridge	122	69
2	Edinburgh	86	68
3	Salford	67	67

Analysing TripAdvisor for those restaurants which were given a “healthy eating” rating, our data revealed that Cambridge is the best city for eating out whilst eating healthy, with a healthy eating score of 69 and 122 healthy restaurants to choose from.

The beautiful Scottish city of Edinburgh came in second with a healthy eating score of 68 and 86 restaurants offering healthy menus. Salford, in Greater Manchester, came third place with a healthy eating score of 67 and 67 restaurants.

These cities are the most cycle-friendly

Cycling in the City of London - https://unsplash.com/photos/0ipWO44-org

We know that keeping fit doesn’t always mean hitting the gym, that’s why we analysed the number of cycling clubs within each city to find out which cities are the most cycle-friendly.

Rank	City	Number of Cycling Clubs	Score
1	City of London	83	67
2	Birmingham	83	67
3	Westminster	83	67
4	Salford	77	66

Interestingly, the City of London, Birmingham and Westminster all come in joint-first place as each city offers 83 cycling clubs and achieved a cycling club score of 67.

Following closely behind, cities the north-west takes over, with the city of Salford in second. The 77 cycling clubs in Salford, earned the city a cycling club score of 66.

Before You Go!

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Methodology

A total of 69 cities were analysed; 51 in England, seven in Scotland, six in Wales, and five in Northern Ireland. A full methodology and a list of sources used in the data can be found below:

The number of gyms, swimming pools and tennis courts (indoor and outdoor) in England were taken from Sport England's Active Places open data. For Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, these were pulled from Google Maps.

Athletics clubs were sourced from; England Athletics, Scotland Athletics, Athletics NI and Welsh Athletics. The number of clubs was calculated using a 10 mile radius from each location.

Search volume for 'home workouts' was sourced from Google Keyword planner to gain monthly search volumes, which was then multiplied by 12 to give us an average yearly search volume.

Healthy restaurants were sourced from TripAdvisor. For each location, we looked at the number of restaurants listed that sat within the 'healthy' cuisine filtering.

Cycling Clubs were sourced from Cycling UK and used a 10 mile radius from the location to generate the number of clubs.

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Sources

https://www.activeplacespower.com/OpenData/download

https://www.sportengland.org/know-your-audience/data#activeplaces-2916

https://www.englandathletics.org/find-an-athletics-club/

https://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/clubs/club-finder/

https://athleticsni.org/Clubs/Find-A-Club

https://www.welshathletics.org/en/club/search

https://www.cyclinguk.org/