F45 Review 2026

The functional-training franchise built on 45-minute, coach-led, team-based circuits that blend HIIT, resistance and cardio · genuinely strong on functional strength, impact and community · but high-intensity and high-impact, with no menopause-specific programming · Studio equipment provided; at home you need dumbbells and a mat.

Is F45 right for you?

What F45 Actually Is

F45, short for Functional 45, is a functional-training franchise built around 45-minute, coach-led group classes that combine circuit-style HIIT, resistance and cardio, with the movements displayed on screens around the studio. It began in Sydney in the early 2010s and grew into a global franchise with well over a thousand studios. Workouts come in three rotating formats, cardio days, resistance or strength days, and hybrid days that blend the two, and the sessions are branded and rotated so they rarely repeat, which is a big part of the appeal. There is also an app with on-demand bodyweight, weighted and recovery workouts you can stream at home, a heart-rate wearable called LionHeart that gamifies effort in the studio, and the F45 Challenge, a 45-day team programme with meal guidance.

For this audience it helps to be clear about what it is and is not. It is a genuinely effective, sociable, full-body workout that includes real strength and impact, which is valuable, and the team community is a real motivator. What it is not is low-impact, gentle or menopause-specific: it is high-intensity and high-impact by default, it has no hormone or pelvic-floor programming, and the coaching and scaling quality vary by franchise. Read F45 as strong, community-driven functional training best suited to women who are already fit and enjoy intensity, rather than a tailored midlife or menopause programme.

Who Is Behind F45? Credibility and Company

F45 was founded by Rob Deutsch, a former equities trader, with Adam Gilchrist as chief executive driving its rapid global franchising, and the actor Mark Wahlberg became a minority investor and board member in 2019. Coaches are required to hold an externally accredited personal-training or group-fitness certification plus F45’s own coach certification, which is a real baseline standard, better than a purely in-house qualification, though the actual coaching and modification quality still varies from studio to studio. There is no clinical, medical or menopause specialisation built into the programme.

A company note worth knowing. F45 listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, then ran into serious trouble: a 2022 profit warning and layoffs, the chief executive stepping down, and, in 2023, delisting from the NYSE followed by a voluntary deregistration and a recapitalisation under a new lender group, leaving it privately controlled. A securities class action over how franchise-growth figures were reported reached a roughly 10.5 million dollar preliminary settlement in 2026, with no admission of wrongdoing. None of this changes the quality of a good class, but it is relevant to the brand’s stability and worth factoring in if you are signing a longer membership.

Content and Features

What Equipment Do You Need for F45?

In the studio, everything is provided: dumbbells, kettlebells, rowers, benches and more are set out around the circuit. If you want to do the app’s weighted workouts at home, you will need a set of dumbbells and a mat, and because F45 uses real loading, a heavier, adjustable set is the sensible choice so you can progress.

For a midlife body, dumbbells are the most valuable purchase either way, because building and protecting muscle and bone comes down to lifting progressively heavier over time, which you can do at home alongside or instead of the studio.

Recommended spec examples. These picks are curated for convenience by specification and feature fit, not personally lab-tested for long-term durability. Prices are examples; verify before buying.

A quick heads-up: some of the buy links above are Amazon affiliate links, so if you grab something through them I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only ever point you to kit I would happily use myself.

How We Scored F45: the 5.3 / 10 Breakdown

Scores on our 9 weighted criteria, from our research-based assessment. Women Over 40 is our menopause-fit criterion, and its full 12-capability breakdown follows in the next section.

Is F45 Good for Women Over 40?

It depends a lot on where you are. For a fit, resilient woman over 40 who enjoys intensity and thrives on team energy, F45 has real strengths: it delivers genuine functional resistance and impact, which are exactly the stimuli that help protect muscle and bone at midlife, it is efficient at 45 minutes, and the community keeps people consistent, which matters more than any single workout. If that is you, and your joints and pelvic floor are robust, it can be a strong, motivating choice.

Where it falls short, and who should be cautious. The concern is the intensity and impact. F45 is built on plyometrics, fast circuits and short rests, which can be hard on midlife knees, hips and a weakened pelvic floor, and the high volume and stress load can undermine recovery and sleep during perimenopause, when your body is often less tolerant of that kind of load. There is no menopause, hormone or pelvic-floor programming to guide you, coaches scale inconsistently, it is expensive, and the company has been unstable. For women newer to exercise, managing symptoms, or needing joint-friendly, recovery-aware training, gentler and more tailored options will usually serve better.

What the wider picture shows. F45 is effective and well liked by those it suits, and its strength-and-impact mix is genuinely useful for midlife bodies that can handle it. But it is not a menopause-designed programme, and the intensity is a real filter. Read it as a strong option for already-fit women who love high-intensity, sociable training, and pair it with, or swap in, low-impact and recovery work, and a menopause-specific programme if you need one.

How F45 Fits Perimenopause, Menopause and Beyond

Our capability breakdown of how well F45 suits women across perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause. Women Over 40 is our menopause-fit criterion, and this is the full breakdown behind the Women Over 40 row above.

F45 is strongest for functional strength, bone-loading impact and community; it is weakest on low-impact, recovery, pelvic floor and any menopause or hormone programming, in our menopause and midlife capability assessment.

This is the perimenopause and menopause assessment, and it is separate from the overall score. Twelve things a programme either does for a midlife body or does not, each scored out of 10 with my reasoning next to it. Together they produce a single menopause fit score, and that becomes one of the nine categories in the overall scoring below.

These are evidence-informed suitability ratings, not clinical measurements. They combine exercise science with programme research and multi-source verification, and are approximate. Individual response varies. A starting point, not medical advice. How we score menopause fit.

What the Research Says: F45 Checked

The best of what F45 offers is well supported. Resistance training with real loading, plus impact, is exactly what the evidence points to for protecting muscle and bone at midlife: trials such as LIFTMOR show that heavier, progressive resistance and impact training improves bone density and physical function in postmenopausal women.^[1] That matters because across the menopause transition body composition shifts, with fat mass rising and lean mass falling, so protecting muscle is a priority,^[2] and F45’s functional loading and impact genuinely contribute to that.

Where the nuance and limits lie. High-intensity interval training can improve cardiorespiratory fitness in midlife and older women, but a 2026 review concludes that HIIT alone is insufficient to comprehensively improve physical function, so it is best used as one part of a broader programme rather than the whole answer.^[3] That fits the sensible way to read F45: the strength and impact are valuable, but relentless high intensity is not ideal on its own, particularly when perimenopausal recovery and stress load are already stretched. The balanced approach is to use its strength, keep the intensity in check, and make sure low-impact movement and proper recovery sit alongside it.

What Users Report: Verified Sentiment

Rating snapshot: F45 does not have a single reliable app-store or Trustpilot score that we could verify, so we do not cite a headline number; one review aggregator listed around 4.3 stars from a small sample, which is too little to lean on. The clearest signal is qualitative and consistent: people love the community and the results, and the most common complaints are about intensity, cost and franchise variability.

What users praise and criticise. The praise centres on the team atmosphere and energy, effective full-body workouts, the variety that keeps sessions from ever feeling repetitive, motivation, real results, and good coaching when the coach is good. The fair criticisms are that it is expensive, that the high intensity carries a genuine injury risk and is not beginner-gentle, that form can suffer in fast circuits, that class quality and modifications vary by studio, and that the company’s financial troubles raise questions about stability. We treat all of this as directional rather than precise, given the thin rating data.

F45 specifications

F45 Price 2026: What You Actually Pay

F45 Pros and Cons

How F45 Compares

Here is how F45 stacks up against the alternatives women most often weigh it against. Scores come from our own reviews; apps we have not scored yet are marked and update automatically once reviewed.

F45 vs Pvolve: Which Is Better for Women Over 40?

These two sit at opposite ends of the intensity scale, which makes the comparison useful. F45 is high-intensity, high-impact functional training in a studio, with real strength, impact and a strong team community, but no menopause tailoring and a demanding, sometimes jarring format. Pvolve is the near-opposite: low-impact, joint-friendly functional strength designed with women’s health and menopause in mind, including pelvic-floor work, that you do at home with light resistance equipment.

For women over 40 the decision is really about your body and your goals. If you are fit, love intensity and community, and your joints and pelvic floor are robust, F45 gives you a harder, more sociable workout and a genuine bone-loading stimulus. If you want training built for a midlife body, gentle on the joints, mindful of the pelvic floor and structured around menopause, Pvolve is the far better match, and it is easier on recovery. Many midlife women would get the best of both by building on a Pvolve-style base and adding intensity selectively rather than living in the high-intensity zone.

Best Alternatives to F45

If F45 is too intense, or you want the menopause and recovery focus it does not offer, these published options pair or compare well.

F45 FAQ

Final Verdict

Research Score: 5.3 / 10 · Research-based, not personally tested

F45 is a genuinely effective, sociable functional workout that stands out for two things our audience should care about: real strength and impact, which help protect muscle and bone at midlife, and a team community that keeps people consistent. Its rotating, never-repeating 45-minute classes are efficient and motivating, and for a fit, resilient woman who loves intensity it can be a great fit. The strength-and-impact stimulus is a real plus that many gentler programmes lack.

F45 is for already-fit women who enjoy intense, sociable, team-based training and want strength and cardio in one efficient session. It is not for women who need low-impact, menopause-specific or pelvic-floor programming, a gentle entry point, or careful recovery management, because it is high-impact and high-intensity by default, has no midlife-specific content, is expensive and franchise-variable, and the company has been unstable. The sensible way to use it, if it suits you, is to enjoy the strength and community, keep the intensity in check, and make sure low-impact movement, recovery and, if you need it, a menopause-specific programme sit alongside it. As a research-based profile this is our considered assessment rather than a hands-on test.

Assessment Status

Sources and Further Reading

1. Watson, S.L. et al. (2018). High-intensity resistance and impact training improves bone mineral density and physical function in postmenopausal women: the LIFTMOR randomized controlled trial. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 33(2), 211 to 220. DOI 10.1002/jbmr.3284. Available at: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Heavier, progressive resistance and impact training improved bone density and function in postmenopausal women.
2. Greendale, G.A. et al. (2019). Changes in body composition and weight during the menopause transition. JCI Insight (Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation). Available at: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. The rate of fat-mass gain roughly doubled while lean mass declined across the menopause transition.
3. Cai, L. et al. (2026). Effects of high-intensity interval training on cardiopulmonary fitness and physical function in middle-aged and elderly women: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Physiology. Available at: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. HIIT significantly improves cardiorespiratory fitness in middle-aged and older women but shows limited effects on physical function, and HIIT alone is insufficient to comprehensively improve functional performance.

This is a research-based data profile, not a hands-on test. Pricing and features were verified in 2026 and may have changed, and studio pricing varies by franchise. Some affiliate links may be present. This site does not accept payment from platforms reviewed. Education, not medical advice; check with your clinician before starting a high-intensity programme, especially with joint, pelvic-floor, heart or recovery concerns.

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