Workout Fanservice

"Woah, look over here
We got a cute little ol' runner to the right
Blue shorts, no shirt
Whoo! Your looking good, darling
That's right, stay in shape"

— K.T. Oslin, "Younger Men"

An athletic character working out or practicing a sport is an excellent opportunity for Fanservice. It gives ample opportunity to watch sweaty bodies in constant motion, labored breathing, muscle flexing...

This is a very common way to introduce stealth fanservice in works where it would otherwise be jarring to the audience, and it is especially popular in action movies or Shōnen anime, where it makes it easier for the guy to persuade his girlfriend to join him. They don't have to be muscular, either (though they often are)—they just have to be working out. Often they're shirtless, or if the character is female, she's only wearing a sports bra. Even if they aren't shirtless, they're usually wearing very minimal or form-fitting clothing.

Female characters aren't excluded from this either, but it's slightly more common for the character in question to be male. When this trope is used for female characters, expect the women in the gym to be lean, toned, and fairly buffed and muscular, but not overly bulky, and doing exercises such as flexibility training (i.e., Yoga and Pilates), cardio training (i.e., treadmills), and calisthenics (i.e., sit-ups, push-ups, squats, and jumping jacks), in addition to strength training with weights. In addition, when the characters are female, expect their grunts to sound less like they're working out and more like they're having orgasms.

When they decide to work out, it can easily be justified as their way of training for a fight. They'll need to get their bodies into shape so they get a better handle on the physicality of a fight. It also allows them to wield melee weapons more easily, or it can be his way of honing his superhuman abilities or dealing with stress... but let's face it, we're only really interested in the idea of a bare chested, hot, sweaty, muscly guy or strong, toned, curvy girl sculpting their abs, arms, or legs, or improving his or her game in front of us.

The hottie in question has to perform anything from push-ups and sit-ups, to pull-ups and weight-lifting. Anything from a Shirtless Scene (for men) or a Sports Bra Scene (for women) to being completely nude is certainly optional. When a villain does it, it can overlap with Kingpin in His Gym. Compare Fitness Nut, Macho Camp, Training Montage, and Hot Men at Work. Workout videos are often Poor Man's Porn for this very reason.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the early 2010s, Lucozade did a series of YouTube videos aimed at the British audience called "Sweat Session", featuring well-known sportspeople working out in the gym. The videos themselves were not examples of this. However, the street poster adverts promoting the videos, featuring the very attractive track-and-field athlete Jessica Ennis, definitely were.
• A radio commercial in the Chicago area for Allstate Insurance features Dean Winters' "Mayhem" character as an attractive beach volleyball player causing a rear-end collision on Lake Shore Drive.

Anime & Manga

• In Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says, Yanagi, another author under Tanaka's supervision, specializes in fitness-themed hentai that's full of this.
• Bonus images in Attack on Titan have a tendency to show Mikasa working out in a sports bra, revealing both her generous cleavage and ripped abs.
• There are quite a few scenes in Black Clover of Asta working out shirtless. The twelfth opening "Everlasting Shine" noticeably begins with him doing push-ups shirtless.
• Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach had a very brief scene in the anime where he made a couple of push-ups without a shirt. This was during the Soul Society arc, when he was training to get Bankai.
• Sports series by design heavily feature these. Eyeshield 21 is especially shameless about them, particularly with Shin.
• Food Wars! provides a fair bit of it, in spite of being a cooking manga.
  • The heavily-muscled Gin Doujima stretching in the bath.
  • Senzaemon Nakiri doing pull-ups with ease, displaying his sculpted physique.
  • Ryou Kurokiba, shirtless and doing one-handed push-ups.
  • Azami Nakiri, practicing iaido in a gi just open enough to show the sweat trickling down his chiseled abs.
• As part of its premise, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? does this every chapter/episode (except for some questionable angles), with the female characters explaining the exercise of the day while wearing comparatively less clothing (specially in the review segments) and being more sweaty...but the exercises are, in fact, very accurate in real life.
• Chapter 21 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid begins with The Ojou Lady of War Victoria Dahlgrün working out in a sports bra and short shorts ensemble. This is in contrast to other characters, who do their exercising in more modest outfits.
• Episode 3 of The Magnificent Kotobuki opens with Leona doing sit-ups in just a sports bra and panties; Zara is also there, not working out, but wearing lingerie for no apparent reason. This is also one of the few times the show uses hand-drawn animation.
• Prison School has this on often with resident Ms. Fanservice and Dominatrix Meiko Shiraki.
• Kogami receives this in the third episode of Psycho-Pass where we get to see his well-trained body and abs as well as the sweat layering all over him.
• SHWD:
  • The very first page is a scene of Sawada doing push-ups in a sports bra, with lots of focus given to her sweaty, muscular arms. Episode 2 features a similar scene, this time focusing on her doing lat pull downs, conveniently showcasing her toned abs.
  • The side-story "Sports Day Edition" features Koga and Sawada competing against each other in various physical activities like tennis and judo, culminating in an intense MMA match with lots of focus given to both of their ripped bodies.
• Episode 8 of Solo Leveling features an anime-original scene featuring S-rank hunter Cha Hae-in exercising in a sports bra and form-fitting pants, with a sizeable amount of Male Gaze-worthy shots towards her midriff and rear end as she works out.
• Episode 28 of Soul Eater has a brief scene of Dr. Stein training shirtless, and we get many loving close-up shots of his sweaty, muscular body. Fangirls were delighted.
• This is the primary fanservice found in Tokyo Ghoul, with both Kaneki and Amon getting scenes involving little clothing and a lot of sweat.
• This trope is one of the main selling points of Training with Hinako.

Comic Books

• While various comic book superheroines have been shown working out, She-Hulk is probably the most prone to doing actual powerlifting exercises like superheavy bench presses and squats, given her whole appeal is being an Amazonian Beauty. Initially She-Hulk seemed to work out just to pass time until she lost to Champion Of The Universe and realized she could benefit much more by working out as Jennifer Walters instead.
• Uncanny X-Men: Issues 466 and 470 have Psylocke stretching in the grounds of the Xavier Institute, thoroughly distracting many of the soldiers and government agents monitoring the X-Men.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron:
  • Wedge and Wes are working out in issue #32, with both being fit, muscular young men. Later on, Reina, an attractive young woman, is introduced wearing a swimsuit; Wedge and Wes spend some time looking at her admiringly. Wedge ends up dating her briefly.
  • Plourr, a tall, muscular woman who's also quite beautiful, wears a tank top along with shorts at length in some later issues while she spars and fights enemies barehanded.
  • One issue shows Big Bad Ysanne Isard in a skintight commando outfit while shooting at holograms in a training exercise.

Fan Works

• The Star Wars fic "Voyeurs'' starts out as this, then turns into Waterfall Shower. Luke comes in from his morning run in sweaty pants and a sleeveless shirt, then takes a shower in a waterfall.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, after the Fuchsia Gym, Iris decides that their group needs to train to become stronger and sharper. While Misty is mildly annoyed by the harsh training regime, she does find a fringe benefit in watching Ash working out.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: After detecting that her powers as Supergirl are making her an Amazonian Beauty, Asuka Langley Sohryu starts to use the gym at NERV headquarters to "justify" the muscles on her frame, and Shinji decides to accompany her. As a result, many scenes involve Shinji or Asuka working out and taking a peek at the other pilot.
• My Huntsman Academia frequently features this in the side story, particularly with Izuku and Yang, the two bruisers of their respective teams. Yang in particular gets a kick out of admiring him as his spotter, giving her eyefuls of his sweat-drenched clothes that cling to his hard-earned muscles.
• In the first installment of Skyhold Academy Yearbook, Evvy goes to the school gym to find Cullen, and Bull (the boys' gym teacher) advises her that he's in the weight room. He also offers to lock the door, which she finds a bit confusing until she walks in and discovers her boyfriend lifting weights, shirtless. She manages to record a little bit on her phone to show Dorian, as they enjoy Eating the Eye Candy together.
• The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.: In "A Liv of Their Own", when the Burns family is working out, Mr. Burns demands his husband Waylon exercise while wearing booty shorts and no shirt. As he's spotting Anastasia, he spends a lot of time admiring Waylon, to the point where after they're done working out and Anastasia is busy taking a shower, the two of them have sex.
• In This Bites!, both Nami and Vivi admit they like watching Zoro when he does his strength training, when he's shirtless and working out with what must be several tons of weight at a time. He gets a much larger audience after the Strong World saga. By getting a visual transponder snail, Cross is able to broadcast video as well as audio to the world for his SBS shows. One of the new programs is Zoro's workout routine with tips from Zoro about strength training. Cross has had to black list over half of all female viewers of the show for calling in with inappropriate questions and comments regarding Zoro.
• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic The Storms of War, during a sparring session with Bucky, Steve is continuously distracted by the sight of Sharon exercising in just a sports bra and spandex shorts.

Film

• In The Avengers (2012), Captain America is introduced with a loving shot of his body and ass while he was working out his frustrations on a series of punching bags.
• Ron Burgundy tries to invoke this in Anchorman by inviting Veronica into his office when he's "sculpting [his] guns". It doesn't work because his body betrays the fact that he doesn't work out that much, and because he keeps referring to his arms as "guns".
• Straight ladies and gay guys must have loved seeing Bruce Wayne working out in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises.
• Big Business (1988): Roone does a bunch of push-ups while he's shirtless.
• The detention scenes in the 1976 and 2013 adaptations of Carrie seem to exist mainly to feature a gaggle of high school girls wearing tiny gym shorts doing stretches and squats, all while Betty Buckley (in 1976) or Judy Greer (in 2013) serves as their Drill Sergeant Nasty in similarly tiny shorts.
• Carry On Cruising had Flo and Gladys trying to impress a gym teacher on their cruise after watching him exercise in the ship's gym.
• Corky Romano: As she's practicing martial arts, Russo is wearing spandex workout clothes that show off her figure, and obviously distract Corky.
• In Die Hard 2, Colonel Stuart (played by William Sadler) is introduced doing some martial arts, which he later uses to fight the hero. What makes it this trope is that he's completely naked for no reason, though the audience only sees him from the back.
• Edge of Tomorrow. Rita's Establishing Character Moment involves her doing the "planche" yoga hold, not in a gym but on a firing range to show how she prefers to isolate herself from everyone. Whenever Cage meets up with her in the "Groundhog Day" Loop, she's doing this while the robot targets are active, showing her Nerves of Steel and Death Seeker characteristics.
• Final Destination 2: Kat gets a brief scene where she's on the treadmill, talking to her mother on a headset and wearing spandex sweat pants and a tank top and opposed to her usual pantsuit.
• Fifty Shades Darker: Christian is seen working out shirtless and Ana is staring at him evenly.
• Flashdance: One scene has Alex, Tina, Jeanie, and Heels wearing spandex and working out heavily at the gym.
• Flodder in Amerika!: Son Kees watches a group of black girls playing basketball. Then he images them naked and him joining in.
• Friday Night Lights: An opening scene has Boobie doing his shirtless jog, while other scenes show the players training in the weight room.
• In Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, coroner Axel Burns has his head sawn off by Jason while watching a segment of Ron Harris's Aerobicise(mentioned below).
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has the incredibly beefy number "Ain't Anyone Here For Love?", which has Jane Russell wandering through a team's workout room.
• In Gigli, we get Jennifer Lopez doing yoga with only a pair of shorts and a sports bra while carrying a conversation with Ben Affleck. For J-Lo fans, it's probably one of the few good things about this Box Office Bomb.
• Hello Mary-Lou: Prom Night II: In gym class Monica wears a somewhat tight spandex outfit, although she's not the focus of the scene.
• Holidays: In Valentine's Day Maxine and the other girls have an extended sequence in their swim suits as they train, with all of them being attractive young women.
• India Sweets And Spices: Two Indian girls who Alia dislikes jog around in very revealing outfits, with their stomachs bare, cleavage showing and in skin-tight leggings.
• In Killer Diller (2004), Vernon's out-of-shape dad likes to watch workout videos of sweaty, muscular women.
• The 1987 Slasher Film Killer Workout is set in a health club and features multiple aerobics classes that have been choreographed like lap dances, and features closeups on the butts and breasts of the fit young women in skintight aerobic outfits.
• In The Kissing Booth 2 a girl shows Elle a video of Marco working-out, including close-ups of his muscled chest. She begins talking at-length about his attractiveness, not realizing she's broadcasting this to the entire school.
• Will Smith's character Neville starts out his day in I Am Legend with a big shirtless workout. So does his dog.
• King of Thieves: Kenny watches a woman doing yoga during his lookout duties.
• Mom and Dad: Kendall's yoga class features a lot of tight shots on women's legs and backsides in spandex, with the instructor checking them out very blatantly.
• Perfect Addiction: The same goes for her ex-boyfriend Jax and later Kayden, her new roommate (later Love Interest), who are also MMA fighters (she trains both of them). Both are handsome, muscular young men frequently shown in shirtless scenes.
• Pitch Perfect: Aubrey gets a brief scene doing stretches in yoga pants.
• Played for Laughs in one of the Police Academy films. Callahan is working out in the gym, causing the men to be Distracted by the Sexy, including one guy who is supposed to be spotting for his friend, leaving the friend to be trapped under the weights he's lifting.
• Sheroes:
  • Diamond is introduced while doing yoga in workout clothes, with the camera close up on her body.
  • Ryder fights a man in a fairly revealing outfit of short shorts and a tanktop later as well.
• Superman III: Lorelei has a scene loitering around Ross's gym (and then exercising with a cable pulley) in a tight, no leg gym outfit.
• Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl: Beth is shown in a sports bra and shorts twice after she's been running, showing off her good-looking athletic body.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: First shot we see of Sarah Connor, she's doing chin-ups off an overturned bed.
  • To be sure, this is less about fan service and more about showing how Connor has become The Determinator.
• The classroom version of the anti-drug Afterschool Special episode "Stoned" has Mike pushing iron shirtless.
• Tough Guys: Archie visits a gym primarily frequented by women in spandex doing a lot of stretching. Archie finds himself staring at the crotch of one woman doing leg stretching exercises.
• Weird Science opens with Gary and Wyatt ogling the girls gymnastics practice in the gym, with plenty of close-ups on leotard clad butts as the girls straddle the pommel horse, etc.
• The Witch Who Came from the Sea: An early scene of scantily-clad Hunks working out on the beach is used to explore Molly's psychosexual issues. It starts off as simple ogling with an unusually ominous soundtrack before the beefcake takes a turn for the bloody in Molly's fantasies.

Literature

• In Harry Potter, Quidditch practices are often plagued by giggly fangirls watching from the sidelines. One of the team captain's duties is to stop them from being too disruptive.
• In The Irregular at Magic High School, Miyuki had her sexual awakening watching her similarly-aged bodyguard train in the courtyard. Well, she is a Yotsuba.
• In Marilyn: a biography, Norman Mailer tells how Marilyn Monroe liked to go to the muscle beach in Santa Monica on very hot days to watch the muscle boys lift weights in speedos and look at their muscles and sweat.
• Invoked in the Ciaphas Cain book Cain's Last Stand. Cain, in the middle of a lesson, notices one of his students paying more attention to the Sororitas novitates, young women training to join the Sisters of Battle, exercising outside the classroom window. In a classic teacher's move, Cain naturally chooses to ask him question that see if he's paying attention.

Live-Action TV

• Some TV shows supposedly based around fitness have been accused of being just excuses to deliver this:
  • There was an Australian TV series called Aerobics Oz Style, which was supposedly for the audience to exercise along to. However, the performers' skimpy dress, and some of the choreography and camera direction, raised much suspicion that it was more for the audience to... "exercise" to.
  • There was a similar series in the '80s called ":20 Minute Workout". It aired very early (around 5 a.m) and featured very hot models performing basic calisthenics to a musical background.
  • Aerobicise was an early 1980s workout show on TV. Lots of interesting angles on two to four hot women "demonstrating" workout techniques in a White Void Room.
  • The 1980s French show Gym Tonic always ended with the two (female) hosts taking a shower, with nothing to hide their bodies while they showered. That sequence was briefly removed for two weeks, viewers uproar (mostly males) ensued, and it was quickly put back in.
• This ''Nine News Now'' segment on good-looking men has guys working out with their shirts off.
• The 100 Season 3 premiere has Lincoln and Bellamy, the show's two main Mr. Fanservice characters, take part in a shirtless sparring match.
• Acapulco: In addition to her soaps, Diane's also famous because she made a series of sexy workout videos.
• All Rise: Lola is in her exercise class during one Season Three episode wearing tight-fitting workout clothes, showing her large bust off by doing so.
• Arrow: Oliver Queen had one almost Once an Episode during the first half of Season One, though that amount has gone down a bit as the show has continued. The Female Gaze is acknowledged In-Universe, as Felicity Smoak pretty openly lusts after Oliver during his shirtless workout sessions. Later as more people joined Team Arrow they'd be seen in sparring session with Oliver, though though of course women like Sara Lance would wear gym clothes instead of going topless.
• Battlestar Galactica (2003) engaged in this in gender-neutral style, with shots of both Lee working out Shirtless and Kara doing so shirtless other than a sports bra.
• Hal from Being Human likes to do his press-ups right on time. And shirtlessly.
• The opening credits to The Brittas Empire is just Gordon Brittas using various pieces of fitness equipments whilst exercising in shorts and a t-shirt, a set of clothes which he never wears in the show proper.
• Angel does a lot of shirtless working out in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Begun with the notorious shirtless Tai Chi scene in "Revelations", which was acknowledged as a deliberate example of this trope by Word of God.
• Candy (2022):
  • The title character is asked to stop by the sheriff's office for questioning about her friend Betty's murder. Afterwards, she stops by a lawyer's office and walks in on him on the floor, shirtless and doing sit-ups. On a second visit, she catches him shirtless again, under a tanning lamp.
  • While playing volleyball at the church, Candy checks out how the men look in their tight shirts and short shorts, especially her pastor's hunky and muscular boyfriend and Allan (her friend Betty's husband).
  • Candy and some of the women don't do so shabby, especially when Candy wears short shorts and halter tops that showcase her long and lean toned figure.
• Charlie's Angels: In this scene from the "Angels in Springtime" episode, Kris goes undercover as an aerobics instructor.
• CSI: NY:
  • They come very close to it in "My Name Is Mac Taylor," when Mac is doing his lap swim workout at the gym.
  • They come quite close in "Corporate Warriors," too, when Mac is brandishing various weapons including a katana while wearing a tight black t-shirt.
  • Then there's the pole dancing class in "Vigilante." Flack seems impressed with the ladies; Lindsay just gives him a look.
• Discussed on Emergency!. In "On Camera", Channel 8 news reporter Paula Hughes has her heart set on getting a lot of footage of Station 51's weightlifting in her "People Who Make the News" segment:
  Paula: Maybe we could get some pictures of you lifting weights later.
  Roy: Sure. Why not? We got a good physical fitness program here at the station.
  Johnny: Yeah.
  Paula: Yeah, I know. You have to take regular tests.
• ER's Dr. Catherine Banning was introduced to us via her morning workout routine. Despite her attractiveness, this seems to be more to establish her as a kickass character rather than a sexy one.
• Growing Pains: In "How the West Was Won Part 2", Coach Lubbock's daughter Cindy (who Mike and Boner have big crushes on) is seen working out in a yoga outfit.
• Les Filles d'à côté dealt with the lives of two sets of neighbours and the gym/health club they visited. Lots of scenes are set in the gym and the health club, and offer the "girls next door" and their male neighbours, walking paradigms of 1990's French chic, to show off toned bodies in workout clothing or swimming costumes. The same applies to the troop of extras in the gym. Of course, Everyone Looks Sexier if French: there are no fat, ill-toned or unappealing bodies in the gym. Well, there is one, but Georgette is there for Rule of Funny and to act as an Abhorrent Admirer to central male lead Marc.
• In-Universe example in Harry and Paul: The recurring character Pik is a gym instructor. The one time we see him doing any instructing, he's helping an attractive woman through a stretching routine, and enjoying it rather more than he should.
• Duncan's sweaty, extremely sexy kata in one Highlander episode.
• iZombie: One episode has Major and Rita in the gym, with her Shaking the Rump in spandex while doing exercises and him showing his muscles as he lifts weights. The scene ends with a Sexy Discretion Shot.
• L.A.'s Finest: Syd and Nancy are shown working out wearing tight-fitting spandex workout clothes, showing off their athletic, beautiful bodies in the first season.
• The Miami Vice episode "Heart of Darkness" opens on the set of a porno, with a sweaty girl working out to music while she waits for the air conditioner repairman to arrive.
• The Mick: In different episodes, Sabrina and Alexis (her girlfriend for one episode) are both seen walking around wearing only a sparts bra with very brief shorts. Both of them are good-looking.
• Murder, She Wrote: Pamela Leeds gets a scene on the exercise bike wearing a tight tank top (the outline of her bra can be seen through the back of it a couple times) and spandex pants.
• NCIS: During combat training in "The Bone Yard", McGee gets Distracted by the Sexy when he sees Kate doing warm-up exercises and comments on how flexible she is to Tony. Unfortunately to him, she overhears, which earns him a Groin Attack during their sparring match.
• On New Amsterdam (2008), it's established that John likes to swim at the YMCA when it's closed (he has a key, having been one of the original members). Since he's alone he can swim the old-fashioned way—i.e., naked.
• Pandora: One conversation between Jax and Tierney just so happens to take place while they're going for a run, with both women wearing very tight revealing outfits that show their taut stomachs.
• Power Rangers Time Force: Jen is played by a model and wears a sports bra while practicing martial arts, complete withe some close-ups.
• Single Drunk Female: Sam tries to invoke this with James, a fellow alcoholic from AA, by going running with him in her workout clothes and acting enticingly in them before kissing him. Though she's pretty and looks nice while in them, he rejects this as it's not good for recovering alcoholics to be involved.
• Sons of Anarchy: One of the first scenes in the series 7 premiere shows Juice doing pushups in the nude. The scene itself has no bearing to the plot and mainly exists to show off Juice's toned, muscular body.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "The Price", Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi chat during a workout that involves lots of bending over and stretching in space leotards.
• Supernatural: In "The Third Man," Sam starts his day with some push-ups, some sit-ups, and some pull-ups, keeping himself in shape for hunting demons, monsters, and spirits. Though the focus is mainly on his back, upper chest, and biceps during the workout, we get some lingering shots of his abs above his low-cut jeans (yes, he worked out in the jeans) post workout.
• The Umbrella Academy (2019) season 3 premiere, "Meet The Family'':
  • It's part of Marcus's routine to work out on a roof and toss his used towel to his crowd of screaming fans.
  • The Sparrows are all seen on treadmills in matching maroon athleisure. The girls are in sports bras and tight leggings, while Ben and Marcus are shirtless.
• Utopia Falls: The good-looking, athletic young people on the show are frequently shown practicing dance (or for Sage, capoeira) while in workout clothes that show their torsos and legs in tight fabric, their stomachs often partly bared too.
• The X-Files: Especially in the early seasons, Agent Fox Mulder was seen jogging, running in the stadium, or swimming a lot. His red speedo is legendary among his Estrogen Brigade fans.
• You Me Her: In "Can You Be Cool" Emma is shown in spandex workout clothing while going to yoga with Carmen. The camera shows her outlined breasts along with her bare stomach in lengthy shots during some of the poses they're doing.

Music Videos

• The video for Olivia Newton-John's song "Physical" started out and ended with multiple handsome, muscular men working out, including several Fanservice shots.
• The music video for Eric Prydz's remix of "Call on Me" depicts a man in an otherwise all-female aerobics class^note (the ending implies that he's the instructor's boyfriend), clearly enjoying the rather suggestive thrusting and grinding of the exercise routine.
• The video for Tanya Tucker's "Hangin' In" features multiple muscular men pushing iron by the beach wearing just square cut swimming trunks.
• "Get a Grip" by Semisonic had a video mostly consisting of people — mainly women — working out at the gym. Complete with rather suggestive closeups. Fittingly, it's a song about masturbation.
• Scandroid's cover of "Shout" by Tears for Fears. Extremely '80s, extremely fanservice-y.
• 50 Cent, in the video for "In Da Club", shows off his astonishing body on a variety of exercise equipment while being "constructed" under the watchful, white-coated eyes of his mentors Eminem and Dr. Dre. Eminem would later parody this by having the obese D12 grossout artist Bizarre re-enact the 50 video in the video he directed for "My Band".
• Inna invokes this in the video for "J'adore".
• 2004's "The New Workout Plan" by Kanye West had a lot of beautiful women working out in it including the late Anna Nicole Smith.

Pinball

• Future Spa shows a bevy of flawlessly sculpted men and women as they work out and hone their perfect bodies.

Tabletop Games

• An in-universe version in a cut portion of GURPS Illuminati University. Classes for the Department of Zen Aerobics consist of sitting in Lotus Position, watching aerobics on television. Despite the lack of any practical use for the classes, they are quite popular. (Unfortunately, the department was trimmed from the final version.)

Video Games

• This is how we're introduced to Berri in Conker's Bad Fur Day, doing aerobics at home with headphones on while Conker tries to call her on the phone.
• Final Fantasy
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake: The gym at Wall Market has several buff men doing all sorts of workouts in tight clothing. One of the minigames there also has Tifa doing pull-ups at the gym against said gym members, and to get the level 59 keycard at the Shinra building she has to shuffle around and hangs off several light fixtures. The camera angles don't get too gratuitous but the Fanservice is definitely there.
  • For Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix posted a tweet of Estinien doing one-handed pushups while wearing only a Modesty Towel as part of their "Stay Home and Play" campaign. The same scene is referenced during the Patch 6.4 Main Story Quest when the Warrior of Light, Varshahn, and Zero enter his room and see him doing push-ups.
• Mass Effect 3
  • James Vega does plenty of pull-ups. This is even lampshaded and considered to be in-universe fanservice — he works out near where gay shuttle pilot Steve Cortez maintains his shuttle and the ship's arsenal, and says "Heh, you know you love the show, Esteban!"
  • There's also Jacob Taylor and his crunches...as Kasumi is fond of pointing out. "Mmm, crrrunches. Lots of crrrunches."
• In Silent Scope, the Hotel has a leotard-clad woman doing aerobics in one of its rooms.
• In StarTropics, the female guards of SheCola could be seen working out with weights, doing pushups, and complaining about their intensive training routines. Granted it was all 8-bit graphics.
• Stardew Valley lets you walk in on Alex like this. He apologizes for not wearing a shirt, but nobody was complaining.
• In Tales of Berseria, Velvet walks in on Rokurou practicing sword swings with no clothes on his upper body in certain skits. Three times.

Webcomics

• Used a few times in El Goonish Shive; notably, in Goonmanji 2 we had Sarah openly ogling a shirtless Noah and Elliot during a pickup game of basketball, and in canon she had a spike of jealousy after meeting a sweaty post-jogging Nanase at the door.
• Ménage à 3: Resident Ms. Fanservice supreme DiDi is occasionally seen pursuing her fairly intensive regime of exercise. It's not that the comic requires much excuse to show her lightly dressed and sweaty, but the effect on other characters and passers-by provides some comedy.
• Khaos Komix: Invoked when Alex arranges for his crush to walk in on him doing shirtless pull-ups. It's enough to kick off a make-out session, although it takes a lot more work before they settle into a relationship.
• One-Punch Man: Captain Mizuki is a former track-and-field champion turned hero, and her entire gimmick is themed around athletics. This includes her costume, which seems designed to show off her incredibly toned muscles as she fights.
• Sandra and Woo, otherwise pretty SFW, has Action Mom Ye Thuza provide some here.
• The webtoon Sexercise could be considered a comic based entirely on a cheeky spin on this trope — the premise is a gym where members exercise by having sex with each other. It also features several traditional examples of Workout Fanservice, such as Hyuna ogling Miso as he's lifting weights and Yoona's introduction featuring her using the treadmill with a prominent shot of her toned abs and thighs.

Web Original

• The Onion: Discussed in "Aerobics Show Used For Almost Completely Non-Aerobic Purpose," which implies that the viewer in the story used the workout show as Poor Man's Porn.

Web Videos

• Ozzy Man Reviews: "Women's Exercises" is a video of sexy women doing various sport activities or working out. There's dancing, doing "spreadies", swinging things or playing tennis (hitting a ball is not required). Described as "Me critical analysis of women's exercises. Fascinating, compelling viewing."

Western Animation

• Batman: The Animated Series: Villain of the Week Tony Romulus is a pumped man who sometimes lifts weights while shirtless.
  • Several women in tights or tank tops are shown stretching, lifting weights, or riding exercise bikes in a gym where Romulus is working out.
• Batman Beyond has a newly rejuvenated Bruce Wayne working out at the gym. Impressed, Terry beams at his father figure happily exercising and doing complex moves.

Other

• Many exercise videos by female celebrities are accused of being this, to the point that people who actually want to exercise complain that the fanservice gets in the way of being able to see the exercises properly. At their height in the '80s and '90s, many people regarded them as more or less Poor Man's Porn, with a large Periphery Demographic of young men who wanted to see Jane Fonda in a skintight leotard or Suzanne Somers in a sports bra.
• Even though Kathy Smith is an actual fitness trainer, her late 1980s and early 1990s workout videos became fanservice for the same reasons as the above, owing to her voluptuous figure clad in a tight leotard.
• And Jillian Michaels is Kathy Smith's modern-day counterpart.
• Shape Up For Sensational Sex shows models and porn stars doing pseudo-erotic exercises that are designed to get the viewer in shape so that he or she can have mind-blowing sex. Each exercise in the video is designed for a particular sexual position.
• Many videos of professional and amateur bodybuilders training shirtless are uploaded on YouTube on a daily basis. Although some seem to only have the intention to show how the muscles work, others are more blatant fanservice.
• This video shows adult film star Samantha Strong jogging.

Real Life

• Many major beach cities have "muscle beaches" and one of their main attractions are muscle boys lifting weights in speedos.

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