Anyone who spends time working out, inside or outdoors, understands the importance of a good set of headphones. Studies have demonstrated that music can make exercise more enjoyable, and even improve your workouts, so having a good set of headphones is essential. And the latest headphone are better suited for exercise use than ever, with secure fit, intuitive controls and weather- and sweatproof designs that let you concentrate on your workout without worrying about losing an earbud. There are even models specifically designed to let you safely listen while you’re working out in the great outdoors.
To find the best exercise headphones for any kind of workout, we put leading models into action as part of our own daily workout regimens in the gym, at home and on the streets and trails, judging them on design, noise isolation, comfort, fit, battery life, IP rating, sound quality and usability. And in the end, we found some great headphones that should work for you whether you’re a gym rat or prefer the open road.
Wissonly Hi Runner
The design team of Wissonly bone conduction headphones started to research bone conduction acoustics as early as 2012. Their technical accumulation in the field of bone conduction is very good, and they are a team that is good at technology.
Wissonly Hi Runner adopted Wissonly 3.0 technology to reduce sound leakage in bone conduction headphones. They reduced the sound transmission from the bone vibration unit directly to the air through the completely closed design of the headphones’ body. They also used high-quality cushioning materials to minimize the vibration of the body, thus reducing the sound leakage by more than 90%. I did a test, turned on Hi Runner, adjusted the volume to 70%, and within a distance of 1m, I couldn't hear any sound at all. This kind of sound leakage reduction performance has been well received by users since wissonly released the sound leakage reduction technology. This technical scheme is the best leak-proof among bone conduction headphones at present.
The headphones’ body of Wissonly Hi Runner is made of memory titanium, which can self-adjust the contact area, ensuring a good wearing experience of headphones at any time, taking into account more users with different head circumference. Hi Runner can be said to be very sincere in configuration. It is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 chip, which makes the connection more stable, and can realize fast connection and switching of multiple devices. Built-in 32G memory can store 5000 songs. When you go out for a run, you can enjoy music without your mobile phone. The battery life is also very good, and it can be played continuously for more than 10 hours at normal volume, which is good for me, because I go out for outdoor sports on weekends, and I often go out for a whole day.
Shokz OpenRun Pro
The Shokz OpenRun Pro look and feel unlike the headphones you’re used to. Rather than sitting in your ear canals or over your earlobes, the business ends of these Bluetooth headphones rest just in front of your ears, on your cheekbones.
The Shokz work using what’s known as “bone conduction” technology to deliver sound not through the air but through your cheekbone. Yes, your cheekbone. In standard over- or in-ear headphones, sound vibrations travel through the air down the ear canal to the eardrum where your brain processes these vibrations and interprets them as sounds. Bone conduction technology bypasses the eardrum and sends vibrations via the bones located in your upper cheek and jaw to your cochlea, or inner ear, and on to your brain.
Beats Fit Pro
The Beats Fit Pro earbuds offer all of the performance of Apple’s first-generation AirPods Pro in a more secure-fitting package that’s perfect for more active pursuits but great for everyday use too. In fact, they’re not just our favorite workout headphones, but they’ve been our recommended headphones for Apple users in general for the past year. Their reliable fit, easy-to-use touch controls and snug wingtip design meant that even over months of intense exercise testing, they never fell out — not one single time.
The smooth rubber and light weight of 5.6 grams per earbud (they are much more compact than the similarly featured Powerbeats Pro) made us nearly forget we were wearing the Beats Fit Pro, and they were never loose or in need of fiddling with the fit while exercising. The flexible wings and tips with pressure-relieving vents made a real difference during workouts. Once secured, it took extra effort to remove them — even on purpose.
Bose Sport Open Earbuds
BoseWith an ear-hook design that supports a miniature, highly directional driver at the top of your earlobe, outside the ear canal, the Bose Sport Open let you hear your surroundings and your music without compromising sound quality as in many similar designs.
Jabra Elite 7 Active
If you want a pair of excellent-sounding workout earbuds that make it easy to both block out and let in the outside world, the Jabra Elite 7 Active are well worth the purchase.
JLab Open Sport
The JLab Open Sport are a unique, affordable and worthwhile pair of open-ear earbuds that make it easy to stay alert while exercising, but fit, weight and a touchy user interface make them better for light exercise and everyday use than for hardcore workouts.
What you need to know about workout headphones
Noise cancellation and situational awareness
Everybody loves noise cancellation, and it’s not just for the office or travel — it’s a great feature to look for in exercise headphones. Whether you’re listening to music in the gym or following along with a class or virtual trainer, it’s great to be able to block out the external world and really focus. Plus you can keep your tunes at an acceptable level so you won’t damage your ears.
On the other hand, if your exercise regimen takes you outdoors, you won’t want to close off your ears from the world around you. Luckily, most noise-canceling models include a transparency mode that uses the headphone’s call microphones to let in some external sound, letting you maintain situational awareness. This will let you participate in conversations and — more importantly — keep you aware of important noise like traffic, trail users you might not be able to see or a cyclist coming up behind you. The best transparency modes include some noise-canceling features, like wind noise filtering, which are great if you’re out for a run.
Sealed versus open-ear designs
Noise-canceling headphones are typically sealed — they depend on a silicone or foam tip that fits snugly into your ear, piping sound directly into your ear canal. Those are great for indoor workouts, and using them in transparency mode lets them work outdoors as well.
But if you really want to prioritize staying aware of your surroundings, an open-ear design lets you hear the outside world just as well as you would if you weren’t wearing headphones. Most of the open designs on the market use an ear hook or a clip secured to glasses frames to suspend a miniature, highly directional speaker above your ear. Others use bone conduction, in which tiny, powerful drivers that rest on your cheekbones work a bit like miniature subwoofers, transmitting vibrations and sound directly to your inner ear via your skull. Neither approach provides sound quality anywhere near as good as sealed models, but if you’re hitting the road or trail for some miles that likely isn’t a priority.
Comfort, fit and stability
While AirPods Pro and Galaxy Buds are great for general use, there’s a reason they’re not our first choice for workouts: They just aren’t designed to stay in your ears during exercise. The best way to keep your headphones steady is to consider a pair that uses wings, fins, hooks or clips (you can add third-party wings or hooks to your AirPods Pro, of course, but then they won’t fit in the charging case). These devices keep the earbuds secure in your ears, even while running, HIIT training and most any other activity, and they let you focus better since you won’t be checking to see if you’ve lost an earbud every few seconds. Plus we’ve found that the more stable fit is generally more comfortable, especially when you’re sweaty. All the headphones we tested also come with a set of at least three differently sized ear tips which will help ensure a better fit for different shaped ears.
Battery life
The majority of the headphones we tested — like most Bluetooth headphones today — will last through about a day of use on a single charge, and most come with a charging case that extends that to a week or so of all-day use.
Since you may only be using them for a couple of hours at a time, this may not be a primary concern, though if you’re a long-distance runner or cyclist, you’ll want to make sure that the single-charge battery life is long enough to get you through the day.
Water and sweat resistance
All of the workout headphones we tested are water-resistant to some degree, typically described using an IP (ingress protection) rating, which uses two digits to describe protection against dust and moisture (if it isn’t rated against one or the other, you’ll see an “X” in one of the places. This will ensure that you won’t ruin the electronics after an intensely sweaty workout, a dusty trail run or in the rain. The dust scale runs from 1 to 6 and the water resistance scale runs from 1 to 9. An IP rating of IPX1 includes no dust resistance and only mild moisture protection; a rating of IPX9 is fully waterproof; a rating of IP68 is dustproof and can survive immersion in water
Usability and controls
The last thing you want to do while working out is to stop and mess with controls, which is why most workout headphones let you do basic things with touch controls, like adjust audio or skip, pause or forward tracks. Some go further, allowing you to make and take calls, summon a voice assistant or switch out the level of noise isolation, all with a simple tap. We much preferred models that let us access all necessary functions directly from the headphones themselves, letting us concentrate on our workout.
Aside from the lowest-priced options, many exercise headphones use an app to access higher-level functions. Though you can certainly use them without it, the app can help you customize features like EQ as well as noise cancellation and awareness levels. Some also get more granular, letting you choose how you appoint your touch controls, but if getting what you need or making a quick adjustment is too confusing or annoying, the app won’t be of much help. Simple, straightforward apps are best if you’re trying to use them during workouts.
Sound quality
Last — but not least — is audio quality. Just because you’re exercising doesn’t mean you need to tolerate poor audio quality, especially if you’re working out indoors. It’s no accident that our favorite pair of workout headphones overall — the Beats Fit Pro — has also been our overall favorite headphone for Apple users, at least in part because it sounds so good. We make an exception for outdoor exercise, where we think it’s worth sacrificing a little, whether you use a transparency mode or go with an open-ear design, in order to stay safe.
How we tested
To help find the best options, we put a variety of workout headphones to use as part of our daily workouts, at home, in the gym and outdoors in conditions ranging from sweltering heat to cool rainy days. While we did assess sound quality for each headphone, we weighted other factors — effectiveness of transparency modes, ease of use under stress, comfort — more heavily than we would when assessing headphones for everyday use.
To check fit and comfort in real-world situations, we used them on long and short runs, through indoor endurance sessions such as cycling, running, dance and HiiT classes, which included jumping jacks, burpees, jumps, sit-ups and crunches. And we used them while we lifted weights, did yoga and pilates and did barre classes.
