How do I get exercise categories, body parts, and muscle groups from an API?
WorkoutDB classifies every exercise by body part, target muscle, equipment, category, and difficulty, and exposes a GET /v1/meta endpoint that returns the full list of values and their counts — perfect for building filter UIs and category pages.
A taxonomy you can build on
Rather than free-text tags you have to normalize, WorkoutDB gives you structured fields on every exercise, so you can filter, group, and sort reliably. One call to GET /v1/meta returns every body part, target muscle, equipment type, category, and difficulty level along with how many exercises fall under each — enough to render a complete browse experience without scanning the whole catalog.
Those same values are accepted as combinable filters on search, so a category page like "dumbbell chest exercises" is one request: filter by equipment and body part together and page through the results.
- Structured fields: body part, target muscle, equipment, category, difficulty.
- GET /v1/meta returns all values + counts in a single call.
- Values double as combinable search filters.
- Localized labels via ?lang= for translated category pages.
Related questions
- How do I get the list of all body parts or equipment?
- Call GET /v1/meta. It returns every filterable value — body parts, target muscles, equipment, categories, difficulties — with counts, in one request.
- Can I combine categories when filtering?
- Yes. Filters are combinable, so you can request, for example, exercises that are both dumbbell-based and target the chest, plus a free-text query.
Build it on WorkoutDB
~873 exercises with demo video, ranked search, and four languages — over a clean REST API. Start free: 5,000 requests/month, no credit card.