After I posted Eat This: The Ultimate Food Resource Guide, I got quite a few e-mails from people asking me for basic fitness information. How should they get started? What are some good workouts to try?

I decided to put together this guide for people looking for information on getting started, and a few extra resources I find useful. This is just a quick guide and is by no means comprehensive, it’s just a few places I like to check out. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments. (I also deliberately chose to exclude sites that I find too salesy. Although it is possible to glean useful information from them, I’ve always found them a bit of a turn-off, especially for beginners.)

For those of you who don’t want to look at every single site but just want to get started with something, here’s what I Would do.

1. Pick a program to get started on that meets your needs–look at the descriptions of the programs on sites like Stumptuous, Crossfit Football or one of Dan John’s programs.

2. Alternatively, I would pick up a book geared towards your goals and follow a program–something like New Rules of Lifting (there are versions for men and women), Ross Enamait’s Infinite Intensity or Never Gymless (for home gym folks) or Wendler’s 5/3/1.

3. Or, if you want individualized help to develop your own program, go to forums like the ones at the Performance Menu and ask questions.

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite fitness sites on the internet.

Beast Skills is a great site with tutorials for bodyweight strength training, acrobatics and gymnastics skills. The progressions are incredibly helpful.

Catalyst Athletic includes a smart periodized workout for Olympic lifters who would like to maintain their metabolic conditioning. There are also a ton of free articles and resources, videos of exercises and one of the best forums found online. (Full disclosure: I’m the Managing Editor of the Performance Menu: Journal of Health and Athletic Excellence, which is a part of the CA site.)

CrossFit Football is a great strength and conditioning program for football players and contact sports athletes. It is very well-designed with smart periodization.

Dan John is probably one of the greatest coaches of all-time. His site has links to all of his articles on T-Muscle, as well as some free e-books and videos.

EXRX has some fun fitness calculators and other useful things.

Henkin Training Systems offers the best designed sandbags on the market, as well as a blog, a free DVD and other goodies.

Precision Nutrition may be a diet and sports nutrition site, but they do have some great workout programs available for members.

Ross Training is Ross Enamait’s site. Not only does he offer some workouts that will kick your ass, he also has an inspirational forum and an excellent blog with lots of information on making your own equipment if you are so inclined. I have purchased several of Enamait’s products and they did not disappoint.

Straight to the Bar is a very good site for strength training articles and videos. Scott Bird also hosts weekly twitterchats.

Stumptuous is one of my favorite sites of all time, not least because it includes prolific rants by the brilliant Krista Scott-Dixon. There are also some basic weight training routines. Although the site is geared towards women, the information is useful for men as well.

If you’re looking for information on training for combat sports, check out my top five resources for Brazilian jiu jitsu players.

I also planning on creating a resource list on mobility and recovery at some point, so stay tuned.