Health begins at home - my favourite home workouts to get you started!
These are not going anywhere! Stay home and build confidence, fitness, muscle, wellness, while minimizing any excuse you can think up. Read on for my favorites to start with.
image: freepik.com
This piece has appeared in my other experimental blogs, but since I decided that this is where I finally set up base, I wanted to update this and bring this over here as part of the “Home Workout” series. And even though we are out and about with no need to workout indoors anymore, this bit of information is still so relevant, that I regularly revisit this to change up my own workouts, even though I am back in the gym.
After 5 plus years of working out, at home and in the gym, falling in love with certain kinds of movement formats, and having experimented with a a bunch of workouts and trainers and videos and influencers and equipment - I keep finding that too much variety and choice has only ever confused me. Adding to the confusion is that too much material out there is either plain fad and unsustainable for a normal person - who is trying to keep up with life and gym and concluding that if I don’t have the latest rower or reformer machine or can’t make time for aerial yoga or animal flow class, it is never going to work, I might as well give up now and never even begin.
There have been a multitude of excuses - time, work, kids, health issues that keep us from exercising, gym-shyness, no prior experience, pandemic, plain resistance, and these days even the fear of collapsing on the treadmill (not even kidding - I have people I meet on the way to the gym who have told me I don’t go to the gym because I don’t want to die in the gym). I am especially proud of this list because it has stood the test of time, circumstances, trends and excuses - limited time to workout in, can’t go anywhere too far, can’t commit to regular trainer, don’t have equipment, am bored.
First, I want to emphasize (with an entire dumbbell rack) on two things.
One. Nothing can or will replace a great trainer. A great trainer educates, motivates, analyses, assesses, teaches – and customises. I am only someone who has been researching (for interest and action) home workouts since 2009, and this piece is only to share those findings – which are so basic that they end up working for most.
Two. YOU are responsible for your own safety and that of those working out / living in the immediate vicinity. This applies both to gyms and home. You HAVE TO go through simple sanity checks such as making sure that your equipment is anchored, you aren’t using curtain rods to do pull ups or hang resistance bands, you aren’t overextending yourself and jumping on a too-high box, placing box/bench/chair on non slip surfaces so they won’t slide around, bands won’t fly off and lash someone (or you). If in the gym, see that dumbbells don’t pinch fingers when replacing on the rack, cable machine won’t go reeling and crashing back when you release. At home, set dumbbells down flat so they don’t fall on your feet but also rest them against something so they don’t roll away. Your muscles themselves might refuse to cooperate at times if they haven’t recovered from a previous workout – don’t think you are capable of more than you are. A comfort zone that you do NOT want to cross is actually best to have when working out, it is best to underestimate yourself a tad, and err on the side of caution. Very soon you will learn your own limits – but that is a function of consistent practice. You will learn how to “progressively overload” – which is a fancy term for pushing your strength boundaries, but very, very gradually. Look out for and aggressively protect tender joints like shoulders, wrists, knees, neck. And if going it alone the whole way – try to keep reading, watching videos to educate yourself and learn from the various schools of thought that fitness as an industry has spawned.
Three. Oh, I had said two. Oops.
Form. You have to prioritise form over everything – everything else. It will maximise the effectiveness of your movement, will save you from injury, and make it possible to progressively overload because only in flawless form can you increase weights and resistance.
My love of working out actually began at home. I did try going to the gym, but was woefully ignorant and stuck to cardio machines. I thought the harder and faster and longer you go – the better it is. Sigh. One day as I trudged on on the treadmill, I realised that this one young man ends up at the gym at the exact same time as me every day (and I am alone then because it is not peak gym time, so it is definitely stalker feels rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt). I just couldn’t get comfortable getting sweaty with an ogling boy around. Most workarounds failed, so I just quit the gym (point to male privilege – I had to leave, not him). To this day I have gymgoers watching what I wear, whether my bra strap is showing, I get asked random questions, “Are you an athlete? Why do you lift heavy? Why do you lift at all, girls should not lift like this, they should do light yoga and walking.” My need to check my form in the gym mirror still gets underestimated – the boys still always feel it is ok to cut me off in front of the mirror. Now that I am an aunty though, I have no shame in being loud, standing up for myself, and tell them to quit hogging the mirror / weights / other equipment they deem me too pansy to use.
Now they listen, but it has taken time to build this gym-confidence outside of the home. And now I don’t have the time now to waste making a stand for feminism every time I work out. When I first gave in to home workouts – about 12 years ago – there was limited content on the internet, but the video workout format has been around for years – when aerobics and jazzercise and Jane Fonda used to be a thing. There was lots of content, but the problem was accessibility. I couldn’t find workout DVDs to buy so I just scoured the internet in the days of low connectivity and crappy streaming – and ended up at something called ExerciseTV. It’s gone now, but the short, targeted and well explained workouts gave me my first taste and I was hooked. It was easy to be home, to get started without a lot of drama, no one was looking, and best – someone was telling me exactly what to do, what to do next, and how to do it – these trainers gave detailed explanation about the exercise, targeted area, form, and i dind’t have to flail about pretending I knew what I was doing. This was the foundation of my practicing good form, and in later years being able to discuss with a trainer to hone it to perfection.
IMHO, trainers of a certain price range, especially in this country, aren’t certified coaches and their advice may need to be taken with discretion and discussion. This is also the age when anyone can put up an exercise video as well (or an article!), so one needs to rely on careful research, learn from experts and self experience. ExerciseTV was a legit site with lots of paid content and some free with only certified coaches in the days where certification actually meant something – so I listened.
The issues that distance you from a gym / trainer kept coming up in later years in various avatars. No time after work. No gym nearby. No funds to commit to place which only allows annual memberships. No energy at end of day. Can’t leave the kids alone at home. Haven’t ever worked out before but want to and am intimidated of trainer/going it alone at gym. Workout regularly but uncomfortable with people watching and unnecessary judgment. Gyms closed because “social distancing ” and I’m sure this list will keep seeing adds that we don’t even know are coming, but home workouts will always be around to solve this entire current and future list.
Here are some of my favourite resources to get started, nothing heavy, just to get you going and hooked on just like I was! Some of the criteria I use to thresh out the good stuff from the normal internet chaff:
1. Variety of movements and level of holistic training. Even within one kind of training, there should be enough different moves for the workout to be fun and complete, but also enough repetition for it to have desired impact.
2. Ease of use. Easy-to-procure equipment. Weights, yes. Bosu, not so much. No wildly exotic movements that are either impossible or unsafe for mid-level exercisers. Ideally, a warmup and/or cooldown included. Definitely – simple explanation or demonstration, in easy-to-follow words or gestures.
3. Well-designed, full-length videos. Not the kinds that say “washboard abs in 10 minutes”. Nothing happens in 10 minutes unless they add up to a respectable total. It doesn’t have to super high production value, and I’m happy with videos in front of your couch, but the workout itself needs to be thoughtfully designed. Extra brownies if the trainer has longer plans to follow for weeks or months.
4. Number of videos. A good number or promise of consistency of future videos helps me commit to a single plan at a time.
5. Level of annoying. No useless, over-motivating chatter and maybe some great music.
YouTube
I started by just typing stuff into a search bar and getting hit with 13.2 million irrelevant results, and you can do the same. If you want to save some time and get to the juice, go no further. Below recommendations are not sponsored in any way - just really great accounts with excellent content, full-length, well-explained, idiot-proofed workouts, and all for free, so they deserve the word of mouth anyway. Also, these are all channels that I have personally tried, trust their form, and love their variety and effectiveness. For those who haven’t done weights ever or don’t have any, look for the bodyweight workouts or just do the moves without weights.
1. ExerciseTV – they have no official channel but some users have saved and uploaded their old favourites on to playlists. These are still my top choice for beginners. Just search with the string “ExerciseTV workouts”.
5. HASfit
7. jessicasmithtv – Jessica used to coach with ExerciseTV and was one of the best.
10. H-Town Dancefit – I used to love Zumba / dance fitness at one point. I did get over it fast because I started feeling they were more for fun than a real workout. But that’s only a very judgy PoV because I actually deeply respect anything that will get you moving in a coordinated and consistent way. I still do some on active rest days (and when no one is watching). I like this channel particularly because the dance is more like a workout than most others, yet easy to follow.
11. Yoga with Adriene – I believe this is one of those disciplines you cannot teach yourself. Yoga, Pilates, animal flow and similars need some expert coaching and are not easy to learn by yourself as regular cardio/bodyweight or light strength and conditioning. However, this channel will break it down for you.
After working out at home this entire lockdown, people must have progressed in their fitness journeys, thus proving you really can manage without expensive subscrpitions, gear or even a gym membership to get where you want to be. Also, a lot more wonderful material has come up on the interwebz courtesy of some wonderful souls who put out content almost everyday, which is not just free for everyone to use, but also explained professionally (like a personal trainer would) and sequenced beautifully to give you months of pre-written daily workouts, canceling the need for any guesswork. I updated my original list to include some of these current favorites who I go back to everyday.
12. Caroline Girvan – Easily the most popular trainer on YouTube these days, with full length and extremely creative yet impactful routines. Not for the faint-hearted but she does have a full series for beginners as well. I especially love her because of the great music and absolutely no talking – she explains with gestures! All workout, no BS. Must try, can’t miss, my absolute current favorite.
13. Sydney Cummings – She has been around for a while and is also wildly popular but somehow I hadn’t jumped on this train earlier, but now I enjoy her cardio and full body routines so, so much.
14. Fit Body by Julia – for advanced, full body as well as targeted lifting and HIIT.
15. Garage Fitness Girl – no-nonsense, intense HIIT workouts with minimal equipment.
16. FitGrit – A recently-discovered channel showing lot of promise. Looks especially great for no-equipment-needed workouts which was a reality for a lot of us in lockdown.
17. Cardio Party Mashup Fitness – as getting cardio done is such a challenge if you can’t even leave the house!
At an advanced stage of pratice, you don’t need to follow the whole video for form and instruction, you have a general idea and can follow with some sets-reps instruction. (rep – repetition). Below are my favourites that I do regularly. Once you hit follow on an account, you will be presented with similar suggestions and can keep adding as they suit. Save your faves, and you can set up a whole workout plan for months! You could also follow some basic workout hashtags per your interest and you will keep getting suggestions of similar content – the variety, permutations and combinations, and possibilities, as they say, are endless!
1. Kayla Itsines (Famous for her BBG and Sweat communities)
3. Fitforflex
4. Jenny Francis – for bodyweight routines, no equipment needed.
5. Garagefitnessgirl – this one is heavy but if you do the same moves without equipment and dial down the intensity – it has great HIIT, low impact and bodyweight combinations. She has full length routines on YouTube (listed in YouTube section above)
6. JLfitnessmiami and JLfitnessmiami_women
And for when you are even more practiced…
7. Ambry Mehr
8. Alexia Clark – my personal favourite 2.
9. Lisamarie Zbozen – personal favourite. Intense workouts and endless variety. Has video after video of free content at TheWKout to assess.
10. Meg Leyen – for Lagree-inspired pilates and isolation moves, slowburn but tough. Even bought some gliders just so I could do these.
11. Silvy Araujo – not in English but then fitness transcends language. In fact, I love listening to her spirited Spanish motivation throughout her livestreamed lifting workouts.
These are only some of my personal favourites to get you started. Look for things more to your taste as you develop preferences, as you advance or as trends come and go – Zumba, dance, barre, combat, kettlebells, animal flow, calisthenics, sport-style drills, plyometrics, all kinds of Pilates, Yoga and combination styles like “piloxing” etc. Numerous apps and websites have mushroomed, especially after the pandemic, that will enable you to workout at home with free trials - from Cult and Fittr closer home to Nike, Peloton, Orange Theory, Classpass and multiple celebrities and smartphone makers having their own fitness apps, I mean, even Spotify is here with HIIT by Spotify! Many of the greats in my list also have paid programs that will send you fresh, daily workouts - the better planned versions of their free content, and often very worth it, and affordable. I have tried various, and never regretted it – but have committed only after months of research and practice of their free content, and checking that the width/breadth of content is worth it, and that its not just a generic PDF download.
This list may vary a little from usual listicles – but I keep returning to these favorites because these are the ones that are easy to follow, don’t need a ton of equipment, give full length plans with proper instruction (rather than little pieces which I have to stitch together), have variety within their own channels/feeds that I do not have to go looking anywhere else, even give weekly and monthly plans of how you should follow them - and are mostly free (which is big deal for me - to try out various plans and trainers before I commit to any, and thus avoid buyer’s remorse.)
I will always have a special corner in my heart (and home) for home workouts - they tend to be basic enough that I can replicate the moves anywhere at home with light (or no) equipment, and in the gym with the actual machines and heavier weights, with moves so simple that I can follow without fear or apprehension in the comfort of home or the jungle of a gym. They are independent of time, space, excuses or experience. You can go hard or easy, cut it short, pause and do extra sets, substitute moves when it gets too hard - home workouts are your playground.
The best part is that these moves will always be the basic building blocks for any kind of advanced movements you want to do later - from kickboxing to barre to plyometrics to calisthenics to reformer pilates to animal flow / kettlebell flow / dance flow or anything that is yet to come up as the next big thing in fitness.
Get moving - because home workouts are here to stay and obliterate every excuse there is! Share it on if you found this useful!