The Best At-Home Workouts If You're New to The Whole Moving Thing
Theresa Gonzalez is a content creator based in San Francisco and the author of Sunday Sews. She's a lover of all things design and spends most of her days raising her daughter Matilda.
Spent most of 2020 loading up on comfort foods and scrolling the news while sheltering at home? SAME. We're starting the new year ready to shake it off (literally). And not just this month, our resolution: meet at minimum the doctor-recommended 30 minutes of exercise a day. We'll feel better and eat better as a result, win-win. But the lack of outdoor workout options in most parts of the country this time of year make it less motivating to get off the couch and get moving. Here's some inspo: we rounded up at-home gym essentials, fashionable fitness fashion and pro fitness tips to help you get started. Plus, find some of our favorite fitness videos, apps, easy step-by-steps from our archives, and home equipment trends to try out if you're getting back (like us) into a daily fitness routine. You got this!
Glo
We're big fans of this platform that offers meditation, yoga and pilates classes at all levels, taught by instructors all over the world. It's a great way to ease into a workout routine and perfect for rainy/snowy days when outside is less fitness-friendly. Choose your favorite style, or let the app make suggestions based on your personal goals.
obé
Bring back the Jazzercise-type workouts mom knew and loved. For a subscriber fee of $27 a month, users have access to the obé website and app where they can choose from a variety of live or on-demand cardio, strength, or stretch classes in a high-tempo and equipment-free environment. The colors, tunes, and energy you'll experience along the way promise to be seriously energizing, to say the least.
Tracy Anderson
Fans of celeb trainer Tracy Anderson (clients include Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Lopez) can join in on her state-of-the-art workouts from the comfort of home. Each week, the fitness entrepreneur provides classes aimed at all skill abilities to tone and strengthen arms, legs, glutes, abs, and dance in an unedited and authentic environment. Considering the expense of in-person classes, the membership fee of $90/month is a relatively small price to pay for a convenient, designer-style routine you don't have to Uber to the studio for. But first, give the free two-week trial a go.
The Sculpt Society
If you love cardio *and* want to perfect your dance moves you'll have a lot of fun with The Sculpt Society. Score full-length video workouts plus quickies that focus on conditioning arms, abs, glutes and more with founder and trainer Megan Roup (shown in center). (14-day free trial, $20/month, $119/annual plan)
ClassPass Live
Get the feeling of being in a live class from your living room with ClassPass. The monthly subscription service includes a live interactive element that holds people accountable for their #goals. Using Chromecast and heart rate monitor (provided in $70 in a starter kit + as low as $9 monthly subscription fee), you can monitor your heart rate on a leaderboard during workouts and earn points for hitting the right intensity. The classes are live streamed during the week or available on-demand, and the quick 30-minute sessions are led by top instructors.
Brit + Co
Need a free intro to working out at home? Give your cutie booty a boost with reps of squat kickbacks, curtsey lunges and star touches every morning in How to Transform Your Butt With 7 Easy Exercises You Can Do at Home. Plus, all you need is a mat and hand weights to score defined abs by summer in Hate Crunches But Want Abs? Try These 10 Moves!
12-Minute Athlete
Got 12 minutes? How about 16? Because that's all you need to get in a solid HIIT-focused workout with 12 Minute Athlete founder Krista Stryker. "You can see incredible results from these workouts in a short amount of time, even if you don't think of yourself as athletic," she says. ($2 for app/first month, then $3/month)
Aaptiv
If you need music to motivate you to move, Aaptiv combines rocking playlists with personal training. To use the app, enter your fitness goals and choose from the thousands of available workouts, and you'll be matched with one of their trainers (who are athletes, physical therapists, and health instructors). The audio-led, music-driven workouts will let you focus on your body movements and surroundings without any video distraction. ($15/month, $100/annual)
Nike Training Club
This free app from Nike offers a variety of 5- to 60-minute home workouts, including programs that help you set a regular workout schedule. Bonus: You can filter by the equipment you have at home, and score nutrition and wellness tips along the way.
Peloton App
Peloton's digital subscription ($13 a month + a free two-month trial) gives you access to their live and on-demand tread classes even if you don't invest in the pricey equipment. The app has loads of workout classes including yoga, strength-training, and cycling classes, plus audio-only classes for outdoor runs for when the weather warms up.
Mirror
Mirror ($1500, plus a $30/month subscription) is a sleek fitness system that has both live and on-demand classes (strength, but also cardio, boxing, yoga, and more). You'll get real-time personalization (and shoutouts from instructors), plus you can train with your friends, sync your biometric data, or use your own playlists. It syncs with your Apple Watch too.
What are your favorite at-home workouts? Share with us @BritandCo!
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Theresa Gonzalez is a content creator based in San Francisco and the author of Sunday Sews. She's a lover of all things design and spends most of her days raising her daughter Matilda.