Fun At-home Workouts

As the pandemic made it impossible for me to go to the gym, and almost impossible to go running outside without running into groups of people with the same idea, I had to get creative. And by that I mean logging into Youtube and following other creative people’s at-home workout routines. I’ve tried out a couple of different workout styles and to save you some trouble, here are some of my favorites. I’ve divided them into different time durations, as I have found that there are just some days when I just...need a shorter (but effective!) workout.

Hopefully you’ll find some of these interesting and will try them out too! I live in an apartment, so these workouts were chosen specifically for those people who lack equipment and space. All that is required is a laptop and a mat (or if you don’t have a mat, some of these workouts don’t even require that!). The best part about an at-home workout video is that you can rewind and pause for breaks whenever necessary. Plus, no one can judge you for sweating profusely or running out of breath too quickly (not that people would judge you at a gym either, but this is a weird paranoia that I have). Quite honestly, I will likely continue doing these at-home workouts even after the quarantine ends, and I hope you will too! And remember to hydrate!!

ZUMBA

Zumba is an exercise fitness program created by a Colombian choreographer during the 1990s. There were Zumba classes offered at my undergrad campus, but they were almost always over-capacity, and I do regret not carving out some time in my schedule to take them. So I decided to take matters into my own hands this time around and search for Zumba routines that I can follow on Youtube.

• 48 minute beginner Zumba dance workout

• 30 minute intermediate Zumba workout

• 20 minute full-body Zumba workout

I’ve had a lot of fun with Zumba, as every motion is synchronized to the Latin music. Plus, you don’t need a mat for Zumba and you can easily adjust the moves to be low-impact if need be.

BEGINNER HIIT WORKOUTS

HIIT stands for ‘high impact interval training.’ Basically, you do circuits of intense anaerobic exercise while alternating with recovery periods. Usually, my idea of working out is going for a jog outside. That being said, doing anaerobic exercise or engaging my core in ways other than running was pretty foreign to me. I’ve found a couple beginner workouts that I’ve found to be good introductions to this world of HIIT training. These workouts require no equipment and can be adjusted to different levels of intensity.

• 15 minute beginner workout

• 15 minute beginner workout with no jumping

• 30 minute intermediate workout

• 30 minute full-body HIIT workout

TABATA TRAINING

Tabata is similar to HIIT, with an interesting history. Tabata training was discovered by Japanese scientist Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. They monitored two groups of exercise routines: one group of athletes trained at a moderate activity level for an hour that lasted 5-6 days a week, while the other group did high intensity training for 4 days a week that lasted only 20 minutes. The results of this experiment (keep in mind that there are a limited number of subjects in this study, and the subjects were professional athletes) showed that high intensity training has more impact on both aerobic (cardiovascular) and anaerobic (muscle) exercise. Tabata training is formulated to last 4 minutes for each set, with 20 seconds of high intensity and 10 seconds of break.

• 10 minute full-body Tabata

• 30 minute Hip-Hop Tabata

• 30 minute cardio Tabata

• 45 minute full-body, no equipment Tabata

CARDIO KICKBOXING

Kickboxing is something that I was intimidated in trying out, but I found some videos that served as a good introduction to it without hurting myself :p

• 25 minute cardio kickboxing interval workout

• 30 minute no equipment cardio kickboxing

• 40 minute full-body cardio workout

• 45 minute cardio kickboxing

FULL BODY WORKOUT (general)

• 5 minute cardio workout

• 10 minute jumping workout

• 45 minute full-body workout

• 60 minute full-body workout

DANCE WORKOUTS (general)

• 15 minute 2000’s throwback dance workout

• 30 minute low impact dance workout

• 30 minute high intensity dance workout

• 40 minute high intensity cardio dance workout

Extra DANCE WORKOUTS (Kpop)

These workouts are choreographed to specific songs, but the Youtube artists usually have several other dances lined up! I usually like to set up a queue or a playlist and run through several songs in a workout session. Or if you’re not feeling it, you can just do one song and have a high intensity workout in < 5 minutes. There’s nothing like Kpop (Korean Pop) to get you worked up!

• BLACKPINK dance workout This workout is specific to one dance, but this Youtuber (Emi Wong) has a lot of other fun dance workouts for you to check out (I recommend the ‘KPop Dance’ playlist)!

• MIC Drop dance workout (by Sunny Funny Fitness)