home workout recommendations for girlies* who don't work out
goals: maintain healthy heart & lungs [1]. build muscle [2]. maintain flexibility. prevent feeling like a bag of rocks.
context: i've never gone to the gym, but i want to stay healthy! i've been doing home workouts for ~4 years now. i am female in my mid 20s. i have a background of recreational dance but no other significant exercise activities**.
why i am sharing this: because i feel like i've made progress and started to find home workout routines that work for me, and i want to help other beginners who are in the position i was!
this is mostly a list of home workout videos / youtube channels that i have found useful in my home workout journey***. the key part of this list is that i am ordering them for you in a progression so the difficulty scales appropriately.
the goal is for you to try do 1 video a day. (two if specified). do take rest days, but if you're starting from not working out at all, then just trying to do it as frequently as you can will help a lot. remember the goal is to work up to 2.5 hours a week of aerobic exercise!
30 Day Pilates Body Challenge - Robin Long (10 min)
This is where I started. It is my favorite beginner series. They are all 10 minute videos, focusing on one part of your body (legs, upper body, abs, butt). If you're just starting out, I would very much recommend just trying to do one per day. You don't have to do this every day, but as frequently as you can will help you develop routines.
(Note. The ones where an external YouTuber contributes a video are harder than the ones done by Robin, so skip them if you don't feel up to it.)
When I started out, I think I spent at least 6 months just doing this series over and over again. It's the most approachable thing I could find for a beginner with my background.
When you feel like "damn, this isn't too bad and i could probably do 2 per day", keep doing 2 per day, and then on other days, add in...
Moving Mango Pilates (10-30 min)
The difficulty here is not much more than Robin, although Hannah does more focus on core strength. The key point though is to start to try doing videos that are longer (up to 30 min)!
Do vary the videos, don't just stretch, please make sure to do cardio and strengthing videos. Once you're comfortable with this, start working in the next two...
KyraPro (10 min - 1 hr)
Here we start seriously focusing on adding in cardio, and if there is anyone who can motivate you to do cardio, it is Kyra. Mostly because she has a LOT of videos of cardio to pop music, and I have to be honest, it is way easier to enjoy doing cardio when it's to music you enjoy.
I recommend finding something you love and just doing it. Taylor Swift? Musicals? Paramore? Bridgerton? She has it all. She also has really well organized lists so you know which ones are on the high difficulty, and which ones are easy. Walking workouts are a good place to start if you feel like cardio has been historically difficult / unfun for you.
FitByMik (10-35 min)
When you start KyraPro videos, please also start FitByMik videos. The key point: DO NOT USE THE WEIGHTS THAT SHE USES.
Holy shit this woman is strong. All her videos (e.g. low impact cardio) are great, but I want you to specifically start incorporating her sculpting and strengthening videos. She does a lot of videos with 8 or 10 lb weights. You can try that if you want, but if you're not very strong like me, I would recommend doing with no weights or 3 lb weights.
I promise, you will work your way up. Once it feels easier, move up to 5 lbs. You can switch weights between exercises. Once that's easy, go to 8 and 10 lbs.
It's important not to skip the FitByMik step here. Mikala's videos have been essential for me to build muscle. The thing I didn't realize for most of my years of home workouts is that the reason it was hard to do cardio is not because my heart and lungs were weak****, but because my actual jumping/squatting/lunging utility body muscles needed to be stronger to sustain these exercises for a long period of time. A lot of cardio exercises rely on these activities, but it's hard to maintain cardio when you don't have the other muscles for these activities on. And the way you build this muscle is through resistance from weights. You can do all the bodyweight pilates you want, but it's going to go much faster if you start incorporating weights.
Team Body Project but start with this video (20 min - 1 hr)
Once you feel like you're doing KyraPro and FitByMik videos regularly at a beginner level (not full weights), it's time to start incorporating Team Body Project videos.
All of their videos are great, although some are definitely harder than others (Alex goes hard with the cardio). Start with the ones labelled for beginners, which are mostly run by Daniel. In general, they're a really nice mix of strength and cardio, and Daniel is very motivational.
Eventually, when you want to ramp up the cardio, do incorporate Alex's cardio videos.
Tess & Yoann (20 min - 1 hr)
I hope at this point, you don't dread or hate doing your home workout anymore. I hope that it doesn't feel like a chore, but it feels like something nice to do to take care of your body. When you feel like being sweaty and out of breath is a sign that you worked hard, not some horrible feeling that you hope goes away.
You can incorporate the Tess & Yoann videos when you start the Team Body Project. The point of adding these two series in is to get you to start doing workouts in the 30 min to 1 hour range.
You can start following along Tess for the low impact, but as you get stronger, try doing some of the high impact with Yoann! It's a heady feeling when you do an entire 1 hr workout with all the high impact options. It really hammers home that you've made progress!
Go forth and explore!
At this point, hopefully you're doing 30 min - 1 hr workouts ~5 times a week, and you've dropped some of the earlier recommendations.
If you've gone through the progression above, you should be strong enough that the average YouTube home workout will be approachable for you. There are tons of videos -- MadFit, Juice and Toya, growingannanas -- in the top YouTube search results for "1 hr cardio" "dumbbell workout" etc. that you should be able to find the things you like. The point of this progression is to get you over the very beginning hurdle to making the average YouTube home workout video approachable to you.
There are tons of videos out there at more intense levels (you won't catch me doing a Caroline Girvan anytime soon), but this is where I stop my recommendations. Feel free to leave more in the reblogs, esp if you can benchmark them against what I've posted here!
Final notes:
Flexibility: Once you get to the FitByMik & KyraPro stage, do start adding 10+ min stretch videos in before or after you work out. Yoga, general stretch videos, whatever is fine. The point is that because you've shifted away from pilates and towards strengthening + cardio (which was our end goal), and you do need that added element to make sure to maintain your flexibility.
If you feel like your hamstrings in particular start becoming particularly tight because of the jumping / running, I really recommend Run Better with Ash videos which really dig into your legs.
Didn't know where to put this one in, but HasFit is another I quite like. Would put it at the level of Team Body Project. I do them together with my parents lol.
I liked PS Fit for quite a while and I do think their videos are good for anyone at the Moving Mango stage (they vary in difficulty, but there's a lot of fun dance ones), but I have serious beef with them for taking the CoolSculpting sponsorship, which is why they're demoted to the final notes instead of getting a listing up top.
This one 10 min video by Yoga With Bird is my go-to for when I feel like a bag of rocks. I swear by this one.
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[1] the American Heart Association recommends you get 2.5 hours of moderate aerobic activity a week for disease prevention & your future health! link here.
[2] in general, people start to lose muscle mass in their 30s, potentially 8% per decade! it's important to build healthy habits to build up muscle and maintain it so you have the mobility you want as you age. link here.
* girlies of any gender, of course
** i am not a healthcare professional or trainer or specialist. i am just a rando on the internet. please do your own research and do what is helpful for your body. i am not responsible for your actions based on what you read in this post. i repeat. please do not injure yourself, nor hold me liable if you do. glhf!
*** this is not an endorsement of these YouTubers as people. i have no idea what type of people they are. this is exclusively about their workout videos. please do let me know if there is something horribly unethical they are doing with their personal lives (bc views = money).
**** i have an anemia variant and i've historically blacked out from running too much as a kid, so i really did think that i just had bad cardiovascular strength because of my anemia. oops.
