The 5 best YouTube channels to change up your workout routine
- Try Yoga with Adriene for a good stretch, or Popsugar for a variety of HIIT, strength training and dance exercises
- Fitness Blender and Growing Annanas can help you work up a sweat
If you've got too much energy from being stuck inside, check out these YouTube channels for a good workout.If you’re bored with running the same route around your block of flats or doing the same push-up, sit-up routine, there’s always YouTube. You will find so many videos that it can be challenging to know what to choose.
Here are five of the best channels to keep your fitness regime fresh.
The best bodyweight exercises you can do at home
For yoga
Yoga with Adriene
With more than 9 million followers, Adriene is doing something right .
Her main phrase is “Do what feels good for your body”, and she really encourages you to listen to your muscles and limbs, and if it doesn’t feel right, to stop.
There are videos that focus on specific body parts – and even suggested exercises for “text neck”. She also offers several 30-day series, designed to help you stay consistent with your practice.
(Keep a lookout. too, for Benji, her Australian cattle dog who makes regular appearances.)
For variety
Popsugar
Across more than a decade, Popsugar has amassed hundreds of videos on its YouTube channel. Workouts range from HIIT and strength training to Barre and Yin yoga to Latin and cardio dance classes. As well as diversity in the type of class, there’s diversity in the instructors, which is cool because #representationmatters.
It’s a great place to try workouts you’d probably never sign up for in real life. You might not think Barre is your thing, or may have felt too intimidated to join a CrossFit class, but if you check out these new styles in the privacy of your own home, who knows: you might have a new hobby to follow up on post-Covid.
For runners
Pace-PDX
If you’re a serious runner, particularly long-distance, this one’s for you.
The Portland Athletic Centre of Excellence (Pace), in the US, runs in-person performance-enhancement programmes for athletes in all sorts of disciplines.
But its YouTube channel also offers advice and very specific exercises from its physical therapists, personal trainers, coaches, and other certified experts.
Many videos are geared towards runners, including a six-week series focused on strength and conditioning.
Videos on hip strength, core strength and stretching are particularly beneficial. You’ll need resistance loop bands and light weights for some moves.
For HIIT
Fitness Blender
Created by a husband-wife personal trainer duo who wanted to make fitness more accessible, Fitness Blender is now home to more than 600 workout videos on YouTube.
Many of the videos are HIIT or cardio-based, but there are strength training options for almost every muscle group, too.
There’s no music, leaving you free to listen to your own tunes, and the instructors have a great sense of humour.
You can sort the videos by training type, video length, and difficulty level.
The simple trick to staying fit while social distancing
For core and low-impact workouts
Growing Annanas
Based in Austria, Anna Engelschall, aka growingannanas , curates the kind of HIIT workouts that will leave your bedroom rug drenched in sweat.
If you’re working out on tiles or floorboards, cover them up with towels because they will get slippery!
Filled with more variations of jumping squats and lunges than you might think possible, these are really challenging sessions. There are also some “no jumping” videos that offer a way to cross-train while giving your legs a break from high-impact movement.
Most videos feature challenging core work, but there are also some that are dedicated solely to abs.
Her style is minimalist – no talking, with a silent countdown for each move and a bell that goes off when it’s time for the next one.