One of the biggest by-products of the pandemic would be the boom in home fitness. Personally, I find home-videos better than going to the gym; they are convenient, free and there is no commitment to a 30 min video. Now, I do consider myself as some sort of a YouTube fitness connoisseur. I cannot think of someone I haven’t tried!? You have seen it; I have done it.
I have listed different youtubers and rated their ‘BURN!’ factor and style (HIIT, Pilates, Dance). Whilst I have tried to be as objective as possible, what I will find easy and hard will be different to what you might find easy or difficult.
Emi Wong is up next. The queen of ‘slim down your thighs’- I have known her all my teen years and she is another basic favourite. I would say her workouts are a little more diverse and slightly harder than Chole’s, with her BURN! being more intense than but she would be still considered basic.
· My go-to for easy sweaty workouts.
· Her leg workouts are pretty much rite of passage. They are good and simple.
· She is so encouraging throughout, and she magically seems to know when you need it.
· Emi’s workouts really do work, with me and herself being a testament to how good she is.
Recommend it to beginner.
Note: I do feel like her workouts are becoming slightly more harder so if you are a complete beginner go for her old ones.
I feel like some people would already know her for her dance workouts. I was quite unsure about whether if I would consider her easy or medium because her dance workouts are easy, but her HIIT workouts are harder.
· Her song choices for her dance videos are really. She also has a lot of K-pop covers which as well are fun and easy.
· HIIT workouts are harder in terms of the exercises but I do not find her challenging.
Recommend it to beginner.
Lucy Wyndham-Read (Workout sets)
· Her workouts are short, less than 10 minutes usually. So, I would do them twice through or do it once in the morning and once at night.
· She is just the cutest.
· The workouts are all pretty much low-impact, great for people who live in flats or who have weak knees.
Recommend it to beginners.
April Hans (Workout sets)
I simply love her. She is just so nice and calming. She talks your through her workouts, usually explaining biology behind the exercises which I appreciate. She is Chinese so her videos are in Mandarin, but she does have English subtitles. I would also like to add because she is an Asian her workouts are targeted to an Asian audience. I have read far too many mean comments calling her all sort of things simply because she does not want a big bum. If you want slimming and toning, April Hans is for you.
· Workouts that deliver results!!
· Her accent in Mandarin is nice and I always try to copy her. If you are learning Mandarin, her videos are a good introduction to advanced vocabulary.
· She does the workouts herself and at the beginning of the video she shows her progress with the workout.
Recommend it to people who want to slim down. Easy Medium.
Burn level: 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 /10
My British queen. Lily’s workouts are hard.
· Her workouts are dynamic and difficult. There are no jumping jacks here.
· Her energy is contagious, which is the only reason I make it to end.
· No repetition! This is a big one for me. I refuse to do workouts where I have to do repeats or sets. For me, sets are dull and boring.
· Nice mix of different circuit inspired workout.
Caroline Girvan (Challenge)
Burn level: 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 (🔥)/10
Caroline’s ‘Epic’ challenge programme is widely regarded as one of the hardest/toughest programmes to get through. I started this a while back, but I left it hanging for a while because I got sick. I will be re-starting this challenge this month!!
• She does have a beginner version of Epic! No excuses here!
· ‘Epic’ does require you to have a range of equipment (weights) at home.
Recommend it to advanced.
(EDIT: I will be back with how I got along.)
If you were to come to me as a beginner to working out, I would point you to Chole Ting. I know you know her but that is because she is good. Chole’s workouts are easy to follow and direct, but this does not mean you do not get a good BURN! She does have some workouts that are a little more difficult, but they are not anything hard and if you are doing them with one of her challenges, you will fine.
· She covers a good range of basic exercises in her workouts.
· she includes a warm-up and a cool down. A lot of people do not realise how important a good warm-up and a cool down is, so doing her workouts help build the habit of incorporating it into your routine.
· Queen of challenges! If you are struggling with what to do and how to plan your workouts, she has many challenges that will give you structure.
· Her channel also has a lot of food recipes which is helpful as well.
· Her music… it is quite irritating. Music PTSD is real.
· Her workouts are repetitive (good for beginners but not really for anyone else). After some time of doing her workout, I can freestyle a ‘Chole Ting’ on the spot. So, I do recommend mixing other youtubers in, especially if you are like me (I am someone who gets bored very easily, so I like doing a variety of different workouts.).
Recommend it to beginners.
Pilates are extremely misleading. Advertised more relaxing alternative fitness, Pilates leaves you shaking and on a verge of a mid-awakening meltdown. I personally like Taylor more than other Pilate youtubers (100% because she is British so listening to her speak is tore able-) and she is my go-to.
· You will not be able to move the next two days after.
· Like I said, she does speak but it more like a nice 80s dance vid than an annoyingly positive spiel.
This just gained some attention on Tiktok but this 3min turned 30 min routine was a HUGGGGEEEEEEEE hit in Japan and Korea. (Like, my socials were just this for a long time.) So many people were able to lose weight by doing this for a couple of weeks, which is not bad considering this is low impact.
· As straightforward as it gets and it’s fun too.
· I know I said low impact and is not strenuous at all but do expect to break a sweat.
· You will live, breathe, eat the song.
· I am so sick and tired of the song at this point.
1.(15 min version) 2.(results)
Warmups, Stretching and cool-downs:
There are so many other youtubers that I get my workouts from. The main reason I like doing these are because of what I like in terms of aesthetics. Doing home workouts means that I am using my own body weight which helps with keeping lean and being strong from the inside. I really hope that this helped introduce some fitness youtubers to you.