Christina is a mom, registered nurse, and blogger. She fully admits to both a love of too much food and a love of the couch, two vices she struggles to overcome on a daily basis. In the past two years, she’s lost nearly 50 pounds through diet and exercise, some of it chronicled on her blog, Losing My Hind.
So I recently wrote about why you should consider adding a group fitness class into your exercise plan if you’re only using DVDs for your exercise. However, I don’t want to present workout videos as something to avoid – after all, it was thanks to those DVDs alone that I lost my first 20 pounds. Without that in-home solution, I may never have started on my journey to get fit and lose weight.
Recorded workouts are a great addition to any fitness regimen, and thanks to the wide variety of DVDs available today you can find one for any skill level. If you haven’t tried a workout DVD yet, here are a few reasons you might want to pick one up soon.
You’ll never find another instructor-led workout this cheap. Yes, there are plenty of workout DVD “systems” that require a first born child as down payment for their services, but the average fitness DVD costs $10-20. Since the plan is to use it more than once, you can almost guarantee you’ll pay less per session than you would for any group class you sign up for. Consider the costs of your gym membership if your gym provides free group classes. Also, many DVDs now contain more than one workout, giving you even more value for your money. If you’re worried you may not like the DVD, see if your local library has a copy to borrow or rent it from Netflix first to try it out.
Your workout is ready when you are, even if it’s midnight. As a night owl and someone who works third shift, I’ve had to come to terms with the reality that everyone around me doesn’t work on the same schedule. There are few instructors who want to lead a fitness class after 9pm, and even if they did, I can’t guarantee they’d offer the type of class I wanted. With DVDs, your instructor is just waiting for you on that disc for whenever the time is right for you.
No one has to see you’re uncoordinated. For me, the greatest challenge to starting a fitness plan was the fear of what others would think. I still have nightmares from the time I tried the Nordic-Track at my university’s gym and flipped off backwards in a room full of tiny, beautiful people. Workout videos provided that start I needed to help build up confidence without the worry that others were judging my form.
Predictability can be a good thing. A common complaint about DVDs is they can become routine and boring because there are few ways to change up the recorded workout. However – and this relates to the point directly above – if you’re uncoordinated, or just slow to learn new movements, having the same routine over and over can help you master the moves and feel confident about your abilities. For example, I’d like to try Zumba, and I know my gym offers a class, but I plan to try a DVD first to feel comfortable with the basics before tripping over my feet (or someone else’s!) in the class.
You have few excuses to skip a workout when it’s right in front of you. I don’t have time to drive to the gym, workout, shower and make it to work on-time. I can’t find a babysitter. It’s snowing. I don’t have any clean workout gear. None of these excuses hold up when you don’t have to leave your living room and can choose the workout that best fits into the time you have available. And hopefully, fewer excuses leads to more exercise!
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