Sick of at-home workouts? Try retro fitness videos instead.

The at-home workout videos many have come to rely upon during social distancing often fit the same mold: pack as much high-intensity, fat “torching” or “blasting” exercise as possible into as little time as possible.

It’s effective, and it’s short — but often, it’s miserable. The videos themselves advertise this as a good thing, with descriptors like “brutal” beckoning in the YouTube titles. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. While HIIT workouts are a popular way to efficiently build muscle and burn calories, physicians just recommend 30 minutes a day of moderate aerobic exercise to stay healthy. 

So on days where you don’t feel like torturing yourself with 30 minutes of “killer” intensity, might we suggest an alternative? Try out a leotarded, sparkly, refreshingly hilarious retro fitness video.

The workout videos of the ’80s and early ’90s that we would call “retro” today are mostly about getting your heart pumping, and maybe doing some light strength training while also having fun. The bright leggings, celebrity hosts, and relentless positivity was a way to introduce a new legion of working women to the idea that being active was good for you. More problematically, they were also unabashedly positioned as a way to lose fat and get slim. 

“In these relatively early days of the fitness industry, most popular workouts were gentler and easier than what we see today,” Danielle Friedman, a journalist currently working on a book about the history of women’s fitness, told Mashable. “But as the science of exercise evolved, working out itself has become more of a science, and with that seriousness, it’s been stripped of some of the fun.”

Watching retro workout videos today, the concept of “fun” stands out as alien almost as strongly as the neon leotards. One early Jazzercise video is set to a custom funky-meets-jazzy muzak-ish song. While founder Judi Sheppard Missett leads her smiling class in box steps and knee kicks, the refrain sung over and over in the song is “Jazzercise it… having the time of your life!”

“In the early 1980s, most women still didn’t work out—for generations they had been told that vigorous exercise was ‘unfeminine,'” Friedman said “Fitness gurus needed a way to make working out feel approachable, aspirational, and maybe even a little glamorous, since so many adult women had been raised to believe they weren’t physically gifted or natural athletes. They accomplished this by featuring celebrities, upbeat music, and a laid-back, welcoming vibe that said ‘look how much fun we’re having!'”

The idea that an at-home workout could be fun is something some of us — missing the positive camaraderie of the gym or a workout class — might find desperately tantalizing. Yes, “fun” dance workouts like Zumba or hip hop exist on YouTube. But they’re still a means to an end, not an experience in and of themself.

Luckily for us, a trove of retro workout videos live on YouTube. For those days when you just want to get your heart pumping, and maybe have a laugh while you’re at it, Jane Fonda or Richard Simmons might just be the quarantine teacher you’re looking for.

Here are some recommendations for working out, ’80s style.

1. Jazzercise

We would be remiss if we didn’t start with the VHS workout queen herself: a Judi Sheppard Missett Jazzercise video. Friedman attributes the aerobics “explosion” in part to Sheppard Missett’s influence.

Today, led by Sheppard Missett’s daughter, Shanna Missett Nelson, Jazzercise, Inc. is still going strong. In 2019, the brand launched Jazzercise On Demand, a subscription fitness service which features contemporary workout videos — with plenty of lower impact dance, too.

“So much of Jazzercise, the workout, has changed over the years!” Missett Nelson said. “We’ve outlasted 51 years of fitness trends because we’ve adapted to the times and modernized throughout the decades.”

I worked up a sweat doing a 20 minute dance video on contemporary Jazzercise, while also giggling at the silliness of hip thrusting in my living room. Then I compared it to a Jazzercise classic, which is a different, riotous beast of high kicks and “easy does it!” positivity altogether. Both were a refreshing change.

2. Richard Simmons

Simmons is a beloved workout coach for the energy and acceptance he brings to his workouts. A popular series is Simmons’ Sweatin’ To the Oldies workout videos, which feature dancers of all shapes and sizes boppin’ to 1960s pop-rock.

Dance along if you can take the suspense of watching whether or not Simmons’ colorful short shorts will adequately do their job.

While Sir Mix-A-Lot might not approve of Jane Fonda’s fat-burning methods, Fonda is *the* icon of celebrity home fitness. 

Her original 1982 workout tape has sold more than 17 million copies, and she helped launch the home video industry, whole hog, according to Friedman:

Workout videos basically birthed the home video industry. In the years after VHS was introduced in 1977, few people owned VCRs, which were expensive, and most people weren’t yet willing to shell out a lot of money just to be able to rewatch their favorite movie. But when Jane Fonda released her first home workout video in 1982, suddenly, consumers had an incentive to purchase home video hardware. 

You can find some of Fonda’s original videos on YouTube, as well as some more contemporary videos geared towards older people.

The woman known for creating the “buns of steel” routine certainly puts hers on display. Come to this grainy workout video for the aerobics and glute squeezes. Stay for the thong leotards.

The most confusing thing about Fabio videos are why there appears to be a decoupaged poster of the  romance novel model turned I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter commercial actor in the background of his own fitness video. 

Fabio’s routines are more about weight training than aerobics. But at least a few minutes of copying Fabio’s moves are, um, worth the watch.

The iconic West Side Story actress was another celebrity to get in on the ’80s aerobics home fitness video trend. Her positive presence and stellar moves make Rita Moreno: Now You Can! videos a standout.

“Exercise lifts the blues, it’s therapeutic — and this I guarantee!” she begins her video.

Thanks Rita!!

Reynolds starts her video with a devastating burn low-key aimed at Jazzercise, Jane Fonda, and the rest of the VHS celeb cohort. She says she never expected to make a workout video, but she basically didn’t like anyone else’s, so she had to make one herself. Debbie, we love to see it.

There is truly no cure for the quarantine blues like dancing along with a burgundy leotard-clad Debbie Reynolds while she’s boosting your self confidence with positive aphorisms. Plus, the video contains this beautiful moment of deep friendship. 

Find your best leotard and get movin’.