Fitness

The Best Streaming Workouts For A Quarantine Sweat

Sculpt Society

All of my favorite irl studios are now streaming virtual classes, perfect for offsetting my extra wine consumption and giving my sheltered-at-home brain an endorphin boost. Many classes don’t require kitted-out home gym set-ups, and instead rely on either plain, old bodyweight or household items from chairs and soup cans to towels and bottles of wine. Ranging from dance cardio to bootcamps to barre, here are the top streaming workouts I’m relying on to keep my abs, buns and sanity intact, to the other side of the safer-at-home wine fest. 

Barrys

Barry’s

Barry’s virtual Red Room is offered just about on the hour, every hour throughout the day. Workouts are abridged to 35 minutes per class to suit at-home attention spans (just me?) and conducted over Zoom. Schedules are organized by region: east, central and west, in order to provide familiar instructors and time slots. As in traditional Barry’s Bootcamp classes, different muscle groups are the focus on different days, with classes offered in a variety of prop and bodyweight options. Currently, Barry’s is offering a 28-day Social Fitness challenge. 

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The Sculpt Society

Megan Roup’s Sculpt Society is a dance cardio fitness method popularized by supermodels and celebs (fans include Elsa Hosk and Sofia Richie), with classes ranging from 5 to 50 minutes and most clocking in at around 35. Megan’s classes are easy enough to follow along with for non-dancers, sweaty, modifiable to always be prop-free and new sweaty routines are offered each week. During shelter-at-home orders, Megan is offering a two-week complimentary trial to new Sculpt Society members.

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Tone It Up

Tone It Up has been offering complimentary access to its robust fitness app during the pandemic. Workouts appear in the app, and range from HIIT and kickboxing to yoga sculpt and barre. Classes range in time commitment from a breezy 9-minute HIIT class to 35-minute yoga flows. 

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Aaptiv

Throughout every new and notable fitness app launch, I always go back to Aaptiv. All-audio workouts, meditations, runs and recovery sessions led by a variety of talented instructors range from beginner to advanced and from short to marathon (marathon-training is in fact one programming option in the app). Workouts can be filtered by level of difficulty, instructor, music and a multitude of other options - making it super customizable. Currently, Aaptiv is offering 30-days of free membership to new subscribers.

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Healthified Life

The newest option on this list, Healthified Life’s dance-cardio classes are taught by current assistant coach and former captain of the Warriors Dance Team Amira Mourad. Offered a handful of times each week via Healthified.co, Amira’s classes are fast-moving, incorporate dance cardio and strength movements and are prop-free.  

The Best Fitness Apps for Home and Travel, Tried and Tested

Credit: Cody App

Credit: Cody App

For the price of one boutique fitness class (often less), you can now get access to nearly a bazillion expert-led workouts via app and web.  I just recently became a believer after researching what felt like allll the fitness apps under the sun as a contributor to 7x7's 2017 Wellness Guide. Weeks after turning in my story, I found myself returning to a few app-based ways to sweat and realized they were really helping with a 2017 personal goal of workout consistency and creativity. 

As someone who is regularly trying new workouts in new places (and who generally just craves variety when it comes to fitness), finding consistency among the trend-chasing has been a challenge. The following five digital fitness platforms are my new at-home and on-the-road go-tos, helping me not only with consistency but also to push myself further on solo workouts. 

Aaptiv

The only app with no visuals, Aaptiv also happens to be the most natural to use. Audio-based and covering three main categories: run (tread + outdoors), strength and yoga; Aaptiv covers the bases for a general workout regimen from beginner to pro. Propping up a phone or tablet at either a home or public gym can be awkward for me, and I've found that Aaptiv's audio instruction model played over a motivating background soundtrack is simpler and allows more focus for the workout at-hand. Class difficulty is color-coded, and the instructors vary in style from pretty chill to all-business. To download, use code WellandAway for a month free.

Zenrez

Handy at home for last minute workouts, Zenrez is an amazing tool for finding day-of boutique fitness and yoga, especially when traveling, and at a nice discount. When there’s not enough time pre-trip to research all of the local fitness studios, Zenrez is an easy way to browse and book into classes nearby. Starting at 9pm on workout-eve, the Zenrez system populates with available classes to book the next day at discounts of up to around 30%. It's also a fun way to explore new studios at home.

Fitplan

I am always curious to know more about the workout routines behind the physiques of Instagram's most followed fitness personalities. While I think we all know that genetics (and sometimes a medical tweak or two) can play a part as much as diet and exercise, it’s impossible not to wonder, for instance, ‘What would happen to my ass if I tried Jen Selter’s personal workout program for 30 days?' Fitplan provides the tools to find out just that with 30-90 day programs for Full Body Blast, Summer Shred and of course Jen Selter’s Lower Body and Booty Guide. Each plan is a subscription that you commit to for a specified duration, and daily workouts are broken down into reps and sets with a short demo video showing each move. Use code WELLANDAWAY30 for a month free.

Cody App

I have recently become addicted to Cody App. I started with Kino McGregor’s Ashtanga bundle, then moved into her handstand bundle, then into a little Acroyoga series binge one weekend when my fiancé obliged, and then into Ashley Galvin’s flexibility series - my new favorite. Cody has been around for four years, but somehow it’s new to me. And it's forever changed my at-home and hotel room workout routines. It’s great for traveling to places that don’t have the exact style of yoga or fitness classes you’re looking for, so instead of spending $20+ on a class, you can spend the same on a series of classes with people like Kino. Classes remain in your account forever, as Cody is not subscription-based and more of an iTunes model for purchasing individual classes (or a bundle of classes). New users can enter code WELLANDAWAY for 30% off of their first purchase.

MindBody

The platform behind the majority of your boutique fitness (and yoga and wellness) class bookings, MindBody, has a surprisingly handy app for booking and discovering new classes. Notifications also share news of nearby studios that might be of interest. And unlike any other booking app, you can manage nearly all of your class reservations through their platform rather than toggling between a handful of studios

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Have you tried any of these apps? What did you think?? Let us know in the comments below.