Sweatin' to the Oldies

whoami67

I just discovered Richard Simmons has a YouTube channel. I'm having a blast doing 5-15 minutes at a time of his exercise videos. They're so much fun and don't feel like exercising at all because I've just been in a mood where I don't want to exercise.

Anyone else tried these fun videos now or in the past? I think they're especially great if you're not in good shape or if you are feeling kind of old.

AnnPT77

Yes, I used to do them a lot, when I first started becoming active, still obese. I needed something low impact (bad knees). The exercises were a bit challenging/exertive but doable for me then, I appreciated the music choices as more appealing than some others at the time; I found the mood really positive/encouraging; and I appreciated the diversity of the participants in the videos. (Richard himself can be a tiny bit Much sometimes, but that's OK. 😉)

At the time, I had just joined a breast cancer survivors rowing team, which felt like a biiig stretch to me. I was recently post treatment (surgery, chemo, radiation), very unfit from years of inactivity plus that cancer experience, around age 47, obese. I needed something achievable to do that would help me build base aerobic fitness, that I could do at home when convenient, in between machine rowing opportunities with the team. This was pretty perfect.

Eventually, as I got fitter, I reached a point where I wasn't able to get my heart rate up as high as I needed from low-impact aerobic dance. By then, I had a rowing machine at home, plus I think it was around then that I started taking spin classes, and working on my swimming skills. So, I pretty much moved on to other things that were a little more intense, a little more challenging to a somewhat improved fitness level.

I still have most of those workouts on DVDs, and originally had some on VCR tapes. They were just what I needed to build fitness from where I was, really perfect, and I'm very grateful to them for that. 😊