How Bristol students are working out from home

By Charlotte Carver, Match Day Reporter

The arrival of the new year unfortunately brought with it a third national lockdown. Now, almost a fortnight since the lockdown came into force legally, some of us might be looking for something new to try in true new year spirit.

The world of home workouts has grown in popularity, even if that is through circumstance rather than choice. The Bristol Sport Active Online programme is a great choice for those wanting to try something new for their workout. Especially as lots of us have probably exhausted the Chloe Ting two-week ab workout video!

With multiple exercise classes livestreamed directly onto the app every day, there is something there for everyone. Whether you’re looking to tone, strengthen, or just improve your fitness, there are many options available.

The Body Strength class requires no equipment as it claims to ‘target building strength, balance, stability and flexibility’. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, something like Fitness Pilates which uses ‘different postures, breathing, and relaxation techniques’ in order to ‘realign the body, lengthen neglected muscles and noticeably tone your physique’, might be more to your taste.

As a revision break, I decided to attend the Thursday afternoon Tums, Bums and Thighs class. The lesson was livestreamed directly onto the app and was very easy to access.

My first impression was that it felt like I was at an actual gym class, rather than just watching a generic workout video from YouTube. The instructor Marcia was very friendly and enthusiastic, and the warmup eased me nicely into the class. I was ready to go!

The exercises in the session were fun and definitely worked up a sweat. I find lots of online workout videos to be very repetitive, however, this session was not at all. There were even moves that I had never seen before, so it was a nice change to other things I had tried.

My favourite part about the class was that you can see how many other people were participating in it with you, making it feel more collaborative. Plus having the instructor Marcia doing it at the same time as the rest of us made it feel much more personal than any old YouTube video. I was also very impressed with the professionalism and quality of the livestreamed video, there was no blurriness and no technical difficulties.

The sessions are a good option for those looking to try something new. I know that last term my housemates in Bristol liked doing workouts together, so I will definitely be suggesting these sessions to them. I would recommend to anyone looking for a new addition to their exercise regime.

Featured image: University of Bristol

Will you be trying out the app?