Ahhh Christmas. Tis the season for eating, drinking and being merry. But, if you’re not careful, all that indulgence can leave you feeling a little blah. Exercise is a great way to keep your energy up and burn some of those extra calories. To help you stay active over the Christmas season and the rest of the year, here are 15 of my favourite 15-minute YouTube workouts.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that physical activity is the best thing you can do for your health. They suggest working your way up to the recommended 150 minutes a week. In just 15 minutes every day, you’ll be 70% of the way there!
We can all find 15 minutes in our day to squeeze in some movement, right? Set a goal to do at least one workout a day over the Christmas holidays. Your body will thank you and you won’t even need to leave the house so these workouts are great for couch potatoes!
15-Minute YouTube Workouts
Leslie Sansone – Walk at Home
I have been working out at home with Leslie for years and have several of her DVDs. In the last year or so, Leslie has taken a step back and let some of her other walk leaders take the spotlight.
One of the things I love the most about Leslie is she includes people of all shapes, sizes, ages and fitness levels in her videos.
Here are two Walk at Home workouts for you to try.
Walk 15 ROCKY Strong – 15 minute walking workout
Rocky has been on Leslie’s videos for years. She takes the lead on this high-energy 15-minute mile. No equipment needed. Just bring your energy.
Walk 15 Leslie and Nick HIIT training
Nick is another favourite from Leslie’s DVDs. In this HIIT (high intensity interval training) session, Leslie demonstrates the lower impact moves while Nick shows the high impact. It’s a complete workout with warmup, 2 HIIT intervals and cool down all in 15 minutes.
Jessica Smith
Jessica is another trainer whose workouts I enjoy. I find her style to be encouraging without being overly perky. Her YouTube channel has a variety of different workouts—all easy to do at home in a small space.
15-minute cardio + coordination
This is a fat-burning, agility-improving workout that you can do in a small space with no equipment.
In addition to cardio, it includes coordination exercises to improve balance—something we all need to think about as we get older.
15-minute quick at-home fat burning cardio blast
This is an easy low-impact workout with high-impact options that will make it a little more challenging. Again, it makes great use of space with a variety of movement.
1 mile walk & talk – The value of simplicity
Jessica’s Walk & Talk series is like going for a walk and having a chat with a friend. In this low-impact walking video, she discusses the value of simplicity. One of my favourite quotes: “Failure is an opportunity to begin again”.
Lucy Wyndham-Read
Recently named Fitness Influencer of the Year at the Blogosphere Awards, Lucy is a qualified trainer with years of experience. I love that all her workouts can be done in a small space with no equipment. With over 1,000 videos on her YouTube channel, there really is something for everyone!
Lucy is my absolute favourite so I’ve included several of her 15-minute YouTube workouts here.
14-minute 2 week challenge for better health
In this video, Lucy provides a seated and standing option. It includes 14 moves—a 10-second demo followed by 50 seconds of exercise. It’s a great full body workout that anyone can do.
Walking workout – 2000 steps – Walk at home
An easy way to get your step count up, Lucy alternates 20 seconds of marching with 40 seconds of full-body movement. If you’re in the mood for a longer workout, combine this one with her 1000, 3000 or 4000 walking videos.
1 mile walking at home – walking exercise for weight loss
I enjoy this one because it has a split screen showing an outdoor path so it gives you the feeling of walking outdoors. It alternates 60 seconds of low impact, total body movement with 30 seconds of high intensity movement.
15-minute no jumping – low impact cardio workout
This video has a beautiful beach backdrop – just what you need to brighten your day during the short days of winter. It has seven moves, each with a short demo followed by 50 seconds of movement. Then, after a short break, the seven moves are repeated.
It’s an easy low-impact workout with absolutely no jumping.
Walking exercises for weight loss
This video has 15 moves, each done for 60 seconds. Again, it’s low impact. For each move, Lucy adds a coin to the jar because exercise is an “investment in your future health”. It’s fun to watch the jar fill up as you get closer to the end.
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Fabulous 50s – Schellea Fowler
Schellea’s workouts are designed for women over 50 but, honestly, they are suitable for everyone. I enjoy her calming and encouraging style. Her workouts are done to music—usually energetic pop music, but sometimes more calming and relaxing music.
15-minute walking workout with (optional) dumbbells
This full-body workout includes five minutes of warmup and abs, five minutes of legs and glutes, and five minutes of arm exercises.
The moves alternate every 30 seconds, so the 15 minutes fly by.
15-minute indoor walking workout – low impact
With 30 seconds of walking, followed by 30 seconds of full-body low-impact movement, set to some fun salsa music, this one is a fun change of pace.
15-minute FULL BODY Christmas workout
Who doesn’t love working out to Christmas music? Schellea gets us ready for the season saying “It’s the workout you do when you don’t feel like doing anything else”.
Again, it’s a full-body workout covering arms, legs, core and cardio with 50 seconds of movement followed by a 10-second rest. Dumbbells are optional if you want to add a little more challenge.
Marion Brand – Brand Fitness
I discovered Marion on YouTube a couple of months ago and I’m so glad I did. Wanting to add a Canadian fitness YouTuber to my existing lineup of British, Australian and American ladies, I did some searches. Marion is fabulous. If you like workouts with no talking and great music, you will love her videos. Like Schellea, her workouts are targeted at the 50+ age group, but they’re suitable for all ages.
Cardio blast – classic rock – medium pace
In this fun video, we start with a “Magic Carpet Ride” which has us asking “Should I stay or should I go?” We get the answer to that with some “California Dreamin”. The video wraps up with some favourites from Queen and the Rolling Stones. What’s not to love?
Latin pop walking workout at home
This one is a fun and energetic cardio workout set to Latin pop music. It will really get your heart pumping! The 15 minutes and 2,000 steps really fly by!
I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks off work to spend with my daughters during their break from college. I hope you’ll join me and commit to staying active over the Christmas holidays. I’ve saved all these videos—and a few other 15-minute YouTube workouts—to a YouTube playlist so you can easily find them.
I love to discover new workout channels. Do you have favourite YouTube workout videos or channels? Tell me about them below. And if you have any more 15-minute YouTube workouts I can add to my list, let me know.
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I LOVe trying out new workouts so your selection appeals to me greatly! Love that there is a diverse number of workouts and that each one is different from the next.
It’s awesome that there is such a variety of free videos on YouTube. There really is no excuse for not squeezing in a quick workout every day. I hope you enjoy them.
Thanks for this article!!! Just the motivational words & suggestions I needed. 🙂
Aww. You’re very welcome. Let me know what you think of the videos!
Short workouts are great and non-intimidating. I’ve found that Body Project (found on YouTube) have great low impact exercises for beginners 🙂
I agree. 15 minutes feels like nothing but it’s a great start and is doable for most people. I will have a look at Body Project. Thanks for the suggestion.
This is great!! I am hoping to get back into it in the new year and need to start with low impact stuff! I love Heather Robertson too, don’t think she has 15min workouts but I followed her 12week workout plan last year and love/hated it lol but it did me so good!! Thanks for the suggestions! 🙂