YouTube has a phenomenal amount of free fitness and exercise videos that can help you on your fitness journey after the menopause. Here are 3 ways YouTube can help you improve your fitness:
Playlists
Creating playlists helps you easily organise and therefore find videos. For example:
- ‘This Month’ has the videos I want to be exercising to this month.
- videos by type: yin yoga, Pilates etc
- ‘try this one’ when there is a new exercise video to try and see if it fits in with my goals
Series/challenges
Many fitness YouTubers have video series or challenges. These are great for building a habit of moving regularly
– Yin Yoga with Kassandra
– Lucy Wyndham-Read
Class instructor
You can easily try lots of different types of exercises:
- Slow yoga or tai chi.
- Rehabilitation exercises
- Indoor walking for rainy days,
- Different styles of Aerobic workouts to get your heat rate up
- Weight training if you have the kit at home
Pro Tip
One thing you may notice changing as you joyfully grow older is your eye sight. So rather than try to watch your video on you phone or tablet, ‘cast to tv’. With most modern TVs you can easily hit a button on your phone or tablet and you’re your video is playing on your TV. Save your posture and squinting!
Discernment
Many creators earn money from YouTube. This can unfortunately skew how they deliver their content. You may find for example that Savasana is quite a bit shorter online compared to a class. This is because there are metrics on whether the whole video is watched or just part of it.
Samantha Valand is a Pilates teacher, Yoga Instructor and Personal Trainer. Who helps women fall in love with exercising again after the menopause. You can find some inspiration over on the blog Samatha has a free newsletter and a fun way to sign up is through my 'Elements of Exercise | Post menopause Quiz' which help you figure out what type of fitness focus to set next using Elements of Exercise framework
