Remember when celebrity exercise videos were A Thing? It was back when you couldn’t get through a television ad break without Davina McCall popping up on screen dressed head-to-toe in Lycra, telling us to buy yet another one of her actually super successful Fit In However Many Minutes DVDs. Yeah, that's right. Back when people still bought DVDs…
There is, of course, dose of low level deception that comes with this sort of thing (because we've all bought into the facade of trying that one rogue workout regimen and expected to walk out of of it looking like a Victoria's Secret Model at least once), but there's also some thing really fascinating about it all.
These days we can just slide over to Instagram for as much unattainable #fitspiration as our self-esteem can manage. There are hundreds of instructional videos by celebrity trainers/bloggers/influencers/generally fit-looking people promising to transform our bodies beyond recognition, many of which fed by the depressing idea that women need to lose a shit load of weight to look and feel good (spoiler: not the case).
But, once upon a time, there was a really specific, really big market for celebrity fronted exercise videos. Not an Instagram friendly 15 second snippet of an exercise routine, but an hour long private session that let you sweat it out alongside your favourite famous face in the comfort of your own home to the rhythm of questionable house music. What a treat, eh?
While the promise of what some of those videos will do for you vs the reality of all the other factors that go into celeb bods (loads of money, heaps of time, a hoard of fancy expensive trainers on standby and a chef on hand to create and enforce those tricky nutritious meal plans) is pretty stark, there are some absolute gems buried deep in the hallowed halls of HMV. And if there are any worth revisiting - for the lolz or for the actually decent exercise if home workouts are your thang - it's these ones right here.
1. Davina: Fit In 15
If you thought those super condensed, HIIT in 10 minutes -style workouts are relatively new, you're wrong. Davina was one of the early champions of this method. Let's face it, there's a reason they were always so popular. The sell is to get you fit as opposed to making you lose weight and the instructors Davina co-presents with don't make you feel guilty for feeling tired after the warm up.
2. Mel B: Totally Fit
There's no substitute for enthusiasm, kids. And Mel B has so much of it, it hurts. In the workout dvd that she released post-Spice Girls (because what else would you do?) she and her 'posse' do a series of full body workouts by a pool in the scotching heat. Impractical, yes. But the whole routine is actually led by Mel herself and it's sort of mesmerising.
3. Cher Fitness
You guys. Cher did a fitness dvd. Cher. Can we just take a second to let that settle in and wonder why this has been totally overlooked? There's a whole section dedicated to stepping and it's probably the best thing to have come out on VHS in late 1998.
4. LaToya Jackson: Step Up
This is the little snippet of information missing from your extensive knowledge of the Jackson family, of course. LaToya had a workout DVD, yes dedicated to stepping aka the most 90s workout in the history of novelty workout methods, and it's the sort of thing you'd imagine someone's mom to have on in an nondescript American high school movie from way back when.
5. Geri Halliwell: Body Yoga
Of course there's another Spice Girl exercise video in the mix mate. And this offering comes from Geri Halliwell, straight outta 2002. She tells us to ask ourselves the question 'what I have I done for me today', and if it's not Geri's life changing hour long yoga routine then clearly we've all missed a trick.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.