It’s the last month of the year and with it comes a cramped work and social calendar, and a regular fitness routine can become the first casualty during a busy December. That means having to skip gym a lot more than usual, but there are ways to make up for it with a solid collection of workout videos to take you through the last few weeks of 2025.
All the workouts of this month have been posted in 2025, and are all 30 minutes long so that it can fit into a day depending on how much time is available to exercise. Some workouts have light dumbbells in case you have access to them.
Marie Stefen’s 30 minute standing Pilates
Pilates has zero haters. Even for those who don’t like going to the gym, Pilates is usually an exception or the best way to stay fit without a huge commitment to the cause. Former competitive bodybuilder Marie Stefen runs her channel The Art of Health with a higher focus on lightweight work with creative ways of burning calories and building strength. This workout is a standing Pilates class she does with light weights and the exercises are a great mix of body coordination and balance work. This is a great place to start if you’re new to doing follow-along workouts.
30-minute weighted mobility with EDR Fitness
This is one of my favourite online workouts. Mobility is one of the most important parts of fitness but it is necessary to start loading weights in this kind of work too. This means working on mobility and strengthening at the same time. EDR Fitness released this video three months ago and I’ve done it twice a month at least. Choose your weight of choice and do this in the gym as well, so that you can play with how much weight can be used. They recommend one heavy pair and one light pair of dumbbells. There are three circuits of four exercises with 30 seconds rest between the circuits. And the work is for 40 seconds on and 20 seconds off. The exercises are brilliant: from split squats and weighted supine angels to kneeling shoulder circles and loaded hamstring walks.
Jeremy Biernat’s 30-minute park bench workout
No time for workout? Probably take a walk to the closest bench and get a quick session in. Biernat calls himself talltrainer on YouTube and posts very specific fitness videos on clearing confusions about movements. He does a follow-along park bench workout which has stretches, some lunges, glute bridges and a whole range of work that you can put in for the perfect burn. Add a walk on either side of this workout and you’re set for the day.
Leandro Fornito’s 30 minute movement class
One of the things with choosing the right home workout is that it should be something that does not mimic a traditional gym workout. Which is why Fornito, who goes by LeoMoves on YouTube, and his videos are a must-have in an arsenal of home workouts. “After dedicating 15 years to football, I discovered breakdancing and acrobatics. This opened my eyes to the incredible potential of the human body in motion. Inspired by this, I got inspired to learn from various coaches and made movement not just my practice but my way of life,” he writes in his bio. LeoMoves posts some of the best body flow workouts without equipment and this one is one of those.
If you enjoy this, it is a sign that you should start doing more body flow workouts. They’re quite good for mental health as well, very much like any other form of exercise.
Daniel PT’s 30 minute HIIT workout: This is an interesting format from Daniel PT, who runs a very popular fitness channel on YouTube. It operates on a 35 second set, with one rest period 10 seconds long and the next one 15 seconds long. I haven’t tried this format but it seems to be operating on a reward system of five extra seconds of rest every time you get through a gruelling 35 seconds of work. He also doesn’t repeat a single exercise, using 42 of them to get through the 30 minutes. Released just two months ago, the video is quite popular and can be done with and without equipment. The new format is surely refreshing and the exercise challenge is constant. This video is 100 per cent bookmark material.
Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator and writer.