The spring semester always flies by. Students return to campus halfway through January, February is a shorter month and spring break interrupts March. When April arrives, students are already studying for final exams and preparing for their final projects. As students seek housing and roommates for the next academic year, while juggling extracurricular and social lives, the semester’s pace seems to accelerate.
It’s still important to make time for our bodies and health during this busy time. While on-campus options for exercise, like the Student Recreational Sports Center, offer essentials like weight and cardio machines, home workouts offer many of the same benefits — as long as you maintain proper form — as well as the comfort of being in your own home.
Over the past year, I developed my home workout plans by arranging playlists of useful fitness creators on YouTube. For those already at a more advanced strength level, Growingannanas’ workouts are a well-developed option with various routines targeting certain muscles of the body. She even offers a dedicated playlist to calisthetics, which seems to be a growing trend online in the fitness community, based on what I see while scrolling on Instagram.
Calisthenics, a type of exercise that requires no equipment and relies only on your body weight, is a perfect kind of exercise for someone getting into fitness or returning to physical activity. According to the Cleveland Clinic, calisthenics also improves your strength and fixes your posture. By combining “strength training with a heart-pumping cardiovascular workout,” the Cleveland Clinic states, consistent calisthenics help you “build up your endurance and build muscle over longer periods.”
Growingannanas also offers a high-intensity interval training workouts playlist. HIIT workouts provide cognitive benefits that could last for years, according to Harvard Health Publishing. Its study of 151 healthy adults between the ages of 65-86 showed HIIT workouts produced positive influences on the function of the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for short-term and long-term memory, spatial navigation and emotional regulation, for those participating.
Meanwhile, I also follow MadFit, a creator who posts similar no-equipment at home workouts on her YouTube page. Every week day, I complete her “5 MIN DAILY ABS WORKOUT.” Six days of the week, I follow up that regimen with one of her many other workout videos, including her 15-minute “Full UPPER BODY Workout,” her “10 MIN CALF WORKOUT” and her “10 MIN FULL BODY SWEAT SESH” on different days. Other days, I attempt to complete MadFit’s “15 min DANCER THIGH SCULPT Workout” or her “10 min Intense BACK WORKOUT.” These various exercises help me target the different parts of my body such as my biceps, triceps and the upper back.
Through engaging with these videos, I’ve noticed I feel more energized during the day. Since incorporating the workout routine, I feel more confident in my endurance during runs and other physical activities, like biking and hiking. The best part is, I can do it all from home!
While I know I could go to the SRSC for similar satisfaction, home workouts offer me greater convenience, comfort and flexibility. With only the yoga mat I keep right next to my bed, my laptop and a stable Wi-Fi connection, I’m able to work out at any time that fits with my schedule – free of worry about busy seasons at the gym – and continue to grow and become the best version of myself. Simply start your own home workout journey by exploring the fitness community online.
This story was originally published in the Indiana Daily Student’s spring 2026 Housing and Living Guide.
