The 10 Best Fitness DVDs for Brides

Clear some space in your living room and crank up the speakers—these 10 at-home workouts are going to get you in the shape of your life, and just in time for your wedding day.

Your wedding-day beauty checklist is filled with dress fittings, hair trials, spa treatments and more—at this point in the game you may not have time to head to the gym until midnight. Why not get your daily workout done at home? These 10 fitness DVDs will help you strengthen, tone, improve flexibility, and slim down your bridal body—most in as few as 20 minutes a day. Whether you want to dance, lift weights, or tackle Pilates for the first time, we've found a great way for you to get in shape for your wedding.                    

Pop Physique

 

This sexy ballet and Pilates-inspired class was only available in select California and Maryland locations, but now you can get the lean, toned body of a dancer at home. Grab a yoga mat, a sturdy chair, and two different sets of dumbbells (one heavier, one lighter) to complete the core- and lower-body focused workouts, which improve endurance and flexibility while toning lean, strong muscles. You'll be doing plenty of challenging isometric holds under the careful guidance of Pop Physique's awesome instructors, each of whom provides clear instructions, pointers about where you should feel each exercise, and suggestions for making the moves easier or more challenging depending on your skill level.

Bridal Body Bonus: The workouts also improve posture, a must for gorgeous wedding portraits, especially if you're wearing a strapless gown.

Canyon Ranch Strong & Sculpted

 

Can't make it to the luxurious Canyon Ranch for a week of wellness? You can still enjoy three of their amazing fitness classes without booking a flight. The 20-minute routines—one focused on core, another on total strength training, and another on yoga—are specially designed to help you get a leaner body and stronger bones and muscles using only a workout mat and a pair dumbbells. Instructors all provide helpful direction while you perform strength training basics like squats, lunges, planks, shoulder presses, and biceps curls—but if you're relatively new to lifting weights, tackle the strength training workout first, where the instructor provides an even more detailed breakdown of each exercise.

Bridal Body Bonus: Don't miss the guided savasana (or corpse pose) at the end of the yoga DVD, which is perfect for stressed-out brides-to-be who are having trouble getting into a relaxed, meditative state on their own. (And to head off stress before it starts, avoid these 11 things before your wedding!)

Rhythmica Cardio Dance Party

 

Even the most fitness-loving brides will admit that cardio can be a bit boring—especially if you're spending a half an hour or more trudging away on the treadmill. Shake things up with Rhythmica Cardio Dance Party's three, fast-paced workouts. The Latin-inspired routine is packed with hip-swiveling moves that attack the core, while the sharp, hip-hop style sculpts your arms, abs, and lower body. The final workout, called the "Get Fit House Party," feels closest to the type of choreography you'd see a pop star perform—a fusion of club dance styles with lots of plyometric hops. Some of the combinations are challenging, but there's enough repetition that you'll have 'em all down by the last round. And the routines are really no more difficult than the dance classes you'd take at the gym—you simply get the benefit of sweating, shimmying and shaking it in your own living room sans an audience. Plus, who cares if your technique isn't perfect? Just keep moving as fast as the enthusiastic instructor and you're guaranteed a sweaty workout session.

Bridal Body Bonus: Keep practicing—you might pick up a few moves for your reception!

Mari Winsor's Lower Body Pilates

 

You don't need to be a seasoned practitioner, or a star on the spring-loaded reformer, to get a great Pilates workout. Three 20-minute mat-based routines devoted to slimming your hips and thighs and sculpting your derrière will make slipping into that honeymoon bikini a whole lot less daunting. (And if you're worried about a little extra around your middle, the DVD also comes with a free abs workout you can download online!)

Bridal Body Bonus: We mentioned you're going to look amazing in a bikini, right?

Zumba Fitness Exhilarate

 

This fully loaded fitness program gives you everything you need to go from a beginner to a booty-shaking Zumba pro. The 7-disc set devotes an entire DVD to breaking down the rhythm and moves—which incorporate merengue, salsa, reggaeton, calypso, cumbia, and belly dance styles—into easy-to-follow steps. The videos even offer the option to flip your view of the instructors so you can mirror their movements while facing them, or follow from behind like you would in a traditional dance class setting. Most DVDs also have two soundtrack options: One featuring verbal directions and another music-only option for the more experienced exerciser who just wants to dance along without extra instruction. The only equipment you'll need is a sturdy chair and the Zumba Toning Sticks included with the program. (Oh, and the toning sticks rattle like maracas. Sold.)

Bridal Body Bonus: For brides with just a handful of days left before the big day, Zumba Exhilarate comes with the "Tight-on-Time" plan as well as a guidebook featuring a stretching regiment and an accelerated 10-day fat loss program complete with healthy recipes. The program also features a "Super-Sculpting" plan and a beginner plan.

Core Fusion 30 Day Sculpt

 

This DVD, based on the popular class at Exhale Mind Body Spa, features 30 different workouts and tells you exactly which routine to do, when to do it, and even when to take a rest day. (Yes, you get rest days!) Drawing from Pilates, yoga, and the Lotte Berk Method, Core Fusion focuses on building dancer-like strength and technique. And each session is only 20 minutes long. That means there's no excuse to knock out a workout every day! To be able to complete all of the routines you'll need a yoga mat, a sturdy chair, and a wall but it's also recommended that you have dumbbells, a Pilates ball, and a Pilates strap if you're not very flexible.
Bridal Body Bonus: Working your behind off now, means more wedding cake later!

Yogalosophy

 

One look at Jennifer Aniston's yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber, and you know exactly where Jen's enviable bikini body comes from. Her unique—and totally effective—yoga-meets-strength training style couples traditional poses with stretching and toning exercises that target every muscle group. Mandy's moves make the workout a fat burner, but it's her empowering attitude that makes it fun. (This is a yogi who, as she sinks into a squat, asks you to repeat with her a NSFW version of "I have a great backside.") She's also quick with reminders to listen to your body and do what feels good to you. The DVD features a 35-minute express routine as well as an intense 55-minute workout that adds sun salutations, a strength challenge, and a cool-down stretch on to the shorter session. Once you've mastered the workout, you also have the option to turn off the verbal cuing and follow Mandy's moves to music alone—perfect for exercisers who complete the routine regularly and prefer not to break their flow.

Bridal Body Bonus: Just like Jen, your long, lean physique will look great in a sheath wedding dress.

Xtend Barre Lean & Chiseled

 

Created by a former professional dancer and choreographer, Lean & Chiseled is a flowing, feel-good workout that's just as set on helping you tone your body through ballet- and Pilates-inspired floor work as it is on developing dancer-like grace and poise. You'll only need a sturdy chair and a pair socks to complete the hour-long routine, which can also be broken down into separate upper body, barre, and core workouts if you're crunched for time. And don't worry if you don't have a childhood ballet class to fall back on for the basics. The DVD also comes with a quick video guide that walks you through dance terminology if words like relevé, passé, and arabesque are literally a foreign language to you.

Bridal Body Bonus: This core-tightening workout cinches your waist for an hourglass figure.

Addicted to Sweat

 

Based on the class offered exclusively at Hard Candy Fitness, Madonna's signature fitness club, this dance-heavy program is not for the faint of heart—or for the beginner in search of an easy-to-pick up workout. Already-fit brides, however, will love challenge of the super unique routines. Two of the four discs feature intense dance cardio combinations that test your stamina and agility (and, to some degree, your dance skills) while the remaining two offer more traditional follow-along workouts that require only towels and a sturdy chair to hit every muscle in your body. Each DVD also features a helpful tutorial option. On the dance DVDs, tutorials serve as an opportunity to get familiar with the steps sans music. (You may want to run through them a couple of times before heading into the fast-paced "performance.") And with the workout DVDs, the tutorials provide safety tips and step-by-step instructions for correctly completing the exercise elements, a great feature for brides who want to complete the routine regularly without being interrupted by the instructor throughout the workout.

Bridal Body Bonus: Addicted to Sweat is based on the actual workout Madonna performs several times a week, so her enviable arms are as good as yours. Hello, sleeveless wedding dress!

This is Yoga

 

Perfect for yoga-lovers or anyone looking to add a ton of awesome flows to their at-home workout repertoire, This Is Yoga aims to be "the complete yoga encyclopedia." Featuring the amazing instruction of yoga expert Tara Stiles, the four-disc set is packed with a workout for nearly every goal or occasion whether you want to build strength, boost energy, relax, wake up refreshed in the morning, or settle into bed at night. The collection also includes three workouts devoted to beginners and well as a comprehensive pose library with how-tos for every category of posture from seated to inversion.

Bridal Body Bonus: Tara's do-anywhere yoga flows are perfect for traveling so you can keep up with your workouts while on your honeymoon.