Last Updated on August 9, 2021
Admit it — at some point in your life, you sweated along to a Jane Fonda workout VHS tape. Long before the age of streaming workouts online or even Zumba classes at the gym, one woman taught us how to get our heartbeats up to some heart-racing music.
In fact, 1982’s Original Jane Fonda Workout remains the best-selling home video of all time, and collectively, her 22 titles sold more than 17 million copies during their original release in the 1980s and ’90s.
Now, for the first time ever, Jane Fonda’s famous, and yes, sometimes tease-worthy, workouts are available on DVD and digital download, including the glorious leotards, leg warmers, headbands and all.
“Over the years I have heard from so many of you who continue to do the workout, and I had been asked so many times when we would release on DVD,” Fonda wrote on her blog, JaneFonda.com. “I am proud to say we finally have, and even more proud that The Workouts continue to work for so many of you.”
Jane recently celebrated her 77th birthday and in an interview to promote the DVDs, she admitted to Shape that although she doesn’t do the same workouts as 30 years ago, she keeps moving every day.
My favorite way to workout now is to walk. Yesterday on my birthday I walked for an hour up and down hills. But other than that, if I’m indoors I get on an elliptical for 10 minutes, then a recumbent bike for 30 minutes, then I’ll get back on the elliptical for 10 final minutes,” she told the magazine. “I don’t do classes because I’m 77 and I’ve had a hip replacement and a knee replacement, lower back surgery, and I have osteoarthritis. So I move slowly and very deliberately. I’m still moving! That is the key. And I knew that imperically, but when I was writing my book about aging called Prime Time, the research I did totally confirmed it. It’s way more important as you get older to keep moving. You don’t have to move as fast, you don’t have to move as far or in the same way—I don’t ski anymore, I don’t run—but keep moving. It makes all the difference in the world.
If you’re nervous about being a January joiner at your local gym, Jane says any at-home DVD is a good place to get started on your path to health and wellness in 2015.
“Part of what we’ve learned over the years is that fitness varies for each individual. One of the great benefits we get from programs on DVD is the ability to easily isolate and focus on parts of a program that work for us,” she says.
Apparently several famous faces are included in the legions of fans of the original Jane Fonda Workouts. Jane says NFL great and co-host of “Live! with Kelly and Michael,” Michael Strahan once told her that her workouts helped him “literally work his butt off, and credited them with his becoming conscious of the importance of working out.” And just this week, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres secretly taped her wife, Portia de Rossi, sweating to Jane in their living room and the video has gone viral.
Whether your workouts are done in the comfort of your living room or lacing up your shoes to walk or run your neighborhood’s streets, we echo Jane’s sentiments that the most important thing you can do for yourself in 2015 is to start moving. Happy sweating!
