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Staying Fit During the Holiday Season
Original Post written by John Dorosario, Certified Personal Trainer in Chicago, IL
When clients of mine say that they are going on a vacation or going to visit friends and family for the holidays and they want to work out. I recommend that they Think Small.
Think Small Workouts
Think Small whether on vacation on the beach or at your family’s Thanksgiving dinner plan for a workout of 15 – 30 minute duration. Sometimes it is hard to take out an entire hour to get your pump on! When you Think Small, you can plan a workout and not stress all day on when you are going to have time to get your regular one hour HIIT sweat routine while being away with family. The stress of worrying about when you can get that hour workout usually results in postponing the workout to another day. It can also help to focus less about using equipment. This is a great time to go through that awesome bodyweight-only workout your personal trainer did with you a month ago.
Think Small workouts allows you to keep things in check to prevent your fitness level from falling from 100% to 50%. With a Think Small workout you may only lose 10% to 15% of your fitness progress. Ideally, you may not lose any fitness at all because it maybe just what your body needed – a light workout – for once. Once you get that Think Small workout in, the rest of the day you are going to feel awesome! Most importantly, I encourage you to have fun working out and spending time with your friends and family during the holidays.
Quick Workout Ideas
Here are a couple of workout ideas that will burn calories and still not take you away from the fun. It is important to note that these workouts can be done in a gym or at home with no equipment.
• Turkey hop – 4 rounds (30 seconds each exercise with 15 second rest)
• Bridging with shoulders on a bench or the floor (if have dumbbells – do some chest flys)
• Diagonal oblique crunch
• Kettlebell goblet or body weight squats
• Hand plank using a bench or chair with leg extensions
• Cable row or renegade row shoe pickups
• Crunches with legs in a chair position
• Cable tricep pushdown or body weight tricep extensions
• Hand plank using a bench or chair with side step
• Run run Rudolph – 4 rounds (30 seconds each exercise with 15 second rest)
• Reverse lunges with simultaneous overhead press movement
• Side planks with lateral straight leg extension
• Incline push up on bench or chair
• Bicycle sit ups
• Two-step side step (defensive slides)
• Full sit ups
• Isometric bicep curls (hold for 8 seconds with 2 second rest – 3x)