With the festive season just around the corner, I wanted to give you all something from me.
Christmas time can be a common time for people to fall off the wagon in every unhealthy way imaginable. Late nights, extra alcohol, extra food, extra chocolate or nibbles and no exercise.
I can't stop you from doing ALL of that, but what I wanted to do was offer you 10 quick workouts that you can do in or around the house.
Ideally, you would drag yourself to the gym. But, if you're not going to do that, you could at least spare 20-30 minutes to do some of these at home over the holidays.
As a promise, I'm going to do each of these as a MINIMUM this holiday just to up my activity levels.
I HOPE some of you might take these and give them a go; if you do, let me know how you get on.
I'd ALSO like to remind you of this handy article which explains how you can approach Christmas in order to limit the damage you cause yourself: Brilliant Christmas article - click and read!
WORKOUTS
WORKOUT 1 - 22 mins
Set your watch or timer for 10 minutes. Leave your house and run as far as you can in 10 minutes. Don't think too much about where you're running, just run in the most continuous and straight way you can. When the alarm goes, stop and rest for 2 minutes. After that, reset the alarm and try to make it all the way home in 10 minutes.
WORKOUT 2 - 20-25mins
Set a time to go off every 30 seconds for 20 minutes. You'll work for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds and carry on until you complete 4 or 5 rounds
A1) Press Ups
A2) Bodyweight Squat or Jump Squats for more advanced
A3) Mountain Climbers
A4) Plank
A5) Alternating reverse lunges while raising your arms and opening your shoulders
WORKOUT 3 - 20 mins
Set your timer for Tabata (20 secs work, 10 secs rest). Perform each of these exercises against the Tabata timer until you have completed all 8 sets of 20 secs. Then, rest a full minute and move on to the next exercise.
Exercise 1: Mountain Climbers
Exercise 2: Burpees
Exercise 3: Plank-Push Ups / Suicide Push Ups
Exercise 4: Kneeling - squat (do a squat, climb down to kneeling position, and back up, squat and repeat)
WORKOUT 4 - 21 mins
Set your timer to sound every 60 seconds for 21 minutes. Start each exercise when the buzzer sounds and rest for the remainder of the minute. For examples, if the exercise takes you 30 seconds then you still have 30 seconds rest. But, if it takes you 50 seconds for example, you only have 10 seconds rest until your next exercise. Speed is of the essence. Complete 7 rounds of these 3:
A1) 10-15 press ups and reach. As you come up from the press up extend your arm and the opposite leg and hold at the top position for a second. Change arm and leg each repetition.
A2) 20-40 Mountain Climbers & 5-10 Crunches
A3) 10 reverse lunges or 16 Jumping switch lunges
WORKOUT 5 - 21 mins
Set your timer for 30 second intervals. Complete each of these exercises for 30 seconds and rest for 30 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R819KfRrRe0
WORKOUT 6 - 22 mins
Repeat the 20 minute run in workout 1 and aim to run further.
Workout 7 - 15 minutes or so
Bodyweight complex - do 1 repetition of each of the exercises below in this order. Keep going until you have completed 8 repetitions of each. That's 1 set. Then rest for 60-90 seconds and repeat it again until you have done 3 sets. ie: by the time you've finished, you will have completed 24 repetitions of each exercise by doing 3 x 8 reps. Make sense?
A1) Squat
A2) Reverse lunge each leg
A3) Burpee
A4) Press Up
A5) Lower Back Extensions
A6) 8 mountain climbers
A7) A "pop up"
That's 1 rep.
Workout 7 - 15 minutes or so
Bodyweight complex - do 1 repetition of each of the exercises below in this order. Keep going until you have completed 8 repetitions of each. That's 1 set. Then rest for 60-90 seconds and repeat it again until you have done 3 sets. ie: by the time you've finished, you will have completed 24 repetitions of each exercise by doing 3 x 8 reps. Make sense?
A1) Squat
A2) Reverse lunge each leg
A3) Burpee
A4) Press Up
A5) Lower Back Extensions
A6) 8 mountain climbers
A7) A "pop up"
That's 1 rep.
WORKOUT 8 - 11mins
Roxanne Challenge: Play the song "Roxanne" by The Police. When they sing the words "Roxanne" perform exercise 1. When they sing "Put on the red light" perform exercise 2. Rest for 2 minutes and then try it with the next exercises.
A1) Press Up
A2) Up/Downs or Plank-Push Up or Suicide Push Up (whatever you want to call it)
B1) 2 x Squat Jumps
B2) Burpee
WORKOUT 9 - Ladder: As fast as you can without rest
A1) 10 Press Ups
A2) 10 Squats
A3) 10 Lower Back Extensions
A4) 10 Burpees
A5) 10 Crunches
Then 8 of each, 6 of each, 4 of each, 2 of each, and finish with 10 of each.
WORKOUT 10 - 20 mins
Set the timer for 30 second intervals. Work for 30 secs, rest for 30 secs.
A1) Press Ups
A2) Plank
A3) Squats
A4) Left Side Plank
A5) Split Squat - Left leg Forward
A6) Right Side Plank
A7) Split Squat - Right leg forward
A8) Plank
A9) Lower Back Extensions
A10) Left Side Plank
A11) Plank Crawl Outs
A12) Right Side Plank
A13) Burpees
A14) Plank
A15) Mountain Climbers
A16) Left Side Plank
A17) Crunches
A18) Right Side Plank
A19) Straight leg Raises
A20) Plank
There you have it - 10 workouts - all under 30 mins and all without equipment.
make it your challenge to do at LEAST these over Christmas. I'm going to make a start on them December 20th or there abouts to finish them this month. I'll be moaning about them on Twitter.
Enjoy.
Try them out and let me know how you get along.
DON'T FORGET: You can follow me on Twitter (@MichaelD_PT) and YouTube
