Christmas is a time for giving... Here are some free workouts

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 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

"WOW-WOW" 08/08/10: 1000 reps to make you a better person (or maybe just 800)

I'm forever telling people,
"You don't need any fancy equipment to have a worthwhile training session!"

Personally, I like traditional, old-fashioned, retro, old-school, minimal (call it what you will) training. No flashing lights, unecesary data, over-sized equipment or shiny things.

So.. I created my "10's workout". Here's the format:

- 2x 10Kg dumbells
- 10 exercises
- 10 reps on each
- 10 tmes through

Giving you 100 reps on each exercise and 1000 reps total.

I took a few minutes to scribble down 10 exercises that i could perform alone, in a studio with just me and my dumbells (and a swiss ball).

Here are the exercises that I went with (but not in this order)...

- Chest Press (on swiss ball)
- Squats
- Front raises / lateral raises (5 of each)
- Press ups on the dumbells
- Shoulder press
- Renegade row (5 each arm)
- Bicep curls (5 eacha arm)
- Skull crushers (on the swiss ball)
- Dynamic Lunges (5 on each leg)
- One leg Romanian deadlifts - 5 on each leg (straight leg deadlifts)

With a little peer pressure (thanks Matt), I stuck with it for 8 "laps" giving me 800 reps total. To be honest, I had one eye on the time, but the tiredness of my shoulders was becoming an issue. Looking back, I seriously regret cutting that corner.

This regret was amplified the next day when my friend Matt decided to try it out and pulled out the full 1000. FACT: He is a better man than me!

Review...
Personally, I wouldn't describe this workout as "enjoyable". It was hard work for sure. BUT, gave me a great pump! The veins were working overtime and I got a real sweat on. It wasn't particularly cardio-based but I gradually got more and more tired that day and slept like a trooper. If you try it you'll know exactly what I mean!

It's a very worthwhile workout, there are just a few things to consider.

Issues to consider...
I think the workout could do with a little re-think. The order needs adjusting and I'd chuck out a few of these exercises in exchange for some more core and to give the old shoulders a stretch out or rest.

Still, 40 something minutes that gave me an ace pump and all body workout! Try it, see how long it takes you.

NB: After Matt completed his 1000 we decided that we should try it again in a new format. I WILL join the gang!!.. further blogs, images and videos to follow...