Holy fast forward Batman! Where did the year go and how did we get to the holidays
so fast? Maybe I started seeing Christmas decorations out in September? Which is absolutely nuts btw.
This time of year is somewhere between insane and absolutely nuts. Especially if you need to factor in kiddos with school functions, keeping them busy when they're out of school and all of the other things that go along with making it from mid-December to early January when they go back.
If you have people staying with you to visit, you can take this and multiply it by 8,983. If you've seen "Christmas Vacation," you know of what I speak. If you haven't, well, I don't think our friendship has a future. In spite of that, keep reading because I'm going to give you some tips to make your exercise life easier this holiday season.
1) Stop Working Out
Yep, stop it. Don't try it. Don't even think about it. Here's what you're going to do instead: focus on maintaining a consistent movement habit. This allow more "room for interpretation" and can exponentially reduce the stress of "ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!! I've got 7,865 things to do by tomorrow morning AND I'VE STILL GOT TO FIND THE TIME TO WORKOUT?????" Doing that not only works better, it's a lot easier to stick to. Plus, it allows room for you to have human moments when real life comes up and you just can't exercise on a given day.
2) Cut the Clutter From Your Fitness Habit
This will allow you to accomplish more in less time. It isn't sexy, but it an effective to make sure you keep up with your weekly exercise routine.
Here's a simple way to do it. Pick a day and time where you will dedicate 15-30 minutes to move, and then, well, move. If you want to go 45-60 minutes, have at it if you've got a Festivus Miracle in you to pull it off. Just don't do more because you've got more time. You need to keep something in the sanity tank until the ball drops on New Year's Eve.
3)The Power of 3
Do this holiday survival workout approach, you only need three exercises to get it done. Some form of the following will do the trick:
Squats
Pushes
Pulls
Remember the goal is simplicity, and more important consistency over a short period of time. It may not get you the biggest results of the year, but that not's the point. Continuing to move for both body and mind is. Plus, when this stretch of calendar craziness is done, you can progress the three above mentioned exercises into 100's of possible movement combinations with any piece of equipment you choose to use.
A possible combination of the squat, push, pull sequence can be:
Stationary Lateral Lunges
These qualify as squats because you get 90 degrees of knee flexion on one side of the movement. You can load these up with free weights of some kind if you feel so inclined, or you can keep it simple. Its your simple circuit so you make the call!
Bodyweight Pushups
The classics never go out of style, and this movement is no different. Total body core, and if you play it right by smashing the heels together, you'll get glute activation too.
Suspension Rows
To make this total body moving plank harder, just change an angle, how long you hold your elbows at 90 degrees or the amount of time it takes to go back to the starting position. All three variations can pack a wallop!
Doing these exercises to the tune of :30 of moving, :15-:30 of rest and taking 3-5 laps won't get you any PRs or world records. But that's not the goal which is to keep moving consistently until things slow down.
Plus, you'll feel better and be enjoy to Hallmark Holiday Movies that much more. Unless you're home from the big city in your small hometown and you go to get coffee then run into your highs school crush as they help the town get ready for the holiday parade (with rescue puppy in tow btw) that the country music star (who is also from your hometown) just cancelled. If you say hi to your former crush other and it starts to snow, what happens next is out of my hands!
Barring the potential complexity of running into your ex, you now have an incredibly simple way to stay on top of your exercise habit until the new year starts and you've got more time to get back after it at your usual clip.
To that point, if you need help putting together your workouts starting in January, head over to my contact page, drop me a line and we can get that going!