Keep Your Fitness This Christmas

With a little bit of guidance, you can stay fit and healthy over the Christmas break.

With so many things vying for our attention, it’s tough to stick to an effective exercise routine at this time of year. However, with a little commitment and some guidance, there is no reason to lose your exercise mojo.

Start by finding ways to fit bursts of movement into your day. Park further away from the shops, run up the stairs instead of walking, run around with your kids at the park, if you are lucky enough to have a pool, jump in and swim 10 quick laps before breakfast.

Then focus on fitting training sessions in as often as you can. You don’t need a lot of time or even any equipment to complete an effective training session. You simply need to make the decision to commit to your health, and then start moving.

I have written 3 training programs that can be done anywhere, anytime, without any equipment, and all in about 20-30 minutes. Give these simple sessions a go to help keep your fitness on track these holidays:

BLACKJACK

Below are 21 different exercises. Work your way through these 21 exercises, completing each exercise 21 times (21 repetitions of the 21 exercises). You don’t have to complete the exercises in the order below, as long as you complete each exercise 21 times in a row.

Step-ups on a step, right leg
Push-ups
Wide squat jumps
Superman
Short sprints between 2 markers, 10m apart
High knee runs (right, left = 1)
Deep squats
Burpees
Prisoner lunge, right leg
Mountain climber (right, left = 1)
Side skates (right, left = 1)
Sit-ups
Lunge split jumps
High plank into low plank
Prisoner lunge, left leg
Bicycle abs (right, left = 1)
Jumping jacs
Step-ups on a step, left leg
Tricep dips on bench
Calf raises on step
Plank toe rolls

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Complete each exercise as you sing the song e.g.:

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, one stair run.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 2 burpees and one stair run.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 3 candlesticks, 2 burpees and one stair run.

Get the idea? You will end up doing 12 stair runs but only 1 set of sit ups.

Here are your 12 days…..

1 stair run (can be in your house or find a park with stairs)
2 burpees
3 candlesticks
4 frogger jumps
5 deeps squats
6 lunge walks
7 wide squat jumps
8 side skates
9 jumping jacs
10 push-ups
11 tricep-dips
12 sit-ups

TIMED STRENGTH CIRCUIT

This is a great strength workout to fatigue muscles and get the blood pumping. Complete the following 5 exercises for 45 seconds on with 15 seconds recovery. Repeat the circuit 4 times – total 20 minutes.