Fitness professionals face the same problems we all do during the holidays. You find the problem during the holidays and other busy times when it’s almost impossible to stick to your routine. That’s why we reached out to these seven fitness experts to share their favorite vacation fitness tips to combat the biggest holiday problem when it comes to our fitness goals: time and temptation. Time Like all things that demand your time and attention that take you away from what you want, such as exercise. Temptation, especially around the holidays, with all the great food and drink.
Denying the problem doesn’t make it go away, but finding a solution to your problem is where it’s at. Coaches are great at giving you direction and accountability and less of a problem solver. Here seven top coaches share their client strategies to help keep you on track during the holiday frenzy.
Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D
Holiday fitness tips: Find time to do some training, eat beforehand.
Training: Around the holidays it’s hard to find time to stay on track with your regular fitness routine. My best advice is to not worry about being perfect or the ideal and work to find a way to fit some training into your regular schedule. For example, if you normally do an hour of upper-body work at the gym on Mondays, but you find you only have 20 minutes, instead of skipping it altogether, do a few push-ups instead. , inversion table rows, and bust out bodyweight squats.
Nutrition: The holidays present many dietary challenges. You can expect me to say things like, “Just buckle down and stick to your macros, no matter what,” or some other related nonsense. The truth is, food is part of the holidays, no matter how you slice the pie. I recommend filling up on protein before any big meal. Pre-eat 20-40 grams of protein before the main, and then rest and eat until you’re full.
Mike T. Nelson, PhD is a Metabolism Fitness Professional, Strength Coach, and Educator who specializes in tailoring nutrition to each individual’s needs.
Andrew Hemming, MS, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
Holiday Fitness Tips: Eat a snacking workout, eat protein first.
Training: A post-workout snack is a new idea in research. The idea is to exercise throughout the day rather than taking time off for a full workout. For example, a person might take a 10-minute walk after breakfast, do a set of single-leg squats in the morning, another 10-minute walk after lunch, mid-afternoon. Can do one set of push-ups, and TRX rows in the evening
Nutrition: Eating protein first makes it much harder to get fat from protein. It also helps build and maintain lean muscle. By filling up on protein first, it’s easy to enjoy a Christmas meal in moderation.
Andrew Hemming, MS, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, is a former university head strength coach, professor, and trainer.
Chris Cooper, On the strength and nutrition coach Stupid Fitness
Vacation Fitness Tips: Do what you can, don’t skimp on seconds.
Training: Adjust your expectations. Exercise doesn’t have to be an hour and a half effort, especially when time and stress are at a premium during the holiday season. Do what you can based on your available resources and move on.
Nutrition: Never two in a row. If you have a food that deviates from the plan or is suboptimal for our goals, the plan is to back it up with no less than the best food. Get back on track the next meal or the next day, so we avoid creating a streak.
Chris Cooper, strength and nutrition coach at Nerd Fitness
Detrick Smith, Trainer and owner of Results Performance Training
Holiday Fitness Tips: HIIT, Don’t Party
Training: HIIT it! If the holiday slam has you pressed for time, try a short, brisk workout. Even 20 minutes is enough to burn fat and maintain conditioning. The key here is maintenance. Prefer compound moves and combos that hit multiple areas at once. Supersets and circuits help you save rest time and speed up your workout.
Nutrition: Do not fast before Eid. You’re more likely to get hungry and overeat! Pregame the party with a small snack that includes some protein, good fats and fiber to curb your hunger.
Alan Bacon, Ph.D., is an online personal trainer specializing in training powerlifters and body composition clients.
Holiday fitness tips: Focus on sets, prioritize important events.
Fitness: I recommend getting the most out of your time in the gym through advanced training techniques. The following two methods are not superior to straight sets for muscle growth but are often shown to be equivalent in research, and can help maintain strength during your busy periods as long as you stick to your regular schedule. Don’t come back.
- drops: Drop sets traditionally involve completing the opening set. Immediately Lowering the load to 25-50% (lifting the weight) and performing the second set to momentary muscle failure, then dropping the load a third time to 25-50% of the second set and completing the final set to momentary muscle failure. This way, you have a traditional set in which the two “drops” count as one overall drop set. After each drop set, rest as long as you would normally between traditional sets.
- Cluster sets: Cluster sets lift heavy weights in triplet fashion, with very little rest between sets (usually 15-20 seconds). Each triplet ultimately counts as one set in your programming. Cluster sets use a variety of schemes, so I’ll give you an example of one I use most often: 4 sets of 2-2-1. Choose a weight that challenges you twice. Start triplet off with two reps, rest 15 seconds, do two more reps with the same weight, rest 15 seconds, then perform one final rep to complete the first cluster set of your programmed four-cluster set. After each cluster set, rest as long as you would normally between traditional sets.
Nutrition: Establishing a priority list at the beginning of each month. This is a good practice every month but is especially helpful in months when you are more busy with responsibilities. At the beginning of each month, make a list of the most important events that come up to you, and rank them from least to most important. Once you have an order of importance, you can decide how much, if any, you intend to moderate on these occasions. If you know you have a day off that’s important to you, that office party a week ago may not seem so important to you… which may give you more moderate confidence in the days ahead. You didn’t understand the priority.
Dr. Bo Babenko, Physical therapist and strength coach
Holiday Health Tips: Focus on small body weight movements, protein protein protein!
Training: For example, get 10 push-ups and an hour or 20 squats between Zoom calls. All movement is good, and instead of worrying about doing a full workout when you’re pressed for time, choose one movement and do a certain amount of reps per hour.
Nutrition: Protein!! Focus on protein for bulk and help avoid less than ideal. I get most of my clients down to .7 grams per pound of ideal body weight. And it becomes especially important when you’re all stretched out during the holiday season.
Rafael Conforti MS, I Senior Director of Fitness You fit Jim
Holiday Fitness Tips: A 15-Minute Workout and a 5/2 Calorie Split
Training: Keep a 15-minute bodyweight workout handy. The biggest challenge is being consistent. Exercising you can do anytime, anywhere keeps you consistent. Even going back and forth between push-ups, lunges and planks is just as easy. Exercising regularly will allow you to make better fitness decisions about nutrition and sleep for the rest of the day.
Nutrition: Follow the 5/2 calorie split. You can try to resist temptation, or you can balance temptation. The 5/2 diet consists of 5 days of moderately high calories and 2 days of low calories, usually low in carbs and moderate in fat. This allows you to add and maintain overall calorie intake. If you can get two days a week without a party or dinner, you can get out of the holidays without any weight gain. It is best to lift on high calorie days and recover or perform cardio on low calorie days.
finish
The general theme is to try to maintain your routine as best as possible, both in terms of fitness and nutrition. And when that doesn’t work, and something has to give, use these methods and techniques to get you on the straight and narrow. The goal is maintenance during holidays and other busy times.
Happy holidays and see you on the other side.
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