Shed Your Holiday Weight With These 4 Workout Routines
The holidays are a whole lotta fun and a whole lotta love, but they can also be a whole lotta calories. There’s nothing quite like gingerbread, apple pie, and roast turkey with all the fixings, but heading into January can leave you feeling bloated, tired, and cranky.
Luckily, the New Year is an excellent time to invest in yourself. Your physical health is so much more than a few extra pounds—and starting a new exercise routine in January is a great way to set yourself up for success the whole year long.
Here are four of our favorite fat-busting, heart-pumping workout routines that give us endorphins and get us jazzed for a fantastic 2024!
1. Walking
A new exercise routine doesn’t have to break the bank or lead to sore muscles. Simply taking a walk around your block can do amazing things for your mental health, your heart, and your muscles. 30 minutes of brisk walking can burn around 150 calories. The faster you walk, the more steps you take, and the more distance you travel, the more burn you’ll experience!
Plus, walking is a great way to get yourself outdoors when the winter doldrums set in. Limited sunshine during the winter months makes it oh-so-important to sneak in as much Vitamin D as possible.
Here are a few ways to create a walking routine in 2024:
Choose a podcast or audiobook you’re excited about and ONLY listen to it while walking, hiking, or running.
Make it a social activity by bringing your family, partner, dog, or coworker (the one you get along with best).
Choose a fantastical journey, like walking from the Shire to Mordor or Forrest Gump’s path around the US. Calculate the number of steps you’d need to complete the journey (or just guess, it’s all for fun!) and keep track of how far you go each time you walk. Before long, you’ll have completed your journey!
2. Resistance Bands
Oh, the resistance band—the on-the-go athlete’s best friend! At F3 Wellness Connections, we love resistance bands because they’re so easy to work into any routine, they take up no space in a suitcase, and they’re pretty inexpensive! Working resistance bands into your workout can take a simple bodyweight exercise to the next level.
Resistance bands are great for weight loss in particular because they help engage more of your muscles, no matter what exercise you’re working on. Bands create tension when stretching and releasing, which can help strengthen, tone, and grow muscles. Working with resistance bands also improves your metabolism, meaning you’ll burn more calories even when you’re done working out.
Here are a few of our favorite ways to incorporate resistance bands into a workout routine:
Start with lower resistance, especially if you’re new to bands or recovering from an injury.
Boost your squats by using a long resistance band. Stand at the center of the band with your feet as wide as your hips, your arms extended in front of you, and the band held at shoulder height. Sink into a deep squat, then use the resistance of the band to add an extra layer of oomph when you stand back up.
Incorporate simple extras, like attaching the band to a secure door knob or anchor. Use this resistance anchor to complete bicep curls, standing rows, or chest presses. The best part here is that you can do this wherever—at home, at the gym, or while traveling!
3. HIIT
HIIT is a miracle workout for anyone feeling run-down and ragged at the start of the year. The ultimate boost to metabolism, lung function, and fat burn, High-Intensity Interval Training (or HIIT) packs all the impact of a multi-hour workout into a simplified, quick session. Many HIIT workouts can be completed in 30 minutes or less, making HIIT a great choice for busy professionals, parents, and people on the go.
HIIT relies on short periods of high-intensity action separated by rest breaks. The point here is to get your heart pumping as fast as possible—while you’re resting between sets, your body is still burning calories!
Here are a few of our favorite HIIT routines for weight loss:
5-minute HIIT Burn: Alternate between 45 seconds of exercise and 15 seconds of rest. Rotate between deadlifts, tricep presses, planks, mountain climbers, and burpees. When you’ve finished all five exercises, you’re done! This will get you sweaty and your heart racing in no time!
20-minute HIIT Bodyweight Blast: This HIIT routine uses 40-second exercises followed by 20-second rests and is separated into three blocks. You’ll complete all three blocks twice for a 20-minute workout you can do at home, at the gym, or just about anywhere—no equipment required!
Block 1: Side lunge and knee crunches, mountain climbers, crunch and reach.
Block 2: Hip switches, hand-release pushups, and V-ups.
Block 3: Up and overs, donkey kicks, and toe taps.
30-minute HIIT All Out: For more of a challenge, add in weights like dumbbells or kettlebells. Make sure to focus on form over weight—start with lower weights, and only move to heavier ones once you’ve mastered your form. This 30-minute HIIT session includes 3 blocks with 4 exercises per block, focusing on legs, arms, a combination, and cardio. In each block, you’ll do 30 seconds on/10 seconds off for the first two exercises, then 50 seconds on/20 seconds off for the second two. Complete all 3 blocks twice and you’re done!
Block 1:
3-count single arm rows
Hand switch squats and alternating snatches
Dumbbell pickups and lateral squat pushes
Single arm rows and clean and squats
Block 2:
Single arm push presses
Reverse lunges, overhead presses, and tricep extensions
Curtsy lunges and lateral lunges
Lateral lunges (again!) and lunge jump switches
Block 3:
Staggered deadlifts
Reverse lunges
Single arm bicep curls
Fast feet (jogging in place with high knees)
4. Kettlebells
If you know one thing about the F3 team, it’s that we love our kettlebells. Kettlebells are an amazing tool for weight loss because they activate major muscle groups all over the body. They’re a great choice for anyone wanting to strengthen their core, glutes, arms, and legs.
Like HIIT, kettlebells are also designed for quick, explosive exercises (for the most part) that get your heart pumping and your breath flowing. The important thing with kettlebell exercises is to start small. Focus on your form, making sure you’ve mastered safe and fluid movements before you move on to heavier weights. The best way to minimize your risk of injury is to work with a certified personal trainer or kettlebell expert to guarantee you’ve got your form straight before you get too adventurous.
Here are a few of our favorite ways to boost a kettlebell routine:
Stick to the basics. Work with an expert to learn the “absolute musts” of any kettlebell routine: the kettlebell swing, the kettlebell clean, the kettlebell press, and the kettlebell snatch. If you’re feeling adventurous, bump up to kettlebell squats and the Turkish get-up!
Incorporate kettlebells into your HIIT routine. Kettlebells and HIIT go hand in hand, maximizing your breath control, calorie burn, and fat burn. Just make sure you’re focused on safety and form first—there’s no point in losing a bunch of calories if you hurt yourself in the process!
Join our 10,000 Swing Challenge! We announce public signups for this challenge throughout the year, but you can also take it on as a self-paced workout. Keep track of the number of kettlebell swings you do each day, set a deadline, and work toward a total of 10,000!
Looking to get a leg up on your 2024 fitness goals? Give us a yell at sarah@f3wellnessconnections.com to schedule your FREE full-body health and wellness consultation!