Five tips for a quick holiday workout

With the holidays around the corner, here are some tips to help you keep the pounds away.

• Add weight to your lifting routine. If you’re lifting about the same weights now as you were a year ago, you can’t expect to have bigger muscles, so add weight to your lifting routine. Conversely, if you weigh the same now as you did a year ago, you can’t expect to have bigger muscles unless you’ve substantially reduced your body-fat percentage.

• Choose free-weight movements whenever possible. Some machines are good, but many are inferior to free-weights because they lock you into a movement pattern that doesn’t conform to your natural muscle contraction sequences. Free weights also recruit stabilizer muscles that help you maintain balance, therefore, you can expect more complete development.

• Don’t skimp on a warm-up. A warm muscle is much less likely to get injured than a cold muscle. Begin each workout with a general warm-up activity until you break a sweat, then do specific warm-up sets before you work different muscle groups.

• Focus on what you’re in the gym for to train hard and progressively. Be so focused, that you simply can’t be distracted. As a reward, visit with gym pals after your workout for 5 – 10 minutes, and then hit the shower.

• Cardio every other day during the holidays. Make sure you are doing at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise every other day during the holidays to maintain your weight.

Hopefully, these simple tips will keep you on the track during the holiday season.