2-Week Christmas Workout With Tips To Help You Bring In The New Year

Last Updated on December 10, 2024 by Paola Castillo

As we wrap up the holiday season, New Year’s resolutions are on everyone’s minds. Fitness and getting back in shape are popular goals, especially after indulging in holiday treats. To kickstart your fitness journey, try a Christmas workout! It’s a great way to stay festive while working toward your goals. Strength training and barbells can also play a key role in your routine. Include a Christmas workout to keep the holiday spirit alive as you focus on your resolutions. Starting with a Christmas workout sets a strong foundation for a healthy New Year.

Avoid This Mistake on your Christmas Workout

One of the worst mistakes you can make as a New Year’s Resolutioner is to avoid strength and barbell training. No matter your goals, there are many benefits to be had from training with heavy barbells and applying the principles of progressive overload.

Raw strength has a massive carry-over into almost everything you do, whether it be longevity, health, or avoiding injury. Strength plays a vital role in all of these things. Strength can be built with time and dedication in the gym and will help you in almost all physical aspects of your life.

Get A Head Start & Know Your Space with a Christmas Workout

If you’re going to start training at the gym as a New Year’s Resolutioner, I would strongly encourage you to start now and beat the crowds by a couple of weeks. By doing this, it would give you a jump start on learning how to work out properly. During this time, you’ll also learn which equipment you like and which will help you in your fitness journey, as well as which equipment will not be as helpful.

It will be beneficial for you to have a general feeling for the gym before it becomes extremely packed with people. Likewise, it will be much easier for you to learn the barbell movements without crowds breathing down your neck.

Recommended Movements for Beginners

Some of the important movements we would recommend most for beginners are the barbell back squat, barbell deadlift, and barbell overhead press. Through these three movements alone, you can build a foundation of strength throughout the entire body.

Back Squat

The back squat will heavily work the muscles of your legs, core, and stabilizers throughout the movement.

Barbell Deadlift

The barbell deadlift works the entire body but is great for the muscles of the posterior chain.

Barbell Overhead Press

Last but not least, the barbell overhead press will be what drives upper body strength and progression.

Avoid Injuries on this Christmas Workout

As someone who works in the trades, I am constantly encountering people who have destroyed their bodies with injuries that would have been completely preventable with strength training and the benefits that come with it.

It is very common for people to injure themselves by picking things up off the ground. Someone who deadlifts regularly is better suited to keeping good form while picking up heavy objects. This will also help to prevent bad habits such as rounding your back and lifting with your spine instead of properly hinging your hips and driving the weight up with your legs.

The more you train the squat and deadlift, the easier it will become to move around everyday objects and bend down and pick things up, as starting strength coach Mark Rippetoe says, “Strength is never a weakness.”

Christmas Workout for Beginners

A good workout to get you started on the basic barbell movements would be a simple “5 x 5” program that has you lifting a minimum of three times a week. This program takes advantage of beginner progression and also uses basic progressive overload to strengthen you and allow you to become more efficient at the movements over time.

The main focus of these movements is to increase the weight every week on your squat, deadlift, and overhead press by 5 pounds. The goal will be to do 5 sets of 5 reps on 1 main movement per workout and increase the weight used by 5 pounds every workout. Once the weight becomes too heavy and you start to miss reps, you will simply do one less set to maintain progression and the ability to add 5 pounds to the bar every workout.

So, for example, if you fail to get 5 reps on your last set of deadlifts with 135lbs, for your next workout, you will do 4 sets of 5 with 140 instead of 5 sets of 5. If you fail again, you will do 3 sets of 5, and so on. You will just lower the volume when necessary to allow for continuous progression in weight.

Although the barbell movements are the focus of that program, accessory movements are equally important. In the following workout breakdown, I will include some of my favorite accessories, as well as why I do them.

Week 1 of Christmas Workout

Day 1: Lower Body Christmas Workout

• Squat 5×5
• Hamstring curls 4×10
• Quad extensions 4×10
• Crunches 3×20

Day 2: Upper Body Christmas Workout

• Deadlifts 5×5
• Lat pulldowns 5×10
• Hammer curl 3×12
• Single-arm dumbbell row 5×8

Day 3: Upper Body Christmas Workout

• Overhead press 5×5
• Tricep extensions 5×10
• Face pulls 3×10
• Dumbbell flat bench 5×8

Week 2 of Christmas Workout

Day 1:

• Squat 5×5 (+5 lbs from the previous week)
• Romanian deadlifts 3×10
• Close stance leg press 3×12
• Leg raises 4×10

Day 2:

• Deadlifts 5×5 (+5 lbs from the previous week)
• Barbell curl 4×10
• T bar row 3×10
• Assisted pullups/pullups 4x (as many reps as possible)

Day 3:

• Overhead press 5×5 (+5lbs from the previous week)
• Close grip bench 3×8
• Face pulls 4×8
• Dips/assisted dips 4x (as many reps as possible)

Tips & Tricks To Follow for a Christmas Workout

• The accessories are not intended to be a big focus of the program, however, they should not be ignored either. They help you gain strength toward your main lifts and activate muscle groups that may not see as much fatigue during the barbell movements.
• Doing some kind of hamstring movement on your squat day will help you balance out your legs and prevent you from becoming overly quad-dominant.
• Hamstring curls on a lying hamstring curl machine are an excellent exercise and one that has been a staple of my routine for years and years. Pair this with quad extensions on a seated leg extension machine, and this will be a great way to finish your leg workout.
• On deadlift day, similarly to how we picked the leg accessories, all the accessory movements trained will be done with the specific goal of hitting muscle groups that may not have been the primary movers and helping to drive progress on the main lift.
• Lat pull-downs are a great movement to hit the lat muscles and are a great exercise to add volume to any back workout.
• Curl movements are always a good idea to train your biceps, and having strong biceps will be an important link in any pulling exercise.
• Single-arm dumbbell rows are a staple for me in my exercise routine. I believe they are one of the best exercises for building strength in the upper back, traps, and forearms.

Summary

The Christmas workout accessory work includes movements to prevent injury, promote joint health, and build strength. Doing the right accessory work in your Christmas workout is as important as main lifts and can boost your barbell movements.

Barbell training combined with a Christmas workout helps with body recomposition, toning, and weight loss. A consistent Christmas workout not only improves your appearance but also enhances health, energy, and daily life.

The gym, paired with a Christmas workout, relieves stress and channels negative energy. Including barbell training in your Christmas workout is ideal for New Year’s routines. Whether you’re new or experienced, a Christmas workout is a great place to start.