Strength Training over Christmas & New Year

Dec 21st, 2007 by Mehdi Posted in Strength Training

Christmas
Image credit: *L*u*z*a*

I wrote strength training over Thanksgiving last month. With Christmas Eve next Tuesday & New Year’s Eve the week after, you’ve probably been thinking at how to make your workout & diet fit in the holidays. Here are some tips.

Common Problems. Some things that will make it hard to impossible to do strength training between Christmas & New Year:

No Gym. Gym is closed during the holidays or you leave home for a few days. You don’t have access to a gym.
Work. I’d have to work on Christmas & New Year’s Eve until 5:30pm if I was still employed. Home 6:30pm, no time to workout before dinner.
Day Afters. Junk food overdose & drinking alcohol won’t get you in the best shape to workout the next day.

Solution 1: Active Rest. Deload: take 1-2 weeks active rest. If you’re doing StrongLifts 5×5 on Monday, Wednesday & Friday, a deload could look like this:

2 Workouts/week. Workout on Wednesday & Saturday. Do 3 sets of 3 reps on all exercises. Drop the Pull-ups, Chin-ups & Dips.
No Progression. No weight increases. Use the weight from your last 5×5 workout for all workouts during the deload.

These will be short, easy workouts. They’ll give you a mental/physical break from strength training while maintaining strength & muscle mass. You can deload like this every 8 weeks.

Solution 2: Passive Rest. No weight lifting, no body-weight exercises. Just plain rest. Not ideal strength wise, but you’ll be ok if you watch your nutrition.

Eat Clean. Eat junk food, drink alcohol, have desserts on Christmas & New Year’s Eve. Eat clean the other days.
Get Protein. Make sure you’re getting at least 1g/lbs protein to maintain your muscle mass, even if you don’t workout.

You’ll lose strength resting more than 1 week. But don’t worry, strength comes back quickly after layoffs. Lower the weight by 20-30% & restart from there.

What I’ll Do. I train Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I had 2 weeks active rest this month. I’m no more employed & have a home gym so can train when I want. This is my training schedule.

Christmas Eve. Workout. Have dinner with family. Enjoy the junk food, eat everything until my stomach is full & I end up in the couch. Get back into diet on Tuesday. Workout Wednesday & Friday.
New Year’s Eve. Workout. Gourmet & alcohol with friends. No nightclub, but it will get late. Get back into diet on Tuesday. Workout Wednesday & Friday. I might train Sunday 30th December instead of the 31st to avoid tiredness at night. Else I’ll have a nap before meeting my friends.

What About You? What will you do between Christmas & New Year? Click here to comment.

Find out how to build muscle & lose fat through strength training in only 3 workouts per week in StrongLifts 5x5 FREE eBook. To get your free copy today, click here.

14 Responses to “Strength Training over Christmas & New Year”

on 21 Dec 2007 at 5:28 pm1Daniel

Hi Mehdi

The idea of 2 weeks rest sounds appealing and has many benefits as you have pointed out. The rest period is when the greatest adaptation occurs.

I, myself will be working out at the gym sat then footy training on sunday morn. Followed swiftly by a team drinking session at the sports club. Way too many kcals

Sunday i’m out with the mrs and her girly friends, i’ll probably designate myself to be the driver. Remember people DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE not worth the jail time.

Out again xmas eve at the local pub after bodyweight training at home.

Xmas day, kick back, feast, watch TV, sleep.

Probably off to a D n B night in Cardiff new year’s eve.

Jan 2nd get back in the gym and on the tarmac.
on 21 Dec 2007 at 5:37 pm2Shawn

I’m following Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty 2 program and it’s working really well for me. I take 4-5 days off between workouts; it gives me enough time to recover from my workouts and my strength, so far, has always increased, either in reps or having to add weight.

I worked out this last Wed and will be back in Sunday afternoon before Christmas. After that, back to the gym on Friday.
on 21 Dec 2007 at 5:47 pm3Wazzup

Some people think that when they overeat one day they have somehow BROKEN their diet…. That’s wrong. They just didn’t diet a day, that’s all. So be it , just get back to what you were doing the next day. (oh and don’t diet extra hard to make up)

besides, some time-off during a diet could well be more productive than hammering on all the time (but that’s probably stuff for some future article

Happy hollidays. !
on 21 Dec 2007 at 6:59 pm4Alex

I’m freaking psyched because I ordered some bands from Elitefts, so even if I can’t make it to my gym, I think you can do pretty much any exercise imaginable with those bands. Hey Mehdi, that might be a good idea for an article on some things your can do with band training.

I’m psyched to try them out for my overhead press.
on 21 Dec 2007 at 8:53 pm5Barmus

My diet won’t change over the Christmas/New Year period. I have arranged a holiday workout program where I can use free weights to train. We are going away for two weeks and I have already prepared and cooked my 1st lunches (I have 2 lunches each day). Christmas day won’t be any different to any bbq or lunch/dinner for me. I am more than happy to snack on my foods while everyone else gets full on junk
on 21 Dec 2007 at 9:23 pm6Mehdi

@Daniel
Don’t drive & drink. Not only jail, but also plain safety. You don’t want to get injured outside the gym

@Shawn
You’re doing HIT? Try StrongLifts 5×5 sometimes, just try it

@Wazzup
Totally agree. I have written a follow-up post actually

@Alex
I’ll put bands on my to do list, can take a while before you see an article, the list is long

@Barmus
I’ll enjoy the turkey/french fries/dessert. Will think at you

Merry christmas all!
on 21 Dec 2007 at 10:24 pm7brent

Rippetoe’s facility will be open Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve which is pretty cool for me, doesn’t look like i’ll lose training time
on 22 Dec 2007 at 12:44 am8Caim

Same thing here, my gym doesn’t close so i don’t think i will be losing any training day.
But i’ll drink and overeat for sure.
Its been 14 days now since i ordered my Strength Training 2nd edition, i hope Santa bring it to me on time.

Merry christmas guys
on 22 Dec 2007 at 7:05 am9Young Athlete

Have fun over the holidays. Don’t be dumb though, don’t eat horribly but eat without worry.

P.S.
Can someone please recommend a good forearm workout for me?
leave it in the comments
on 22 Dec 2007 at 12:34 pm10Mehdi

@Brent
Doesn’t surprise me from Rippetoe. Great customer service. Gym manager who understands the needs of his customers.

@Caim
Starting Strength 2nd edition for Christmas, is there a better Christmas gift?

@Young Athlete
I answered in another post: Deadlifts, pull-ups & chin-ups.
on 22 Dec 2007 at 12:55 pm11Kabir

Not changing anything. Sticking to my M/W/F routine. I have a home gym, i can workout early, do family things at night. Not a problem for me. Plus, my training takes precedent over this other stuff for me right now.
on 23 Dec 2007 at 7:59 pm12koef

25-26 dec gym’s closed
i call tomorrow if it’s open –> mo thu sa
on 24 Dec 2007 at 12:11 pm13A.J

What i am going to do is let my body rest. Imma work on some stretching, cause i neglect this essential process.
As far as food is involved, imma pig out. Imma eat alot of protein, a good amount of fat, and very little carbs…
on 24 Dec 2007 at 12:58 pm14Harsh

Planning to treat my self with some Crossfit WOD’s this time..