Strength Training over Thanksgiving
Nov 18th, 2007 by Mehdi Posted in Strength Training
Image credit: Nachosan
Gary, winner of the free coaching competition, asked:
“Just wondering if you have suggestions for strength training over Thanksgiving break next week. Because I will likely miss the gym for two sessions unless I can find one around my grandma’s house.
Thanksgiving is pretty much Christmas with all the food but without presents & religious stuff. It’s arguably the most important holiday after Christmas. Family gets together and you get a few days off work & school usually starting Wednesday. You get back to normal routines Sunday – Thanksgiving itself is Thursday.
We Americans eat a lot of food (way more than normal), watch football, drink a lot and catch up with the family. I – like a lot of people – leave home and visit family or have family visit us.
So I don’t know that I will have access to a gym. If you have any in home exercises that would tie in with StrongLifts 5×5 program that would be great. Otherwise I can just stick to Push-ups, Pull-ups & Squats.”
Thanksgiving. Outside of the US & Canada we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. I know what Thanksgiving is from talking with people online & watching movies. From my understanding it’s a lot like Christmas & New Year over here.
What follows is what I would do if I’d celebrate Thanksgiving. If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving like me, you can apply the same tips for Christmas & New Year next month or whatever holiday you celebrate.
1. Train on Friday. Assuming you workout on Monday & Wednesday, go to the gym on Friday. Eat dirty, both food & alcohol on Thursday. Have fun, stay up late if needed, etc.
Friday morning get up, eat directly on waking up & go the gym one hour later. Train for an hour, come back & shower. Don’t know how much sleep you need, but when I go to sleep at 4am, I’ll be often up at 10am.
In my opinion, it doesn’t make much difference if you arrive at the party at 3pm instead of 1pm, as long as you’re there. From my experience people will respect you for setting priorities.
2. Rest Week. Train Monday & Wednesday. Don’t train until the next Monday. This gives your body & mind a break from training & diet, necessary if you trained hard for weeks.
Taking a break every 6 to 8 weeks is great. You get a reminder of what it feels like to not exercise & eat healthy. You’ll usually be motivated & feel strong hitting the weights back on Monday, especially after all the junk food.
What I Do. For casual anniversary parties & family reunions, I go for option 1. For bigger things like Christmas & New Year, I plan deload weeks.
Always remember it doesn’t matter what you do with Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year. What matters is what you do the other 45 weeks of the year. Taking a break from time to time is necessary.
Loved Gary’s reply: “I think I’ll go with # 2. But I’ll try and find a gym for Friday. I love workouts when I have a hangover because it gets rid of them faster.”
What About You? How does your schedule look like for Thanksgiving? Post it in the comment section.
Thanksgiving is the end of a month of rest for me. Generally speaking, for the last couple of years, I don’t do much during the month and rest and heal up from a year’s worth of attrition.
I try to limit how much I eat on the big day, don’t gorge myself, and spread the food intake out over the course of the day rather than just one big meal.
When Monday comes around, so does the 2008 season and it’s back to work!
There’s no thanksgiving here, just some “special days” like Christmas and all that stuff…I don’t care about that, I just find something else to do than go to the gym (because they don’t work from December 22-23 to January, thats around 9 days without gym)…lift a few plates-barbells I have at home (just 70 KG)…lift stones, any heavy thing that can be lifted, just to keep the taste of lifting things…
I usually stick to “my routines”, even in holiday season(s). Wherever I go there’s a gym nearby, so that’s not a problem for me.
In holiday season i generally do some kind of bodyweight circuit if i am unable to go to gym..
Drinking raises estragin (not sure if a spelled that right) levels in your body. I wouldn’t drink just have water maybe a pop.
I’m taking rest/deload week. I hit a new personal best on the squat last Friday, so the timing is perfect. For the next few weeks, I’ll mix up my workouts working more on endurance than strength, just to keep my muscles from getting complacent. I’ve got a ski-trip planned for Dec 13-18 and then after that I’ll start back up on strength for the holidays.
Screw the gym, I’m going to Paris.
Seriously, I love the holidays - it’s a great time to take a break and rebuild my body. I live in London so if I do anything for Turkey Day or X-Mas, it involves travel, food, and drink, but also a lot of walking. This tends to mitigate any potential poundage and provides a much more fulfilling trip at the same time! See you on the Eiffel Tower….
A break is good sometimes. I simply believe that whatever you put into your body you will have to commit to.
Home gym- open 24hrs/day 365days/year! I actually like the extra time holidays give me to not feel rushed getting my training in, and to do a little extra recovery work (like thorough session on foam rollers, and taking a nap). Plus, I just got a glute-ham raise machine yesterday from elitefts (early Christmas gift to myself), and there is no way I’m going to skip a workout for a while.
The hard part will be Christmas-New Years this year, as we are traveling to see both my wife’s & my family this year. These aren’t really vacations for me, and while I like our families I go crazy during these visits if I don’t do something to get out. I’m going to try to find a decent gym that has guest memberships. Even so, I am planning not to continue with the current program, and instead switch things up a bit as a refresher. I just find it hard to go into a commercial gym that I’m not familiar with and run through my usual routine even if they have all the equipment and allow all the lifts. I’m taking bands with me to use whether or not I’m successful finding a gym, and I plan to do a lot of GPP/pre-hab & single-limb work. And my parents’ house is in the country, so at least for that part of the trip there are lots of things to push, drag, flip, throw, carry, and smash (I love smashing old tires with sledge hammers
). I love doing these things as a working break and refresher for returning to the regular gym programs.
Eating is much harder, as there is usually a lot of eating out, and accommodating others’ schedules and preferences. They are used to me running to the supermarket the first day and stocking up on fruit and foods for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.
To all who celebrate, have a good Thanksgiving!