This is part three of our rational thanksgiving! Check our part 1 and part 2.
Recently, I spoke to a friend who explained to me his strategy for Thanksgiving exercise. He and his wife run a “turkey trot” early in the morning to prepare their bodies for the bombardment of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, etc. Here is a great article about running a 5k for beginners. Try it . . .rational people can push themselves to run 3 miles. I usually wake up early and hit the gym for an hour or two myself. Traffic is good in the morning and the gym is usually empty.
Today we cover my Turkey Day workout for maximizing your turkey eating power! Ok Ok maybe it won’t maximize your eating ability, but you’ll feel better about that extra helping of sweet potatoes. If you don’t believe me when I say you need to exercise this morning . . . check this out:
https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/933664623085129728
Step One:
Warm Up. Unless you live in Miami, your weather is probably chilly right now. (Note: if you live in Miami, feel free to invite me to a fancy beach party.) For those of us dealing with cold, spend at least ten minutes jogging, running, using a barbell without weights, or using VERY light dumbells to work the areas of your body you intend to punish during your workout. For example, if I am exercising my chest, I’ll do some bench press reps with just the bar . . .or if I’m feeling really tough, the bar and some light weights. This warmup is intended quite literally. You should be sweating by the end of it. If you aren’t, pick up the slack. Burning calories involves increasing your heart rate until you burn fat stored in your body. If your heart rate is increased enough, your body will produce sweat to cool you down.
Ok, so you’re sweaty. What now. Since this is a Thanksgiving day workout, we are going to hit upper body and lower body. Whether the Turkey goes to your tummy or your butt, we’ll be prepared.
Step Two
Start with good old fashion sissy squats. Ignore the name, doing these correctly will kick your butt . . .literally. Do three sets of twenty (20) reps. If you can’t do three sets, do as many as you can and make a note to do more next week.
Sissy Squats:
- Standing with your feet at shoulder width and toes slightly raised, use one hand to hold onto a squat rack or other pole type item in the gym or your house. This is your starting position. (Check out the video for an example).
- As you use one arm to hold yourself, bend at the knees and slowly lower your torso toward the ground by bringing your pelvis and knees forward. Inhale as you go down and stop when your upper and lower legs almost create a 90-degree angle. Hold the stretch position for a second. Basically imagine yourself sitting in an invisible chair.
- After your one second hold, use your thigh muscles to bring your torso back up to the starting position. Exhale as you move up. Note: you should feel your thighs working during this process. You should not feel your lower back hunching or straining. This is a LEG workout.
- Rinse and repeat
Ok, we’ve got some leg work in. Upper body time. Meet your new best friend, military press.This exercise primarily works your shoulders, but your core and your arms and back will help stabilize the weight. Use a weight you can handle. Light bars are fine. Get the technique down, then add weight. Do 4 sets of 8-10 reps here.
Military Press (standing)
- Start by placing a barbell that is about chest high on a squat rack. Once you have selected the weights, grab the barbell palms facing forward. Make sure to grip the bar wider than shoulder width apart from each other. Some bars have raised grips where your hands should go.
- Slightly bend your knees and place the bar on your upper chest. Lift the barbell up keeping it lying on your chest. Take a step back and put your feet shoulder width apart from each other.
- Once you pick up the barbell with the correct grip length, lift the bar up over your head by locking your arms. Watch your nose during this process. The bar will come pretty close to your face. Don’t hit yourself in the face like I did.
- Lower the bar down to the starting position slowly as you inhale.
- Lift the bar back up to the top of the exercise as you exhale.
Next, Tricep Time: Rope Pull Downs. Perform 3-5 sets. If you can’t finish 5 sets, lower the weight and get those reps in.
- Attach a rope to a high pulley and pick your weight. Start low and build up with each set. This is a machine exercise, so you can push yourself more without the fear of dropping weight. Harness the pulley system benefits of physics! Stand a couple of feet back from the pulley with your feet staggered and take the rope with both hands. Lean forward from the hip, keeping your back straight (this is key so you don’t strain your lower back), with your arms extended up in front of you. This is how you start.
- Keeping your arms straight, extend the shoulder to pull the rope down to your waist.
- Pause at the bottom of the motion and hold this position for a second.
- Return to the starting position without allowing the weight to fully rest on the stack. Control the weight until the weight comes to rest.
So far, we’ve stuck with exercises that build strength. Now for the show muscles. BUILD THOSE BICEPS with hammer curls. Do 3-5 sets of 8-10 with moderate weight. If you can get 5 sets in, do it.
- Stand up with your torso upright and a dumbbell on each hand being held at arm’s length. Your elbows should be close to your body.
- The palms of the hands should be facing your torso. This will be your starting position.
- Now, while holding your arms still, exhale and curl the weight forward while flexing your biceps. Continue to raise the weight until the biceps are fully contracted and the dumbbell is around your shoulder level. Hold this for a second or two as you squeeze your biceps. Tip: Don’t swing your arms or use your shoulders while you do this. Focus on letting your biceps do the work.
- After the brief pause, inhale and slowly begin the lower the dumbbells back down to the starting position.
Ok, you’re getting close to the end. Two final exercises and these are going to hurt. Gloat with your glutes with lying leg curls. 2 sets of 25 rep burnouts. Basically, do 25 reps or as many reps as you can until you can’t perform any more reps.
- Adjust the machine lever to fit your height and lie face down on the leg curl machine with the pad of the lever on the back of your legs (just a few inches under the calves). Tip: Preferably use a leg curl machine that is angled as opposed to flat since an angled position is more favorable for hamstrings recruitment.
- Keeping your stomach flat on the bench, stretch your legs fully and grab the side handles of the machine. Keep your toes straight. This will be your starting position.
- As you exhale, curl your legs up as far as possible without lifting the upper legs from the pad. Once you hit the fully contracted position, hold it for a second.
- As you inhale, bring the legs back to the initial position. Rinse and repeat.
Caution: Do not ever use so much weight on the exercise that you start using swinging and jerking as you can risk both lower back injury and also a hamstring injury.
FINAL EXERCISE!
Pull Up Burnouts. Yes. I said it. We are doing 2 sets of pull up burnouts. DO as many reps (no swinging your body) as you can until you can’t complete the rep. If you can’t complete more than 10 reps, use an assisted machine or finish your sets with wide grip bar pull downs. This exercise should be tough. I repeat . . .tough. You will be tired. You will want to quit. DON’T! Earn that turkey sandwich at 10pm tonight!
To finish this article, I want to bring up this Sven Henrich stat one more time.
https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/933664623085129728
Rational people exercise their minds and bodies. Stay healthy. Stay rational.
-B&T
p.s. The pie references were intentional.