You didn’t think you’d escape this holiday season without a new holiday workout from me did you? I taught my infamous Run, Run, Reindeer workout last Thursday for the third year in a row, but I created this Down the Chimney, Up the Chimney workout for my Tuesday folks this morning. It’s a holiday play on a ladder workout!

For today’s class purposes, we did one round of the four pairs of moves. In each round, we started by doing 10 reps of the strength exercise and 2 reps of the cardio exercise. With each set, the number of strength reps decreased in a 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 rep scheme while the number of cardio reps increased in a 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 rep scheme. In between each set, I had everyone do 10 reps of half to full v-sits and 10 v-sit pulses. All together it took about 40 minutes, including the warmup, and we finished class with some oblique and glute work on the floor.

Here are some options for switching this workout up:

• Do just one or two of the pairs at a time, but increase the number of rounds you complete. For example, do only the step ups/burpees and pushups/squat jumps (eliminating #3 and #4), but do each chimney twice through for an intermediate level or three times through for an advanced level.
• Come back up or down the chimney for each set. For example, after doing the 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2 reps of the strength exercise and the 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 of the cardio, reverse and finish the round by doing 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 again of the strength and 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 of the cardio. This will end up being very high repetition, so you might have to decrease the amount of weight you use.
• Substitute your favorite strength/cardio moves for the ones here, but keep the same format.
• Do burpees as your cardio exercise in every round. <–muahaha.

We rocked out to this fun holiday playlist too:

Happy sweating!

–Let’s chat–
Do you ever do ladder workouts? Fitness instructors, are you teaching any holiday themed classes this year? Class goers, have your instructors done any fun classes like this? Do you workout to Christmas music?

For more fun holiday themed workouts, check out:

• Run, Run, Reindeer
• Winter Workout Land
• The 12 Days of Fitness Workout
• The Warm Right Up Winter Workout

P.S. A special thank you to my gym friend / class member Mary who surprised me with a nice iTunes gift card this morning! What a great way to start my day. Looks like someone paid attention to my F&F holiday gift guide. 😉