New Years Resolution Workout

Happy New Year and welcome to Kettlebell Movement. Today we are going to perform a basic workout to get you back into the groove after the holidays. If your resolution is to get back into shape for the new year, begin with this workout to get you started without excessive soreness or fatigue. The practice I have put together today will utilize many different muscles and ranges of motion and will also build coordination, balance, and stamina. You won’t need any specific expertise to perform this session, I will explain everything as we go. We will even warm up together, and let the intensity build gradually as we warm up.

We will begin with some chi swings, an exercise that in Thai Chi is considered a chi-building exercise.

Moving on, lets stick with bodyweight as we move to a bend/extend motion.

Now, let’s add weight to the bend/extend, and begin a deadlift. Use a weight that is right for you, I am not trying to push you too hard quite yet.

Our next exercise is backward stepping lunges. You can do these consecutive, or alternating.

Now let’s move into a pushup. Use the variation of the pushup that is right for you, I will be doing an incline pushup to keep the challenge low.

Next, we will perform a step up to balance, five times consecutively on each leg. Use any step that you have available, just make sure it is stable and that your knee is no higher than your hip.

Hit another set of deadlifts, backward stepping lunges, and your variation of the pushup.

By now, you should be pretty warm and we’ve introduced balance training, so the final exercise will be a step up in intensity for one final round. We will do five straight leg deadlifts per leg, using balance, flexibility and strength.

Feel free to come back to this workout again, as you get stronger you can add in some extra rounds or even go through the workout twice. Good technique is most important so please watch the video to see how each exercise should be performed. Everything from your breathing to your posture and tempo should be dialed in. The stiff leg deadlift is by far the most challenging of all, so take your time when learning this exercise. You may attempt it without weight at first to get the feel for it and you may notice it becomes slightly easier when you use weight as a counter-balance.

When you feel that this workout is no longer challenging you then you are ready to move on to power phase movements like the kettlebell swing, clean, and eventually snatch. Make sure that as you progress you take the time to learn the lessons for each exercise. I rarely ever add an exercise into a workout that doesn’t have a specific lesson already available to you. Reading the post that comes with each video will direct you to all of the necessary lessons for that specific workout, so practice first!

Thank you for training with me today and Happy New Year!

Peter