1,000 Calorie At Home Christmas Cardio Workout

With Christmas now just days away, you’re probably looking forward to relaxing, enjoying some time off work and indulging in a few festive treats. However, if you’ve been training hard all year, you’re probably also worried about the effect of these festive indulgences on your health and fitness goals. In today’s post I’m going to help you reduce the impact Christmas has on your fitness by providing you with a 1,000 Calorie At Home Christmas Cardio Workout.

While it’s true that you can’t out exercise a poor diet and this workout is by no means a long term solution, over the festive period when the alcohol is flowing and the high calorie treats are on offer almost constantly, an intense workout can really make a difference and compensate for the temporary relaxation of your diet.

The workout itself is very gruelling and does require a good base level of fitness, so if you’ve not been working out for very long, start off by picking a small number of exercises from the list and then build up to performing the entire workout as your fitness improves. Also, if you’re short on time, you can reduce the length of the workout by choosing just a few exercises from the list based on the time you have available. All the calories calculations are based on a 68kg (150lb adult) performing the exercises.

To perform the 1,000 Calorie At Home Christmas Cardio Workout, simply do the exercises listed below in the following order:

Exercise 1 – Burpees

Burpees are an excellent full body exercise that burn 545 calories per hour and work your entire body.

Instructions:
1. Bend your knees and place your hands on the floor, making sure they are parallel to your chest and about shoulder width apart.
2. Kick your legs out behind you and hold your core muscles in.
3. Slowly bend your arms until your nose touches the floor, keeping your core tight and your back straight at all times.
4. Slowly straighten your arms.
5. Kick your knees back in, take your hands off the floor, straighten your legs and jump up in the air.
6. When you land, repeat steps 1-5.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 2 – Jumping Jacks

Jumping jacks are a great calorie burner that target your legs and blast through 577 calories per hour

Instructions:
1. Stand with your feet together and your hands by your side.
2. Jump in the air, kick your legs out to the side so that they are more than shoulder width apart, raise your arms above your head, bring your hands together and land in this position.
3. Jump in the air again, bring your feet back together, lower your arms so that your hands are by your side and land in this position.
4. Repeat steps 1-3.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 3 – Jump Squats

Jump squats are a similar exercise to jumping jacks that work off an impressive 900 calories per hour.

Instructions:
1. Stand with your feet hip width apart.
2. Bend your knees and lower yourself down until your butt is parallel with your knees.
3. Straighten your knees, raise yourself back up to the starting position and jump in the air as high as you can.
4. When you land, repeat steps 1-3.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 4 – High Knees

High knees are similar to running on the spot but place the emphasis on raising your knees all the way up to hip height. They burn off a notable 510 calories per hour.

Instructions:
1. Stand with your feet hip width apart.
2. Raise your right foot off the ground, bring your right knee up to hip height and at the same time raise your left arm up to shoulder height.
3. Lower your right foot back onto the ground and your left arm back down to your side.
4. Raise your left foot off the ground, bring your left knee up to hip height and at the same time raise your right arm up to shoulder height.
5. Lower your left foot back onto the ground and your right arm back down to your side.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 5 – Mountain Climbers

Mountain climbers are a fantastic full body exercise which burn 466 calories per hour and target your upper body, your lower body and your core.

Instructions:
1. Bend your knees and place your hands on the floor, making sure they are parallel to your chest and about shoulder width apart.
2. Straighten your right leg out behind you, bend your left leg and point your butt towards the ceiling.
3. Jump both feet off the ground and shuffle your leg position, so that your right leg is bent and your left leg is straight out behind you.
4. Jump both feet off the ground and shuffle your leg position again, so that your left leg is bent and your right leg is straight out behind you.
5. Repeat steps 3-4.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 6 – Shadow Boxing

Shadow boxing is a brilliant cardiovascular exercise that boosts your balance, tests your reflexes and blasts through 500 calories per hour.

Instructions:
1. Get in a boxing stance and ensure that your body is loose and relaxed.
2. Start throwing left and right punches, making sure that your arms stay relaxed.
3. After 30 seconds of punches, start stepping to the left, right, forwards and backwards as you punch.
4. After 30 seconds of stepping and punching, start incorporating dodges and blocks into the shadow boxing routine.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 7 – Skipping

Skipping is an intense, simple and effective cardiovascular exercise that burns off a substantial 800 calories per hour.

Instructions:
1. Stand with your feet together, hold the handles of your skipping rope by your side and let the rope dangle in behind your feet.
2. Swing the rope forwards over your had and jump over it every time it gets to your feet.
3. Once you’ve got used to the basic skipping motion, try out one of the variations in the video below.

Video Demonstration:

Exercise 8 – Sprints

Sprints are a superb cardiovascular exercise that test your fitness to the limit and burn a staggering 1,000 calories per hour.

Instructions:
1. Find an open space of at least 100 metres.
2. Sprint across the 100 meter space, turn and sprint back.
3. Continue sprinting 100 meter relays.

Exercise 9 – Step Ups

Step ups are another top calorie burner which blast through 972 calories per hour and give your legs a really good workout.

Instructions:
1. Grab an aerobics step or find a set of stairs.
2. Step onto the step with your left foot and then bring your right foot onto the step.
3. Step off the step with your left foot and then bring your right foot onto the ground.
4. Step onto the step with your right foot and then bring your left foot onto the step.
5. Step off the step with your right foot and then bring your left foot onto the ground.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.

Video Demonstration:

Summary

I hope you find this 1,000 Calorie At Home Christmas Cardio Workout useful. Whether you want to burn off a few calories during the festive period, create a calorie deficit on Christmas day or simply fight the post-Christmas bulge, this workout should do the trick. The best part is that since it’s broken down into 12 minute sections, you can do as little or as much as you like. You can even break the workout down into several parts and complete each part when you have a spare 15 minutes during the day.

So give the workout a try, get your sweat on and let me know how you found it by leaving a comment below. Also, if you’ve got any additional at home Christmas cardio exercises that you think should be part of this workout, get them listed in the comments section below. Finally, if you enjoyed reading this post, make sure you Like, +1, Pin or Tweet it, so that as many people as possible can give the workout a try.