My Current Workout Program: December 2025

Exercise isn't always fun, but it is crucial to stay with it year round. With the holiday seasons upon us, I wanted to highlight my current training program this time of year. It sometimes is boring but it is simple and effective in keeping me in shape with plenty of other life events happening.

Dumbbells and bench ready for strength training

Strength Training Routine

For strength training currenlty I have adapted ideas from the book "Easy Strength" by Pavel Tsatsouline and Dan John. Here is the concept, I pick 6 exercises a day Total Body and my aim is to high hit 10 working reps with each one at around 4-6 out of 10 intensity. Each exercise builds into the next to reduce need to warm-up sets and I will repeat this 2-4 times per week.

• Exercise 1: Barbell Overhead Squat

• Exercise 2: Clean Variation (Power Clean, Full Clean, Hang Clean)

• Exercise 3: Squat Variation (Back Squat, Front Squat, Zercher Squat)

• Exercise 4: Deadlift Variation (Sumo Deadlift, Conventional Deadlift, RDL)

• Exercise 5: Upper Body Press (Bench, Incline, Overhead)

• Exercise 6: Upper Body Pull (Pull-ups, DB or BB Row)

I go through each exercise in the order above for the required rep scheme for the day. Moderate weight but I won't be anywhere close to failing a rep. Below are the reps schemes I rotate every workout:

• Workout 1: 2 sets of 5 Reps

• Workout 2: 3 sets of 3 Reps

• Workout 3: 5 sets of 2 Reps

I cycle through these workouts each time I go into the gym so if I lift 3 times that week I do all 3 workouts and the next week I start back at Workout 1.

The workout should take you 30-45 minutes and you should walk out feeling good. You got under some weight, maintained strength, and got your heart rate up a little bite. You might not improve your strength or build a bunch of muscle during this time but this program will keep you strong while you are busy this time of year.

Cardio

This past calendar year I have really gotten into long distance running outside. 2-5 miles or 20-45 minutes outside 2-3 times per week has been a new challenge in my fitness journey after neglecting cardio for years prior. I'm not winning any marathons anytime soon but the long distance running has greatly improved my cardiovascular health and I love being able to listen to a podcast or audio book on my runs. The problem is with the weather changing and it being cold, I am having trouble motivating myself to go out for long runs and with holiday shopping and work I feel pressed for time so I needed to make an audible in order to stick to my cardio. The change I made is to run the Nike Sparq Beep Test 2-4 times per week instead.

Treadmill display during cardio session

Now plenty of people have PTSD from either college sports or gym class beep test but for me I love the challenge and is an easy way to get my heart rate up and get me sweating. Now is it the best for building long term cardiovascular health? No but like I said at the beginning of this post this is just my current training program that is allowing me to workout during this busy time per year and not neglect my health and wellness.

How do I implement?

I rarely run it to absolute failure like the test is designed for and mostly use it as a tool for sets and reps of my running, I will attach some examples below that I follow.

• Every other rep up to a certain number (I might do odd number reps up to level 30 which will give me 15 reps)

• Run to level 10 rest 2:00 repeat 2-3 more times

• Run 2 reps, rest 1, keep going until you can't make 2 in a row

• Run to level 20 rest 2:00, run to level 15 rest 2:00, run to level 10

These are just some of the methods I use but the concept is to get a certain number of sets and reps in, it's a cardio training tool not a max out test every time.

What's Next?

This workout program isn't perfect by any means but it is definatly something to keep you in shape while you get through busy times of the year. Find 20 minutes every day and exercise, when January hits I will be ready to start a more intense program but I will also be in fairly good shape to do it. I'm not a fan of just not working out when I don't feel like I have time to do intense workouts, instead I will change my workouts to get me through in the meantimes and thats what this December training is all about. New updates soon but right now I am going to run the beep test.

-Cheers