It’s time for my annual Christmas Cookie Crusher workout! I started this yearly tradition back in 2014 when I programmed a “Cookie Crusher”-themed workout for my personal training clients and then shared it on my blog. It’s been a hit with clients and readers ever since. So many of you have shared that you love these workouts and look forward to doing them every holiday season, and many have even made it a family/friend tradition. This makes me so happy!
I still get together with a group of former clients every holiday season to do the Cookie Crusher. We got the gang back together last week at 5:30a one morning to knock out this year’s Cookie Crusher and I really outdid myself this year. One of my clients said, “this is the hardest one ever.” As I like to remind my clients and classes, they don’t come for easy! 😉
It took us a FULL hour to get through this year’s workout (but don’t be scared…I’m offering scaling options as well as no equipment options). We were so sweaty at the end, but still smiling. The 2019 Cookie Crusher has 2.5 miles of running that happen through 10 intervals of .25 mile runs. There are also 1,000 movement reps interspersed throughout. It’s intense, but doable.
Ready to see it? I’m sure you’re on the edge of Santa’s Sleigh in anticipation. 🙂
THE 2019 COOKIE CRUSHER WORKOUT: SPRINT FOR SANTA
WORKOUT BREAKDOWN
Here’s what you’ve got…five huge blocks of work where each block is repeated twice before moving to the next. So for block one, you would run .25 miles, do 25 reps of the four movements, run .25 miles again and then do your second set of the work. Each block is half a mile of running and 50 reps of each of the prescribed exercises.
For the runs, we started at an easy pace to warm up (block one is meant to be a warm up block) and increased the pace and intensity as the workout progressed. By the final couple of blocks I was working a sprint pace but it’s totally optional how much you want to push the pace. It’s challenging regardless!
WORKOUT EQUIPMENT
I tried to keep equipment simple for this one. All you need is a set of dumbbells and a kettlebell. If you don’t have a kettlebell, don’t fear! You can totally modify the kettlebell movements to work with dumbbells.
SCALING + NO EQUIPMENT OPTIONS
There are two ways to scale and modify this workout. The first is to reduce the work volume by cutting it in half and doing one round of each of the five blocks.
The second is for those of you with no access to equipment. In that case, do 2-4 rounds each of blocks one and five and skip the middle three blocks.
*You can also modify the run to a 250 meter row if you’d like.
MOVEMENT DEMO VIDEO
I made a video demoing the movements in each of the five blocks.
There you have it! Your 2019 Cookie Crusher! As always, I would love to hear from you if you try any version of it.
PREVIOUS COOKIE CRUSHERS
2014 Cookie Crusher
2015 Cookie Crusher
2016 Cookie Crusher
2017 Cookie Crusher
2018 Cookie Crusher
Happy sweating and happy cookie eating!
