Fun Fitness Class Ideas for Christmas
This is a bit more of a throwback to what I did when teaching classes at a small rec center. Did I bring it with me to other facilities?
Yes. Yes I did.
It all started when the kids program coordinator was getting craft ideas for her kids to do. And they looked like so much fun, I wanted to join! But being in the fitness department, there’s no reason to incorporate crafts, right?
Wrong!
If there’s a will, there’s a way! And I found a way.
Here are some of my favorite Christmas themed fitness classes. Some crafts, and some not.
Let's dive in!
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Charlie Brown Christmas Movie Workout
This is a great movie for a fitness class! It’s 30 minutes long, so could be the main workout with a burner at the end, or just be the full workout with a longer warmup and stretching session at the end.
I created a sheet you can printout here that has the whole workout for the movie in order to save you time, or you can make one yourself.
I printed out enough sheets for each person. You can laminate them if you’d like to keep using them each year. Otherwise it’s a quick print they can keep or toss at the end.
There’s just enough rest to watch the movie, and then when things start coming up for exercises on the sheet, they can really pile up, so make sure you’re watching and paying attention!
I had a projector that I set up on a big wall of the gym, turned the lights off and just had fun. There’s no equipment needed for the exercises, so no chance of tripping on anything.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas Movie Workout
This is another great fitness class movie! Little shorter at 26 minutes long, and could be used the same way as above.
I have a printout for this movie too, and you can get both the Grinch and Charlie Brown for one! Or, again, you can make your own if you’d like! It’s pretty simple and there’s ideas out there.
Honestly, this all came from people sharing movies you could do a drinking game for, and I thought hey! Fitness class!
So again, print out enough for each participant or laminate to save for the next year.
Have the room set up so it’s easy to see and also safe to move around if need be.
When Who started being said and the Grinch was taking presents, the exercises really started to pile up.
So keep watching, keep the exercise sheet close and have fun!
Christmas Tree Paper Link Craft
This was my favorite to do near the beginning of December! I had most of my classes do it that were pretty flexible with the class style, then had it up for the whole month! This can also be used for Halloween crafts too.
I do have a printout option with a bunch of different exercises to use. Both body weight and some with equipment. Otherwise you can create your own list of exercises to use, just make sure they’re spaced out enough and you have a paper cutter to make it easier on yourself.
Supplies needed will be green paper and tape. Super simple once they’re all cut.
Again, it’s just taping paper strips together to create a chain, and each person will have a chain at the end. Depending on how big you want the tree, some chains could be combined at the end to make it bigger.
But, each paper strip has an exercise they must complete before putting their chain together. You can either have them pick a handful of papers, be sure to mix them up so people can avoid getting the same exercise more than once.
Or you can have the papers scattered on one end of the room, make them lunge to get one, lunge back, perform the exercise, tape it together and repeat.
You could use this as the main workout of the day or as a burner for the end of class. If you do a shorter version, then the chains may need to be combined.
Once done, you get to start putting your tree together! I’ve done it on the door to the studio like I found here, otherwise on a window or the inside wall. You could also keep the crafts going and make some ornaments to put on the tree too if you wanted!
Christmas Tree Craft
This is similar to the above craft as far as exercises on paper strips goes. Again, you can get my list of exercises here, or create your own based on your gyms training style.
The only difference is that you’ll want the paper strips to be different sizes, or have scissors available to resize as they put them together. If you do that, I would recommend setting everything up throughout your gym.
Supplies needed will be paper, this could be different colors to make it more fun, glue sticks, scissors if needed, and then background paper to put everything on. Feel free to add stickers, glitter, string and anything else if you want to have decorations for their trees.
Also make each supply they need to use a specific exercise too. So, scissors could be 10 burpees to use, glue sticks could be 15 air squats. If you’re at a boxing studio, you could use bag combos instead, CrossFit gym could be a barbell complex needed, or certain calories on an exercise machine.
It’s really as creative as you want to get with it! But have a table or two set up to make it easier putting everything together, otherwise it will have to be on the floor.
My classes had a lot of fun with this too! But if you have some perfectionists, they may get a little frustrated because it’s a goofy thing to put together and none will be “perfect”. But the table definitely helps bring people together and talking.
Other Craft Workout Options
I’ll link my Pinterest board for craft ideas that I always pulled from when wanting to add new things.
But you could make ornaments for them to bring home, or you could put them on the tree if you did the paper link craft above, coloring pages where all the different colors are an exercise, or really anything!
The way I explained above where each craft supply is a different exercise has been the easiest way for me to come up with ways to do crafts at the gym.
OR
I didn’t do this one but it could be fun! They can make a little button ornament like I’ve shared, have them grab a handful of buttons, and each color could be a different exercise.
So if there’s green, white, red and yellow, that’s 4 exercises they’re cycling through and can break up however they want. Making everything 10 reps also makes it easier for them to remember, or some kind of number like that. Or if the buttons are just different shades of green like the picture, same thing but maybe it’s just 3 exercises instead. So if they have 10 dark green buttons, that’s 10 rounds of the exercise they need to complete.
Then putting everything together once they’re done to help cool things down.
I’ve added links for some of the supplies, so if you’re interested you can order it right away. Again, it’s an Affiliate Link, so I’ll get a small commission if you use it.
There’s no pressure either way, but I just wanted to make it a little easier for you.
But I hope this was helpful in giving you some fun ideas. I know I always enjoyed the days I set up for crafts or a movie in my classes, and it always was a fun change of pace. If you’re looking for something different than what I added, just look up Christmas crafts on Pinterest. That’s literally what I did and figured out how I could make it happen.
If you end up using any of them, be sure to let me know! I would love to hear how craft and theme day went for you. Adults deserve to have fun making things too, but we usually forget unless we’re working with kids.
It’s time to bring the fun back to life.
Enjoy, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
PS. Proof that I was doing this YEARS ago! Found the old video when I was “trying” to do YouTube.
But be a dear and DON’T go to the channel and ignore the zit in the middle of my forehead. And the fan! Hot mess 20-something just wanting to do crafts with her classes. :)
