My Holiday Exercise Regimen: a guide to Minny LinnEy's successful weight-lifting program

Need a little exercise after the Thanksgiving feast? Christmas parties around the corner? Holiday food weighing you down? Try this program today!

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.

After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato sacks. Then try 50-lb potato sacks and then eventually try to get to the point where you can lift a 100-lb potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.



*I received this a couple years ago as an exercise program for people over 50, but I think it can be used by anyone, particularly those of us who are currently doing winter training, so I'm dusting the regimen off, and I'm sure I'll be faster on the water next summer because of it.