Merry Christmas!

Hey you, CLCW reader, Have a super fantastic amazing Christmas*! Whatever you do and whoever you do it with, may it be full of cheer and goodwill and refreshingly free of exercise workouts unless, you know, you're actually into that stuff.

*If you don't celebrate Christmas, please feel free to bank my good wishes and redeem against the next relevant festival of your choosing.

Festive Workouts

Wait, there are two Santas? How is that even possible?

You can hardly have failed to notice by now a little smattering of something festive in the air. 

Shops are playing Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you" on a continuous loop, John Lewis are playing your heart strings like a fiddle and money is cascading out of your bank account with a will seemingly all of its own.

Christmas is coming! Don't try and fight it!

Christmas is the perfect opportunity to drop any kind of pretence about giving a fuck about exercise and slip into a comfortable fug of Quality Streets and TV compilation shows.

Not so for some crazy fools on the internet, however. For some people, apparently, Christmas is just synonymous with fitness workout.

First off, there’s John Chase Bolingbrook’s “12 Days of Christmas” where a man in comedy antlers takes us through a festive themed workout where the likes of Lords-a-leaping and Swans-a-swimming are replaced with Prisoner Squats and Medicine Ball Goalies.

How Rudolph prepares for the big night.

He doesn’t sing it which is a missed opportunity, I feel.

Next we have Ms. Lynn's “Shape It Up Christmas Workout!!” And yes, those exclamation marks are all her own.

Ms Lynn clearly likes to add a little drama to the proceedings by having her crew walk off on her resulting in a frantic cry of “Where ya going? Wait for me!” that’s not quite Oscar-worthy.

It moves swiftly onto a dance workout to “Jungle Bell Rock” taking place in what is presumably Ms Lynn’s back garden which is liberally festooned with inflatable snow globes, polar bears and a life-size effigy of Father Christmas sitting on a  chair.

Except it turns out it’s not an effigy after all! After remaining motionless for the entire workout, Santa then gets up and wishes us a happy Christmas. It’s just like “Saw”. Or that horror movie with Danielle Lloyd and the life-size Clown doll.

Santa puts in another appearance in Home Physique’s Christmas workout. At first I was a bit sceptical that it was the real Santa what with all the weight-lifting and shouting “Ho ho ho Motherfuckers!” and all but then at the video, Santa tells us to “Have a laugh and be grateful that you’re here, know what I mean?” and to be fair, that sounds like exactly what the big guy would say.

The ‘Christmas Winter Workout’ consists of a bunch of young men doing pull-ups in a snowy landscape – all with no shirts. I have no idea why they do this, but I for one am not about to judge them.

Well at least his head won't get chilly.

Not least because this was the only one of these videos where there didn’t seem to be any expectation of me joining in.

Which, at this time of year, is about as sporty as I plan to get.

The Alternative to Working Out

Due to reasons utterly within my control, there is no C-List Celebrity Workout this week. I hate to do this to you but you're strong and you'll get through this. I believe in you.

As I am eschewing exercise, I should probably check out the Lipomassage TM leaflet I was handed in the week

/

For anyone who loaves exercise! They know me so well! I love it! I loathe it! I loaf it! It's the alternative to sit-ups of buttock raises!

"Widely known amongst the Press as 'the only system that works'", eh? Well that sounds like a legitimate verifiable recommendation and not a made-up bit of nonsense that they've pulled out of their (presumably beautifully toned) arses.

See you next week, my lovelies. I am off to have my fluid exchanges increased. Or, you know, maybe not.

We're all going on a Summer Holiday!

The staff at C-List Celebrity Workouts are off on their annual Summer Holiday and will be back on 18th August. Yes, you'll have to wait until then for the next offering of Fitness Instruction brought to you by someone whose talents lie entirely elsewhere. Assuming they have any talent at all, that is.

So where are we off to? The exotic, sun-soaked stairs of The Miami?

 

Or the Fitness Instructor-owned ecotourism resorts of Jamaica?

Or the technicolor seashores of Florida?

Well none of them - we'll be in Venice. But I don't have a corresponding workout just yet. Perhaps Francesco Borgato - Venice's most famous pop star - will film a dance workout filmed by the Grand Canal.

That would certainly be a dream come true for everyone.

Happy Mothers Day!

I am taking today off from my punishing CLCW schedule in order to spend the day celebrating both being and having a mum. I know, right? I'm mothersdaying it in both directions. What are the chances, eh?

In order to celebrate parenting in general, here's Tom Hanks' devotion to dadhood.

 

Note for our US readership : You may not think today is Mothers Day but it is. Trust me on this.

A Slightly Longer Interlude

You know I love you, CLCW readers, don't you? Utterly. Desperately. It's almost obscene, my love for you all.

And yet I neglect you.

I'm like a footballer too distracted by the glamour of kicking a ball around a field to advertise crisps or appear in "Hello" with a lovely wife and/or mistress.

Unfortunately for all of us, my attention is being unreasonably taken up at the moment. I'm living the life of Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School". With slightly less wisecracking.




This is not Rodney Dangerfield.

I wanted a clip of the studying montage mentioned in this Cracked article. But YouTube let me down. But that's how my life actually is right now.


I literally have to study using only my lighter.
Thinking of you all. Lovingly. Longingly. Almost a little too intrusively, if we're honest.

A Short Interlude

It is my birthday today so I have given myself the day off. Because, quite frankly, it gets pretty anarchic at CLCW Towers this time of year.

As I don't want you feel completely abandoned, I am including video instruction from some top fitness gurus. Watch and learn, my children. Watch and learn.

Stephen Fry - Dancercise



"The rather ingenious coupling of the word "dance" to the word "circumcise"

Victoria Wood - Fatitude



"Welcome to Fatitude! Let's funky it up a little bit"

Robert Webb - Flashdance



The prettiest legs on this site so far. A fine figure of a fellow and no mistake.

I will be back next week with a proper C-List Celebrity Workout review. No less than Hannah Waterman - daughter of Dennis and one of Ian "Eastenders" Beale's harem of onscreen wives.

Or it might be GMTV Spandex King, Mr Motivator. Or everyone's favourite female Welsh ex-gymnast football pundit, Gabby Logan. Or quite possibly someone else entirely.

Who can say? Not me, obviously, since I haven't decided yet. Rest assured it'll be awesome, though.

Now go rewatch that Flashdance clip. You know you want to.

Welcome to C-List Celebrity Workouts.

Welcome to C-List Celebrity Workouts.

I plan to review a different celebrity fitness workout DVD (or video) each week. I will do every single exercise and watch all the extras. I’ll then make a bunch of stupid jokes about leotards or something.

For the last couple of months, I have been trying to be healthier. More exercising and less eating butter directly from the packet with a spoon - that sort of thing. Apparently, scientific research has shown that being fat and lazy is not necessarily the best lifestyle choice. I know, right? Who knew?

I was worried that this whole “Eating Less, Moving More” regime would cut into my watching television and being sarcastic about stuff time. But regularly watching a workout DVD fronted by a former Big Brother housemate or someone from Eastenders will allow me to do just that. And I plan to share it all with you, hypothetical reader. You lucky thing.

I make no promises that all featured celebrities will be C-List. In fact not every review might have a celebrity. They will probably all be workouts though. I can’t see this blog morphing into “C-List Celebrity Dog Grooming Tips” for at least a couple of years.

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