SAN ANTONIO — A celebrity trainer based in Los Angeles is sharing his creative workout. Kollins Ezekh has found a way to put your leftover pumpkins from Halloween and Thanksgiving to good use!
He said his full-body workout can be done using a pumpkin that’s about eight to 10 pounds. You’ll use it for around the worlds, woodchoppers and jumping jacks.
“It's going to get your heart rate up,” Ezekh said. “It’s also going to engage mostly every muscle in your body and challenge your core.”
To perform around the worlds, Ezekh said you want to start with a wide stance. Then you’ll hold the pumpkin low and drop down into a squat.
“You’re going to bring it in a big circle motion,” Ezekh said. “All the way down and all the way up.”
You’ll do that for 30 seconds in one direction before switching to the opposite direction for another 30 seconds.
Then you’ll move on to woodchoppers. Ezekh said you’ll change your footing to a split stance. Drop to the pumpkin to one side of your hip, then move it up and across your body.
“Bring it diagonal,” Ezekh said. “Get low, bring it across and then get slightly taller. You want to engage your core as much as possible as well!”
You’ll do this exercise for another 30 seconds on both sides before you finish up with some cardio.
“It’s a jumping jack with a pumpkin,” Ezekh said. “You can push in front of you or you can press it up. We’re going to do a combination of both for 30 seconds!”
This quick pumpkin workout can be done at home by yourself or with friends or family.
“It's going to take about 10 minutes for you to do it yourself because I would like you to do about three sets of each exercise,” Ezekh said. “If you can keep repeating doing this workout for a whole hour, you'll burn upwards of 500 calories. Say 15 to 20 minutes, you can get a good 150 to 200 calories.”
Ezekh said it’s important for him to find new ways to make working out fun.
“I feel like my clients, that's what they appreciate the most because if you can make working out fun and people are happy, they would like to come back and do it again because working out is quite challenging for a lot of us and a lot of people don't enjoy it,” Ezekh said. “So it has to be made enjoyable, right?”
If you’d like to learn more from Ezekh, you can follow him on Instagram @builtbygod.