"You sign up for the tournament?" my jujitsu instructor asked me one day last winter. I asked if he was sure that was a good idea—the tournament was three months away, which was exactly two months longer than I’d been practicing jujitsu. Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro, four-time world champion, told me I’d be fine. So I wrote down my DOB, my AmEx number for the fee, and a weight class that would force me to drop twelve pounds in twelve weeks. In my iPhone calendar, I marked a Saturday in May with one word: Fight.

And thus began three months of clean living. I ate greener and drank less. I followed the advice of my ex-girlfriend’s ironic T-shirt and just said no to drugs. That tiny calendar reminder had me training four times a week in the dead of winter, because an impending tournament doesn’t care that it’s sleeting or that your crazy friend from San Francisco is only in town for one night. The East Coast was finally thawing out when I showed up at a school gymnasium on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I shook hands with my opponent; the ref gave us the go. Over the next five minutes, I tried a takedown move I hadn’t mastered, felt 192 pounds of experienced fighter crushing my trachea, and eventually lost the match on points. Still, I was happy; not only was I in one piece, but I was leaner, faster, and stronger than I had been since high school.

Lock yourself into a challenge—blood sport or otherwise—and you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to follow through on working out. This is not the time for your first marathon. But the specter of a doable half marathon leverages parts of you that trump laziness: your ego, your competitive streak, your stinginess (enrollment fees are steep and nonrefundable for a reason), and in some cases, your desire not to get choked out in front of a crowd.—Stan Parish

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1. For the man who: Likes to multitask

An Ironman isn’t made in three months, but a sprint triathlon (half-mile swim, twelve-mile ride, and three-mile run)? No problem.

**Find a race: **trifind.com

2. For the man who: Wants to get high

Competitive sport climbing will get you lean and strong without the drudgery and awkward public grunting of the gym weight room.

**Find a contest: **usaclimbing.org

3. For the man who: Dreams of ROTC

Your typical Tough Mudder obstacle course involves freezing water pits, barbed-wire mud crawls, and flaming bales of hay.

**Sign up: **toughmudder.com—Rafi Kohan

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Why did I let a scale tweet my weight? Because after years of discarded workout regimens and failed attempts to eat better, I realized that my willpower was pathetic. I needed outside impetus. More specifically, I needed to publicly embarrass myself into being less of a lardass. So I set up a Withings WiFi Body Scale ($159, withings.com) to automatically blast a few hundred friends, strangers, and spambots with my weight every time I stepped on it (i.e., every other morning). I lifted weights, I hit the bike, and I stopped getting a side of mac and cheese with my lunch sandwich, having been forced into healthiness by the constant worry that everyone was watching. And they were; pals and co-workers began making congratulatory and/or patronizing references to the tweets, further fueling my paranoia. Three months later, I’d lost twelve pounds—and only a few followers.—Jon Wilde

"If you’re trying to get in shape, you can put that extra weight to use." That’s Marcus Eave, fitness consultant at The Carlyle hotel in New York City, where he makes Carla Bruni and Mick Jagger sweat when they’re in town. Eave’s in-your-home workout starts with the basics—five sets each of ten push-ups, ten pull-ups, twenty-five squats, and a one-minute plank. Rest only fifteen seconds between sets to keep your heart rate up. The quick workout hits every major muscle group and uses your flab against you. In a week or two, try the variations below to freshen up your routine, courtesy of Eaves and Wesley Hendrickson, co-trainer at the Carlyle.—Eric Sullivan

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Harder:

Side Plank (one minute)

A plank gone perpendicular. Make sure your supporting arm is at a right angle to the floor. For added pain, shift your hips up and down—you’re doing it right when your obliques cry.

Hardest:

Side Plank w/ Arm & Leg Raise (one minute)

Up the ante on the side plank by raising an arm, and then kill yourself by raising a leg at the same time. Hold for 15 seconds and let both drop down. Repeat once more during the minute-long side plank.

Harder:

Spider-Man Push-up (ten reps)

As you lower your body, pull your left knee toward your left elbow. As you push up, bring your leg back to its original position. Next time down, do the right leg. Rinse and repeat.

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Hardest:

Weight-Shift Push-up (five reps per side)

Do a standard push up. On the way up, raise one arm in a wide arc above your head, watching your hand as you do so. Return slowly to starting position and then switch arms. It’ll feel like your own personal yoga class.

Harder:

Side Lunge (ten reps per side)

From the standing position, step sideways with your left leg, then crouch. Keep your weight over the heel of your left leg. Stand, then lift your knee up. And now the right leg.

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Hardest:

Split Squat (ten reps per side)

With both feet facing forward, take a big step forward with one foot. Lower your back knee toward the floor (though not touching it) and then push back up. Keep yourself upright throughout and avoid leaning forward. Switch sides and repeat. You’ll butch up your legs and work your core trying to keep yourself steady.

Harder:

Wide-Grip Pull-up (ten reps)

To work your biceps and back, you need a pull-up bar (unless you have a really strong shower rod). For the wide grip, start with your hands shoulder-width apart, then go three inches wider on each side. Get that chin over the bar.

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Hardest:

Opposing Hands Pull-Up (two sets of ten reps)

Grip the bar with one palm facing right and the other facing the left. Raise yourself so your head clears the bar first on one side, then the other. For the second set, swap hand positions on the bar. You’ll look (and feel) like you’re holding on for dear life.

Doing push-ups and planks in your living room is the least intrusive training regimen devised since those old-timey vibrating waist belts, yet you’re still never going to want to work out. But you can trick yourself into starting a sweat session with a little Behavioral Psych 101. Choose a critically fellated dramatic TV show you never got around to watching (The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad) and Netflix a season’s DVDs. It needs to have run for at least three seasons, and it has to be a serial—no self-contained CSI-style shows where everything’s wrapped up by the credits. That’s because you’re going to watch the show when you work out and only when you work out. You’ll be entertained while you’re grunting through your sets, and when it’s over, you’ll be jonesing for the next episode. Suddenly you’ve got a reward for ercising: discovering why the hell there’s a polar bear on a tropical island.—_J.W. _

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Six years ago, I booked a trip to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp in Costa Rica. I was in a rut, feeling bad about the way I looked and worse about the way I felt. I was new to surfing and sucked at it because, at 230 pounds, I had a body better suited to catching Fritos in my mouth than catching waves.

The camp was on the banks of the Tamarindo River, near a sublime spot made famous in The Endless Summer II. I’d wake up at first light for a two-hour private lesson and then surf on my own while sinewy locals helped themselves to my waves. I was fat and helpless but determined. I surfed six or seven hours every day. I ate tons of fish and kept the daiquiri consumption to a minimum. When the sun went down, I soaked my aching muscles in a hot tub with a cold Imperial and listened to a guy called Tico Hendrix play Spanish ballads on an acoustic guitar. After three days, I felt that good sore you get after a workout. By day six, my man breasts approximated pecs. And by day eleven, my last day, I’d lost thirteen pounds. On vacation. At the beach. In Costa Rica.

Most of us go from cubicle to gym, trying to muster enthusiasm while wiping another guy’s sweat off the treadmill. But there’s a way to take a vacation from the gym without taking a vacation from getting in shape. It doesn’t have to be surfing off Costa Rica. Close your eyes and imagine what you would do on a sunny Saturday when you had no obligations, nowhere to be—just a day to spend doing what you want outside. Now open them and book ten days of that.—Alex French

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In summer we’re fetishistic about vegetables, thinking dirty things about heirloom tomatoes. Then the farmers’ market closes, and the best we can do is toss an onion into our game-day chili. Truth is, a whole crop of vitamin-rich vegetables come into their own in winter, including carrots, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale. They’re a hell of a lot healthier than a Boston Market Meatloaf Slider—and they can taste as sweet as candy or as hearty as stew. Start off with the recipe below. You can make chili next week.—Howie Kahn

Wintry Vegetable Mix

Serves 6

Extra-virgin olive oil

11.2lbs. Brussels sprouts, trimmed

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of woody stems, peeled of outer leaves, and sliced lengthwise in half

1small butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice Salt and pepper

1shallot, thinly sliced

2Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch dice

3/4cup balsamic vinegar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place a large ovenproof sauté pan over medium heat. Cover the bottom with extra-virgin olive oil and heat until smoking.

Add the Brussels sprouts, cut-side down, and let them sit until they’re brown and caramelized (about 5 minutes). Remove the sprouts and reserve.

Add the butternut squash and cook until golden brown and tender (3 to 5 minutes), seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Remove the squash and reserve.

Add the shallot and cook until it’s golden and translucent.

Add the apples and raise the heat to medium-high until they are lightly browned and tender (3 to 5 minutes).

Add the sprouts and squash back to the pan and place it in the preheated oven. Bake uncovered for 7 minutes.

Pour the vinegar into a new pan and heat on high for 3 to 5 minutes, or until reduced by half.

Remove the pan from the oven. Season with salt and pepper. Serve and drizzle with the balsamic reduction to finish.

_From chef Victor Casanova of Culina, Modern Italian in Beverly Hills _

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_You can’t escape winter chores, but they can count as the day’s workout _

Shoveling Snow

A half hour of clearing the driveway uses 235 calories,* and you’ll feel the burn in your legs and arms. Or if you do it wrong, your back. Use proper form: Keep your back straight, lift with your legs, then walk the snow to the pile—don’t huck it.

Chopping Wood

Going all Tin Man on firewood works nearly every muscle in your body. To avoid hacking off a limb, keep the log a handle length away, raise the ax straight up, then bring it down directly in front of your nose.

Throwing Snowballs

Target practice with the kids burns about 225 calories* in thirty minutes, which flies by if you land every shot. Aim for the gut; it’s hard to move your waist when standing in snow. Enjoy quality time!—Gordy Megroz

* Calories calculated for a 170-pound man by HealthStatus.com

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you know a good way to feel worse about yourself in four months? Tell yourself that you’re going to train for a "doable" half marathon this winter, even though you haven’t jogged in three years and you have two kids and your way of feeling more energetic is to eat Mike and Ikes. There are moments to embrace low expectations. And many of them happen in winter.

That’s why I’ve started taking classes at the Equinox fitness club near the GQ offices. Doesn’t matter which ones—I take whatever’s in session when I arrive. There are many advantages to classes. 1) They’re never boring. You’re constantly learning how to do yoga or weird sit-ups. Recently I tried something called Speedball, which is like dancing with a medicine ball. 2) There are always women in the classes, often in shape, and that’s also never boring. 3) There’s always someone to yell at you—usually a man in a headset with a clear voice and a great sense of rhythm—so you don’t have to motivate yourself.

But here’s the biggest advantage: 4) Whether you show up for Cardio Smackdown! or Whipped! or Powerstrike! (real classes), you don’t have to make any decisions. You don’t have to choose between waiting in line for the elliptical, blasting your delts, or trying one of the 279 types of curls in this month’s Men’s Healthness Gun Show Journal you should do. You just have to show up.—Devin Friedman

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