Are you feeling stir crazy being stuck inside? With the weather changing and sun peaking out, why be caught up indoors? Instead, take your workouts outside! Here are some reasons why you should:
Improve Your Mental Health.
Exercise is beneficial for mental health, but getting active outdoors is an even bigger boost. Being exposed to sunlight improves mood and increase vitamin D levels. Research has also shown that when people exercise outside, they tend to have more fun, are more relaxed, and experience less mental and physical fatigue.
Fresh Air.
Fresh air outside is superior to the recycled air you breathe inside of a building. Fresh air will even give you more energy.
Disconnect and Be in Nature.
We spend most of our days indoors using technology, especially as most of us work remote. It’s a time where we spend days or weeks at a time barely going outside. It’s always a good thing to stop and disconnect from our virtual worlds in order to step outside and soak up the benefits of the outdoors.
Change it Up.
It’s easy to get bored with workouts and burned out on them when you’re doing the same thing over and over again. Unpredictability is essential for the human spirit. Even if you do the same workout, doing it in a different setting can reboot your enthusiasm for it. Even if you work out at the same park, chances are the weather and surroundings will never be quite the same as they were the day before.
Here are some ideas of how to use your surroundings to maximize your outdoor workouts:
Take it to a Playground
Release your inner kid and get creative at a playground. Playgrounds typically have benches, so you can incorporate bench exercises into your routine too!
Strength: pull-ups, inverted rows, assisted pistol squat (use swing like you would a resistance band), hanging knee tucks, slide climb
Hit the Track
Split the track up and do one movement for each fourth of a lap or do a movement on the straightaways and sprint the turns.
Strength: walking lunges
Cardio: sprints, side shuffle
Power: broad jumps
Find Some Steps
Stairs can provide some great results for your health. You can work on explosive movements or agility drills, not to mention how well it’ll tone your lower body!
Strength: side step, stair crawl, reverse lunge to step up
Cardio: sprints, incline cross climbers
Power: stair hops, skater steps
Use a Park Bench
A bench can utilized for strength, cardio, or even power movements.
Strength: triceps dip, incline/decline push-ups, Bulgarian squats, step ups, single leg squats
Cardio: incline mountain climbers, incline plank jacks,
Power: explosive incline push-ups, bench jumps, explosive step ups,
Go to a Nearby Hill
Find a nearby hill that has a trail or a road, and run up as far as you can. Once you hit the point where you’re too fatigued to run any further, turn around and walk down. Rest as long as you need to, then repeat until you feel your workout is complete! You can track your progress by comparing how high you’re able to sprint with each run.
As the weather gets warmer and days get longer, it’s the perfect chance for you to get outside! Exercising outside provides a nice change of pace too, especially after being stuck inside during these trying times.
~Paulina Le
Health Fitness Specialist