It’s summer time and hopefully you are out and about enjoying the summer weather, beaches, and parks. This is the perfect time of year to take advantage of nature and a moment to step away from the gym.
Here are three key points to remember when you are exercising outdoors. First, carry a water bottle with you to not only keep hydrated, but you can also use it for a light resistance weight. You can do curls, triceps, shoulder raises, and many more exercises while you are walking with the water bottle.
Second, be sure to exercise earlier in the day or later in the evening after the hot temperatures have cooled down. This will prevent over exposure to the suns most harmful rays during the day. In addition, you will stay cooler and therefore have more energy for exercises.
Lastly, be sure to use a sunscreen, even if you don’t think you need it on the off hours. A sunscreen of about 30-50 will be enough. Anything more than 50SPF will only protect you about 2% more according to research reviewed by skin specialist Doctor Weiss.
Here is an outdoor circuit training that I just enjoyed today. Bring a stop watch, heart rate monitor and your water bottle.
Warm-up 5 minutes of brisk walking
20-30 pushups on bench
2 minute long stride walk
50 squats on picnic table bench (add a body resistance squeezing bicep curl for more benefit)
2 minute brisk power walk
20-25 dips on bench
2 minute long stride walk
15 lunges on each leg, with foot up on step
2 minute brisk power walk
20 (each side) side leg kicks over a waist high object (done for speed and accuracy) stretching the same arm out squeezing the triceps
2 minute long stride walk
30 second Side plank balance on each arm
2 minute brisk power walk
15 traveling Plie squats on each side
2 minute long stride walk
20-25 dips
2 minute brisk power walk
50 your choice abdominal exercise
5 minute long stride walk
5 minute stretch
You can complete this in about 30 minutes depending on how quick you are with each interval. I burned just over 300 calories according to my polar heart rate monitor watch.
Have fun and enjoy the outdoors!!
Photography by Thomas Oed, of Impact Image Photography
