Do you often find yourself postponing exercising outdoors? People tend to procrastinate outdoor exercise due to the weather changes.
Bad weather can be a “logical” excuse to postpone outdoor exercise, but it’s still an excuse.
However, with a good set of outdoor exercise ideas, you can make outdoor exercise work for you.
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Outdoor Exercise Ideas To Get Fit
These 10 outdoor exercises can be carried out the whole year round; 4 seasons exercise ideas I’m sure you’ll enjoy doing.
Whether it’s jogging in summer or winter, ice or water skiing, summer or winter camping; these outdoor activities not only keep you fit but are most enjoyable.
Kettlebells in the park
A kettlebell resembles a cow bell, and kettlebells make it easy for you to exercise anyway you want. If you buy a kettlebell, you can literally take it anywhere with you.
One of the best places to go to with your kettlebell is the park. There are many exercises that you can do with your kettlebell.
Exercising in the park is much more enjoyable than exercising in a closed off space.
There are dozens of kettlebell exercises available.
Some of these exercises include the bent press, the alternating kettlebell row, the goblet squat, and the kettlebell thruster.
Hiking
Have you ever hiked up in the mountains, or just taken a stroll in the woods? Hiking entails all the benefits of healthy living.
You get to be surrounded by nature, see the wildlife, experience the fresh air, and walk for miles. There are many cardiovascular benefits to hiking.
Hiking also provides a great workout for your legs, abs, and thighs.
The great thing about hiking is that you don’t feel the hardships of working out. You can even go hiking with a group of friends and totally relax.
Socialization allows you to forget that you might be getting tired during the trek. You can hike any time of the year. You do need to prepare for any temperature changes if you are hiking up the mountain though.
Make sure to carry a lightweight backpacking tent if you plan on spending your nights up on the mountain plus a lightweight camping stove for heating water and food for a memorable camping trip.
Although you do need some equipment for hiking, it’s all basic stuff that is easily attainable. For starters, get yourself some hiking boots, a backpack, and some water.
Walking
Going out for a walk might sound like a common sense idea, but many people overlook this basic form of exercise.
Most people either choose heavy exercise or prefer to be a couch potato. Experts, however, agree that any exercise is better than no exercise.
You can go walking at any time, during any condition. Even in the worst weather you can choose to for example walk around a massive mall. Yes, this isn’t completely “outdoors”, but you’re still leaving the house. In general you want to just incorporate walking into your everyday schedule.
If you have a dog, for example, you can take it for a walk at least once a day, for sessions of 30 minutes. If your friend calls you to go somewhere, suggest walking to that place. If you want to buy something, walk there, don’t drive.
Find reasons to increase the amount of walking you do. The easiest way to do this is to purchase a pedometer. Have it motivate you to make more steps each week. And if you have a smartphone, there are a ton of great pedometer apps for your phone, so consider getting one.
Jogging
Are you trying to lose weight? If so, consider jogging. Jogging is great for your lungs. Jogging will strengthen your body’s resistance against heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. You don’t need anything special for jogging, except good athletic shoes.
The best part about jogging is that you can multi-task. This is an advantage that jogging has over any intensive exercise. For example, strenuous types of exercise demands that you give 100% of your attention to the exercise.
Jogging however requires only a little more focus than walking. This means that you can listen to music or an audiobook while you jog. You can do brainstorming sessions or make plans while you jog.
If you think about it there are a lot of hours in the week that you spend just thinking. You know what though? You don’t have to sit down in order to think!
You can just as well jog and think at the same time. This trick will help you feel that “jogging” is productively spent time. A lot of us would avoid it because we say we don’t have the time. Just use some of your “listening to radio” or “thinking” time, and multitask!
However, do wear proper running clothes such as reflective clothing for safe night running. Wearing a bright headlamp flashlight is a good idea if you run at night.
Riding a bike
Bikes are fun, there we said it! You can ride your bike to work, you can simply explore nature, or explore different neighborhoods. Biking offers a ton of different possibilities and is a highly flexible activity.
You can use your bike as a transportational substitute for your car, or you can do it as a recreational activity.
The point is that the bike allows you a fun way to integrate exercise as part of something else.
Now, when people think of cycling for exercise, they usually imagine getting some expensive mountain bike. You don’t need a mountain bike to get proper exercise. That’s just a perception built by fitness posters where fitness models pose on a mountain bike. There is honestly no “additional fitness benefit” to mountain bikes.
You only need them if you actually plan on actually riding on mountain trails. For the sake of exercise, use any kind of bike to go to your local store, mall, restaurant, your job etc. While buying a good mountain bike can be pretty expensive, buying a used bike or cruiser bike can be quite cheap.
And then there is a special bonus to riding a bike. Don’t forget that when you’re riding your bike, you get to strengthen your quadriceps. That’s a fancy way of saying you get to tighten your thighs. Those are some good aesthetic benefits right there!
Swimming
You might think that swimming can only be done in the summer, but what about heated indoor swimming pools?
Swimming is very easy on the joints and it helps build arm and leg muscles.
Like jogging or walking, swimming has great cardiovascular benefits.
The more you swim, the less stress you have. Swimming also helps against high blood pressure and diabetes.
Working out in the park
You can always go to your local park and workout. If the park has workout equipment or an outdoor gym in the park, great.
However, even if there is no workout equipment, you can still exercise in the park. This activity is not dependent on the weather. As a warm up you can even jog on the way to the park.
Let’s say that you go to exercise in the park about three times a week. On the first day, you could focus on building your arm muscles. On the second day, you could focus on building your leg muscles. On the third day, you can focus on building your chest and back muscles.
Exercising in the park doesn’t have to take longer than 20 minutes per session.
Joining a sports team
Sports like soccer can be played at any time of the year. Looking for a sports club that offers activities during the entire year is a great idea.
Playing a sport, such as soccer, is great because it offers an opportunity to socialize and make new friends.
Sports clubs often organize tournaments, which means that you get to go to different places with your team.
Jumping rope
You don’t need to be a kid to jump ropes. It’s a fun thing to do for everyone. Remember Sylvester Stallone in the movie Rocky? He used to jump ropes regardless of the weather.
All you need is a skipping rope and some good athletic shoes.
Whether you are a beginner or a pro athlete, you will benefit from jumping rope.
If your fitness level is up to it, you can try the weighted jump rope for better muscle tone
While jumping ropes might look easy, you can get tired quickly.
Jumping is good for the heart.
Camping activities
And then you have camping, the one outdoor activity to rule them all. What makes camping so unique is that it combines all other outdoor activities!
When you go camping, you can walk, you can hike, you get to put a tent, you get to have fun around a bonfire or even do any of the other exercises.
Obviously camping incorporates walking, hiking, and if you so choose, biking. You can even choose to take some resistance bands and exercise right in front of your tent, how cool is that!?
And the best thing about camping is all that fresh air you get to breathe. I mean what can possibly be better than mountain air right?
Yes, the park is pretty nice and is so biking through the neighborhood. But it also limits you to city air.
It is only after you go hiking that you appreciate how “unfresh” your city’s air is. You have no idea how liberating it is to breathe some pristine, clear fresh air. You can’t get that with any city-based outdoor activity.
Now, note camping is not as complicated as it might sound. You only need some basic camping equipment, such as a tent, sleeping bags, food, water, etc.
According to experts here, green exercise or exercising outdoors in a pleasant environment is said to have a better health outcomes compared to exercising indoors.