Outdoor Fitness Workouts

Fitness Trails

Nov 14, 2008 Darryl Wilkinson

We all know someone who is a member of a gym or health club, but do they use it? Why not step outside your own front door and get a different type of workout.

With most countries experiencing a change in seasons, there is no reason why individuals should restrict their workouts to the indoor gym environment. The point of the outdoor fitness trail is to encourage those individuals who wouldn’t normally participate in the normal gym activities, but who enjoy the great outdoors, to incorporate some basic circuit training ideas into their daily or weekly exercise routines.

Fitness Trail Concept

The fitness trail concept was first developed in Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland. There remains the belief that you have to be a member of a gym and use all of their fancy hi-tech cardiovascular and resistance machines if you ever want to achieve any fitness gains – the reality is that our bodies can be exercised just as effectively without using expensive machines, using your own body weight in conjunction with the outdoor terrain (seats, logs, slopes etc…) to help you achieve all the resistance and cardiovascular benefits you need at virtually no cost.

Circuit training is ideally suited for the outdoors – a basic circuit can be performed by running, jogging or walking for a set period of time, then stopping and performing an exercise that works a specific muscle or muscle group using body weight and the surrounding available resources. A course can be one lap or repeated laps of a park, forest, seafront or local neighbourhood, with set exercises spaced out throughout the course.

Changing Intensity

To make sure you get the most out of your workout, it’s essential that you mix-up the session on a regular basis. If you do the exact same workout each time your results will plateau.

Intensity and duration can be varied in many ways; the most popular is as follows: increase or decrease the intensity or time of the run/jog/walk between each station, select a steep or flat terrain according to the desired intensity, increase or decrease the time or repetitions on each exercise station.

Planning a Fitness Trail

There is no specific layout for a fitness trail. When a site is found make sure to take a walk around, keeping your eyes open for anything that could be used as a station – bench for tricep dips, climbing frame for chin-ups, hills for sprints, flat ground for sit-ups or press-ups etc… The stations can be as basic or advanced as you like, all you have to do is use your imagination. You’ll be surprised what you can use to get a workout when you have an open-mind. So why not get away from all the sweat and smell of your local gym and get some fresh air the next time you want a workout – plan a fitness trail.

For further fitness-related articles, please visit PT Fit4Life.

The copyright of the article Outdoor Fitness Workouts in Fitness is owned by Darryl Wilkinson. Permission to republish Outdoor Fitness Workouts in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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