Summer is always a great season when it comes to training; the lighter mornings and longer days make it an ideal time to get in a few extra workouts - and with the added pressure of looking good on the beach - that can only be a good thing.
However these extra workouts don’t have to be laborious jogs around the park every morning. Instead, try and spice up your workouts with some of these outdoor workout ideas.
Bodyweight Circuits
Go and find yourself a quiet spot in your garden/local park and test yourself with some bodyweight exercise circuits. Choose 5-8 exercises such as:
- Press Ups
- Burpees
- Ab Crunches
- Squats
- Lunges
- Squat Jumps
- Planks
- Squat Thrusts
Do 3-5 circuits using 15 reps on each exercise, start off with 90secs rest in between circuits and no rest in between exercises.
Each week try to increase the number of exercises or decrease the amount of resting time between circuits.
Sprints
Rather than just going for the same old jog in the morning, try doing sprint intervals. The high intensity of the sprints will allow for a better workout in much less time.
Find yourself a track or just a stretch of flat grass and sprint for 3-6 sets of 60-100m, depending on your fitness levels. Not only will the sprints be an excellent fat burning workout but also they’re great for toning the gluteus and legs.
Take the Weights Outside
Buy yourself a small barbell weight set or a couple of kettle bells and take your weight training workouts outside. Or for people on a budget, just get yourself some sandbags/old beer kegs/logs and do your usual strength training session with them.
Hill Running
Nothing gets the lungs and legs burning like a hill running session. Quite simply, find yourself a moderately steep hill and start running up it. If it's quite a short hill then use the sprint interval set up mentioned earlier and do 3-6 sets of runs with 40secs rest in between. The steepness of the hill will not only get your heart racing but also get your legs and gluteus burning too, not too mention loosening up any tightness in your hips.
Get Yourself Down to the Beach
The beach can be an excellent place to get a decent work out. By incorporating both the water and the sand you can get a varied and challenging conditioning session.
Using the interval training set up, try swimming for 50m then jogging for 200m and alternate the intensity from a hard swim – light jog, light swim – sprint, for 10-20mins depending on your fitness level.
For the group training session, playing Frisbee/ball games in the water will always get the heart racing and muscles working, plus, it will cause the body to exaggerate normal movements, increasing your mobility in commonly tight areas such as the hips and ankles.
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