OUTDOOR TRAINING
Training in the great outdoors when you don’t have access too, or can’t afford to train at a gym is a fantastic way to increase and maintain your health and fitness.
We are lucky enough to find a great deal of easily accessible parks, beaches and reserves that can all be readily transformed into our own personal training ground.
When training outdoors the most important thing to remember is to dress to the weather, and be prepared for other weather possibilities. This means taking a jumper and even a rain jacket even if its hot and sunny when you step out the doors, or a t shirt even if your rugged up against the morning chill as there is nothing worse then having to call a stop to your training because you are overheating, or too cold. Naturally sun protection is a must as is supportive foot wear especially if you are training on uneven surfaces. Next on the list should be hydration, as you more often then not will find that the only accessible water you can drink is what you can carry, and you need to keep in mind that if your are exercising intensely your hydration needs will climb quite dramatically.
Once you are fully prepared for your outdoor training session, you can then choose the place that your training takes place. Your choice will have an impact and what sort of activities you will be able to do, but as always will be limited only by your imagination.
The simplistic beauty of choosing to train outdoors is that you can use many aspects of the surrounding environment as your training tools. Usually at popular beaches you may find some chin up and sit up bars, you can do push ups and bodyweight squats, a cheap Hessian sack is easily carried taking up almost no room and can be filled with varying amounts of wet sand to quickly increase the resistance for certain exercises. Running waist deep through the water or up the steeper sand hills are their own source of torture and any number of other exercises can be performed by using nothing more then what you find on hand.
Similarly using a national park or bush reserve, you should find a myriad of walking substantial tree truck to lay across your shoulders and perform walking lunges or squats or even standing shoulder presses (Remember to check that nothing is living inside the logs and you are not disturbing any creature’s habitat).
At a local park or oval you may find yourself more limited to things like sprints, or distance running, agility training and even more if there is additional equipment to be found at the track.
Usually you may find that outdoor training lends itself well to a circuit style of training, being continual with little rest performing a variety of exercises.
With the huge amount of places available for us to utilise as training venues there really is no excuse for us not to be able to fit in 30 minutes a day of intense exercise even if we are not members of a gym or owners of any training equipment.
If you have children take them with you and incorporate them into your training, have races with them and make it fun and your whole family will benefit from your time spent in the great outdoors.
