Exercise In The Great Outdoors

For many of us, winter, with its cold days and dark nights, means holing ourselves up indoors, stocking up on comfort foods and waiting for those brighter days to return…Even amongst those determined not to fall into the trap of winter sloth, the prospect of outdoor exercise in the chillier weather understandably has very little appeal.

Well, at last, spring has finally sprung and we can once again venture into the great outdoors. And what better way to enjoy freedom from our incarceration than by using the feel-good factor created by sunshine, warmth and fresh air?

There are tons of reasons to get outside to exercise…

It’s free! Walking, running, cycling, swimming, climbing and even yoga and t’ai chi were all intended to be performed outside with the minimum of equipment and, as such, cost us very little.

Compare this with the average cost of gym membership at £550-1,000 per year, and exercising outdoors suddenly becomes very attractive!

It’s healthy Even when factors like pollution and accidental injury are taken into account, the outdoors has more to offer than the gym. For example, the vitamin D gained from natural sunlight, the fresh air (as long as you’re not road-running in the city) and freedom of movement beat the strip lights and air-conditioning of the gym any day.

Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that many ‘top’ health clubs are now charging us through the nose to visit ‘oxygen rooms’, when we can have all the oxygen we want just by stepping outside? Sounds like a case of emperor’s new clothes to me!It’s better for you In my opinion, much of the flashy equipment in our gyms actually contributes to postural distortion, inflexibility and muscle weakness! That’s right, your exercise machines may be making you less ‘functionally fit’ as a result of role-reversal within the muscles of your body.

A classic example of this is treadmill running, where we run on a moving belt rather than static ground. In this case we dominate the movement with our thighs and hip flexors, while barely using the gluteal muscles or hamstrings. Plus the ‘low impact’ nature of some machines means there’s a lack of demand placed on the skeletal system.

By contrast, the ‘real world’ offers us just the right amount of muscle stimulation, impact and load-bearing to create long-term benefits for our health.

It burns more calories Exercising outdoors requires us to overcome gravity, ground reaction forces and environmental factors such as wind, heat and cold, as well as changes in terrain. Due to these ever-changing demands our bodies are required to use more muscles than in comparable gym-based exercises and as a result more calories are used up. Great if weight control or fat loss is a concern!

It’s so much more fun! There’s no getting away from it, gym-based exercise can become dull. Running, rowing or cycling for 20 minutes at a time, as well as repeatedly counting to 10 on resistance machines can lose its appeal.

Instead, why not try the real thing?

You can’t beat a bike ride or a run through forest trails, hiking through the countryside or climbing a mountain for getting that real sense of achievement. Regardless of how far you go, there’s something very satisfying about reaching a destination.

And you don’t have to confine your activity to those that involve getting mucky either (though those are my personal favourites!). Any of the following can be great fun, yet provide huge health and fitness benefits if you do them regularly enough:

Basically, the list is endless. Pretty much anything that can be done indoors can also be done outside, yet provides much more fun, burns more calories and offers so much more freedom and versatility.

So, before you go rushing off to renew your gym membership, consider incorporating some outdoor time into your training plan. After all, the good weather won’t be with us forever, so why not use it before we lose it?