Do you love to play and move outdoors? I sure do! Below’s an outdoor functional training workout you can do inside but it’s a lot more fun to do outside!
Functional training, what does that mean?
Functional strength training provides exercise variety and additional training benefits that more directly transfer improvements to real-life activities such as cleaning, carrying groceries, picking up your children, gardening, golfing, tennis, you name it!
What’s great about the workout below, is, the only thing required is YOU! No toys, no gym, no excuses! It’s a full body workout you can do outside. Who doesn’t want to be outside when it’s nice out, especially here in the midwest! Outside workouts are so invigorating! You get to soak up the vitamin D, breathe in the fresh air, be out in nature enjoying all it’s beauty. It’s so awesome, and FREE!
Have fun with it and share the goodness! Have your kids, honey, or friend join you. The more the merrier!
WORKOUT
1. Stairs – Lateral Stance
Begin with the outside leg and alternate sides. You can increase the intensity by adding speeding or skipping steps.
2. Incline Push-Ups
Find bench or picnic table. Place the hands on the bench a little wider than your shoulder width. The wider the feet the more stability you have, so you choose. Roll your shoulders down and back, tuck your tail bone, squeeze the butt, legs, and abs, and breathe. Not only is this a great upper body workout, its a great core workout, so don’t forget to flex those ab muscles! Lower your chest towards the bench.
3. Deep Squats
You can use a stair railing, lamp post or any pole for this exercise. Stand a little less than arm’s length away from the pole, feet shoulder width apart and turn your toes out just a tad for a little extra butt work. Squat down as far as you can. Make sure you keep your heels flat on the ground. As you hold that position try pulling the chest towards the pole to create greater extension through the hips and spine. To mix things up, you can hold the squat.
4. Bear Crawls
Make and maintain a table top position and begin to crawl forward for 4 steps, backwards 4 steps, to the right for 4 and then to the left for 4. Stop when you feel your form begin to fall apart. This is a great exercise for your core and shoulder stabilization.
5. Skipping
This was fun and easy when we were kids, and it’s still fun! Not to mention it’s great at bringing the heart rate up! Feel free to mix it up. You can power skip by focusing on skipping higher, skip at different speeds, or do a regular skip for an extended period of time. Make sure you use your arms to help drive the movement. We often forget how much power comes from the arms when skipping and/or running.
Beginner fitness level – do all 5 exercises for 15 seconds each. Intermediate fitness level – do all 5 exercises for 30 seconds each. Advanced fitness level – do all 5 exercises for 1 minute. Elite fitness level – do all 5 exercises until you can’t do them anymore or when your form is compromised. Whatever fitness level you’re at, your goal is to work your way up to 3 sets.
Functional training should be added to your traditional strength training, it’s not a replacement.
As always, make sure you have your doctors approval before doing any workout plan.
Have fun with your workouts and don’t do something you dislike. Life’s too short! Find something you enjoy so you’re more likely to do it. Now get your fanny outside and get moving! And don’t forget to have some fun!
Shine Brightly,
Ali
P.S. Let me know below if you’d like more outdoor workouts.
