Although Memorial Day weekend may be the start of the summer season in our eyes, June 20, 2021, is the official start of summer. Here is what the first day of summer 2021 means for you and your fitness goals.
Depending on which part of the country or world you live in, the warm weather may have already arrived. Here in Southern California, we are spoiled, and it seems like almost every day is warm and sunny.
The warmer weather in the Northern Hemisphere now allows you to take your workouts outside and take advantage of the great outdoors.
Take Your Summer Fitness Goals Outdoors
Fitness and wellbeing mean something different to everyone. However, I think we all can agree that our planet is beautiful, and taking our workouts outdoors is a fantastic way to vary your routine.
Before I get heckled too much for this statement, let me clarify that each piece of equipment and type of exercise is specifically different and used for various training effects. If you want to grow your muscle size, you must resistance and strength train.
To improve your cardiovascular capacity, you must elevate your heart rate and challenge your heart and lunges. However... our body doesn't know the difference between exercise modalities.
- Resistance band vs. a dumbbell
- Outdoor hike vs. an indoor cycle bike
- Reformer pilates vs. bodyweight training
Our body recognizes effort and intensity.
Effort and intensity relate to how challenging and heavy the workout is and the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). Frequent ridicules against outdoor workouts are that they are generally easier than training in a traditional gym setting.
Take your workout outdoors and match the effort and intensity to replicate the training effect. Performing ten reps of a barbell bench press compared to a banded chest press to failure will elicit the same effects on the body.
The biomechanics (movement) of these two exercises are indeed different. However, the physiological effects of ten reps to failure on the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones are pretty similar.
Similarly, using indoor cardio equipment compared to swimming, hiking, or riding a bike outdoors will be very similar. We utilize different muscles to use an elliptical instead of swimming; however, try not to get hung up on specializing in only one modality.
Vary Cardio-Based Summer Workouts
Vary your cardio-based workouts to challenge your muscles in different movements to take advantage of the summer weather. For example, when I take a break from riding my indoor cycle bike and go for a hike, I always feel stronger for my next rides. This could provide the push you need to get over any plateau you may be experiencing.
Switching your summer workout for the day, week, or months to enjoy the outdoors while replacing the activity with something similar will nearly have the same effect. So, I challenge you to substitute an indoor workout with something comparable outdoors.
With the unofficial start to summer here, it is time to vary your workouts and enjoy the outdoors. We all know how stale indoor, at-home workouts can become. But, we also became incredibly innovative and creative with finding fitness solutions.
Summer Fitness Motivation Tips
Here are some of our previous outdoor workouts blog articles to inspire you.
Take this same creative ingenuity and find a local park, field, backyard, or trail and substitute it for what you had previously planned. What I think you will learn from doing this is the workout was just as challenging, and being in nature is highly fulfilling.
In addition, nature has many positive and powerful effects on your mood, stress, and memory, to name a few. Combine these benefits with the results of your workout, and you will walk away feeling wondrous.
Perform these total body strength workouts outdoors. Share and tag us on any of our social channels during your next summer outdoor workout!
