5 Reasons to Take Your Exercise Routine Outdoors

Sick of the gym and the same exercise routine you’ve been doing all winter? Spring is here, and summer is finally right around the corner. As the weather continues to warm up and sun stays out longer, now is the perfect time to take your exercise routine outdoors!

We all love the newness and a fresh start with the change in the seasons including a change in your workout and exercise routine. Take out the staleness, monotony, and amp it up with some new inspiration.

Here’s 5 reasons to take your workout outside.

1. Brave the Elements:

The elements of your environment can increase the intensity of your workout, take in your atmosphere and add some obstacles like wind, snow, and heat to give you a challenge.  Bike during a heavy rain or paddle board when the winds are high and the water is choppy. Got a humid day? Run in the afternoon when the temperatures are even hotter. Why not try swimming laps in the ocean with a big swell!

2. Vitamin D and Fresh Air:

After being stuck inside all winter, a little Vitamin D, sunshine, and fresh air can always do everyone some good.  Vitamin D is essential for healthy bones and muscles and it can also help reduce illnesses and infections. Think about how much better you feel when you step outside on a warm sunny morning? We tend to have better moods and improved well-being, more energy and motivation, and feel a lot better about ourselves and our body image.

3. Challenge Yourself:

Take it to the extremes, change it up, skip the same boring exercise routine. Challenge yourself! Live near the mountains? Use them for intensity, altitude, and temperature changes. Live near the beach? Use the sand, sun, and surf to up your game. Grab a friend for a little competition and extra push, race the clock or decrease your resting time. Give yourself a deadline, visualize your goals, extend the finish line, even changing your mindset can add more challenges to your work outs.

4. Skip the Germs:

Getting outside for your workout can greatly reduce the exposure to all the germs that you’ve been befriending in the gym all winter. Think about all those coughing, sneezing, sweating people you’ve been sharing treadmills, mats, and equipment with for all those dark, cold months. Trade up for the fresh air, sunshine, and a lot less people in a confined space. Getting outside more can help you avoid everything from the stomach bug to ringworm and from Staph infections to Ecoli. (Ewww!)

5. Try Something New:

Step out of your comfort zone and try something new! Look for something you wouldn’t normally do for exercise. Grab your tutu and sign up for a color run, meditate ocean side, go old school and dust of the old roller skates or rollerblades, or sign up for those group surf lessons you’ve been dying to try. Take a Pilates class on the beach or boot camp in a park. Go the sports route and jump into a basketball or volleyball game. Want to go more extreme? Try kite surfing or rock climbing, or how about checking out the new trapeze workouts.

So skip the gym and the germs, and hit the streets, beach, or mountains for some extra challenges and soak up some sunshine and fresh air. Get out of your comfort zone and try something new this season, you may possibly find the exercise can’t live with out.

 

 

 

 

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Pilates for a New You & a New Body!

So it’s February! How are you doing with your fitness and weight-loss goals? Over 80% of people who set New Years goals to lose weight or to get back in the gym have already given up or completely frustrated and bored with the gym. Muscles have memory and when you do the same exercises over and over without challenging them, they reach a plateau. Finding other ways to change the way your body moves, balances, gains flexibility, and more fluidity is just a few ways to challenge the body and the muscles to work differently than they normally would.

You don’t have to become a gym rat to be healthy and strong. Changing up your workout also makes your mind have to work as well. As with Pilates, Yoga, and Chi Gong, the mind becomes part of the practice and exercise. You challenge the mind to work the muscles, in the mean time you build body-awareness and a mind-body connection.

Joseph Pilates, founder and inventor of Pilates said, “in 10 sessions you’ll feel the difference, in 20 you’ll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you’ll have a completely different body.” As a Pilates instructor for over 9 years now, I’ve seen my body change and heal as well as hundreds of my clients that can attest to how incorporating Pilates into their everyday or weekly workouts have changed their posture, balance, flexibility, muscle tone, core strength, and decreased their pain levels from injuries and chronic illness. Want that long lean body, with a slender waistline and great muscle tone? Pilates is how you can attain it!Best thing about  Pilates is, it can be done anywhere, in a studio, a gym, a hotel, in your own home,or even on the beach.

I teach on the beaches of Maryland and Delaware during the summer months. There’s nothing like taking a class first thing in the mornings, with your toes in the sand, as the sun has just begun to rise, and listening to the waves crash on the beach. You get the movement with the serenity all in one package! I’ve had a lot of my clients ask me how they can get “me” back to the city with them or they wish I could travel to be closer to them during the winter months. If only it was that easy, right? So this fall we decided to bring the beach to everyone that can’t be near one, whether it’s because you live in the middle of the country, you’re back in the city till summer returns, or maybe you’re stuck in “Snowmageddon” every winter! 😦

We’ve released our first Beach Pilates Pilates Mat Workout DVD so now you can work out on the beach right in the comfort of your own home! So exciting right?! Class is for beginner to intermediate levels. Modifications have been added to decrease or intensify your workout. You can do the entire class, or if you only have 15-20 minutes and want to get some movement in, the warm up series will get you warmed up and the blood pumping. Want to find out more information about it? Check out one of our sites Farm Foodie Fitness  or Beach Pilates and Wellness. You can also grab one there too! Here’s to a year of health and happiness. I hope everyone’s ambitions and future goals are well on their way to being accomplished!!

The Best Regimen For College Fitness

This is perfect for all you young ones headed to college in the next few weeks!! Such an exciting time in life to be headed off to college. I remember leaving for Clemson like it was yesterday! I could not wait to get out of my hometown and get as far south as my big feet could carry me. As healthy as I have always been, believe me once I stepped foot on that southern campus- I was in freshman hog heaven! Late night pizza runs, Chic-fil-A, (this was way before they were up north!) heavy dinners in the cafeteria, Clemson football tailgates, lake parties, you name it I was eating and sure enough, I put on the freshmen 15 in 6 months!

And exercise? As active as I was I barely made it to the gym most weeks because it was too easy to get caught up in all the fun. So when I was asked if I would allow a guest post for all those new freshman and young adults headed back to college to help them live a healthier lifestyle I jumped at the opportunity and remembered the fun and carefree days I had not too long ago 😉 So all you crazy college kids headed back to school or starting off somewhere new this year, enjoy your time away and growing stronger and wiser. And to all those parents sending away their babies and worried that they’ll take care of themselves, here’s a little guide to help you stay healthy and live your life to the fullest.

Guest post attributed to The Best Colleges. Make sure to check out their site too!