Take your training outdoors

In our last interaction with fitness trainer, Prem Mehta, we looked at ‘turbulence training’ which incorporates several cardio routines. So far we have covered exercise routines that we can do indoors. In this issue we’ll look at outdoor training.

TTT: Good to see you again, Prem! What aspect of fitness training are we going to talk about this month?
PM: Hi! I thought I would talk about Outdoor Training. Training becomes very monotonous if we don’t have a change either in routine or location. If I want my clients to enjoy what they are doing and continue maintaining a healthy lifestyle without being bored, I break the routine and introduce them to outdoor training.

TTT: That’s a valid point. So what constitutes outdoor training?
PM: Outdoor training can be beach training, park training or any kind of activity outside the four walls of a room, even the terrace of a building. Such training can be undertaken at any time of the day or night based on the person’s availability and access to the space.

TTT: Beach training sounds interesting!
PM: For those who are fortunate to have access to a beach or a water body, beach training is a great way to train especially in the early morning in summer. There’s no better place than the beach to enjoy fresh air early in the morning. You can do this training in the ‘old-school’ manner, i.e., without shoes. The sand in the morning is also not hot and thus comfortable for the feet.

TTT: What are the benefits of beach training?
PM: The difference between beach training and home training is that in beach training you have a much larger area in which to move and thus you can employ several movements which require space.

The workouts in beach training are similar to those in indoor training but we can employ several variations. For example, we can do side-to-side push-ups where we keep moving our position sideways after very push-up. Another routine we can do easily is the walk-squat wherein we do one squat followed by a step forward followed by another squat and so on. Yet another routine involves walking lunges where we do lunges taking a step forward each time.

The advantage of beach training apart from the fresh air and the open space is the sand itself. The powdery nature of sand makes the workout more intense as you sink into it every time you move and it takes effort to lift your feet for the next movement. One immediate benefit of this is that your muscle mass improves as a result. The same movements you did indoors are tougher to execute on sand and that increases the intensity of the workout.

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