Outdoor and body weight exercises
Marcus Fam, Head of uFit Bootcamps, shares his top five exercises you can do outdoors with no equipment required.
Fitness Tip 1: Lunges
Not only does working the legs expend more calories due to recruiting a higher amount of motor units, who doesn’t want to have nice legs?
Try incorporating lunges in sprint intervals as part of your active recovery. Always keep your chest and shoulders upright and your spine in neutral while lunging. As with all resistance exercises, the focus should be on the muscles, not the joints. Perform a full range of motion and avoid bouncing or jerking. If your legs are burning, congratulations, keep going!
Fitness Tip 2: Sprints
Lots of bootcampers are ace runners, but for those who aren’t keen to clock in 10km runs or more, give a go at sprinting. So we’re not talking about aerobic running. Full-on anaerobic sprints that leave you gasping for air and leave your legs jelly. Try 60m – 200m sprints. 8 sets, with no more than 3 minute rest periods. If you have a hill, spectacular, knock yourself out!
With the added benefit of building muscle along with speed, sprinting helps you build and define your glutes, hamstrings and quads, while at the same time burning off the fat layers that hide under the muscles. Sprint training is the most explosive training you can do.
Fitness Tip 3: Burpees
There’s a reason why bootcampers groan when they hear the sheer mention of the word. It’s perhaps the most compound of exercises and combines a squat, push up, squat thrust & plyometric jump all in one. It’s great for cardiovascular fitness and strength training. Try doing 100 a day, throughout the day. Nothing like having burpees for breakfast!
Fitness Tip 4: Push-ups
This gets on the list not just because of its simplicity but also because of the fact that it allows various degrees of intensity.
Always maintain a strong core and neutral lower back. Bring your chest to the ground and use your chest and triceps to push yourself off the ground. If you’re strong enough, push the earth away from you. Moreover, if you're upto it, be brave and try some variations!
Fitness Tip 5: Mountain climbers
Another top exercise which hits various body parts, including the core. Try hitting a set of 20 reps immediately after push-ups. Always maintain a neutral spine and tight core throughout the exercise (hips should not be moving up and down).
A variation of this would be to draw the knee to the opposite elbow (left knee to right elbow, vice versa) for greater recruitment of the obliques.
If performed correctly, mountain climbers will not just get your core firing – but triceps, hip flexors, and shoulder stabilisers smashed as well.
By uFit, a MyDoc fitness partner. This article was published on MyDoc's blog
