By Lynn Difley
Taking your workout outdoors is the best way to take full advantage of all that mother nature has to offer as we travel across the country, or take trips on a shorter basis. The RV lifestyle is the best for giving us access to the Great Outdoors Health Club. Taking your workout outside rejuvenates your mind, body, and spirit. Get outside–breathe in fresh air, listen to the sounds of nature, and feel the wind and sun on your skin. Outdoor workouts add a different perspective to your exercise routine, giving your mind and your senses a workout as well as your body. You can adapt your exercise routine to any environment. If you have a forest, use the trees for pushups and rocks for calf raises. Get creative and look around for ways to adapt your gym workouts.
Hike–No matter where you travel, you can find trails. Check before setting out, or ask at your campground headquarters to find the hikes you will enjoy. Hiking on uneven surfaces and over hills and valleys gives you a better workout and is less stressful on your joints.
Take your mountain bike out into the hills. Ask your campground host or a ranger where the mountain bike trails are, and which are not too difficult for your ability.
Kayaking is a great upper body strengthener, and will workout your chest, back, arms, shoulders, and abdomen while giving you a duck’s eye view of the waterways. Many spots rent kayaks, by the hour or day.
Calisthenics. Take your traditional workout outside. You don’t need big hulking machines to get a workout. Do pushups on a tree or park bench, pull-ups on a jungle gym, sit-ups on the grass. Power walk or jog up and down the trails, practice your yoga at the beach. The great outdoors can be your limitless gym facility, inviting you to do everything from pushups to squats in fresh healthy open-air surroundings. We love to set up our weight room right outside the outdoor compartment where the equipment is stored, using the picnic table for our bench, and the birds for our music. If the ground is rough, use some artificial turf to cover it up, and put your mats down for pushups, sit-ups, and floor work. No matter where you are, consider taking your workout outside, and reap the ultimate benefits of our fun, fit life on wheels.
lynn difley
Hi Dennis, you’re right, biking is such fun, thank you for adding on. I’d like to see a picture of you and your 8 bikes on the motorhome. One of my students just recently returned to biking, and because of balance problems she has a giant three wheel recumbent bike, and her husband and a neighbor constructed a fantastic bike carrier that allows not only her three wheeler and his traditional ten speed, but three grandkid bikes to- where there’s a will there’s a way. yours, Lynn
Dennis Anderson
Whoops- went stupid, you did include a line about bikes. Gotta get these bifocals fixed.
Dennis Anderson
Good tips, but you left out my favorite – biking. We always take a bunch of grandkids on our trips. Finding a way to haul 8 bikes on one motorhome has been a challenge (and a workout by itself), but we’ve done it several times.
A highlight of our 2007 trip to Yellowstone was biking the Fairy Falls trail as far as bikes are allowed, then continuing on to the Fountain Flats Drive. There are other bike trails available there too. ‘course I’m glad we only saw elk on that jaunt and no buffalo up close and personal.