Outdoor Fitness

By: Doug Holt, CSCS, MFS

Training outdoors has many advantages the gym cannot offer: sunshine, fresh air, and a feeling of freedom. For many, training outside is the only way to go – rain or shine. The problem I hear most often from people when I talk about training outside is that they just don’t know what to do. This is understandable as you don’t often see late night, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns on how to use your own bodyweight to create a sculpted physique. Why should they, as there is no money in that for fitness or equipment companies.

So what can you do? Throughout the Santa Barbara area, there are several parcourses set in small parks. I can already hear your question: What the heck is a parcourse? A parcourse usually consists of several basic exercises or stations placed in a park or school setting.

The more commonly seen stations are a pull-up or chin-up bar for working the muscles of the back and biceps, a dip bar and push-up bar for targeting the chest and triceps muscles, monkey bars that can be used for a variety of creative exercises, and some sort of stretching station. Luckily, many of the courses in the Santa Barbara area are much more complete than just the few exercise stations I mentioned above.

Knowing what a parcourse does is well and good, but what should you do to make sure you get a good workout? First I’ll go over some of the basic exercises you can do at each of the more common stations, than I’ll provide you with a few workouts to play with when visiting the parcourse.

Pull-up / Chin-up Bar: The pull-up bar can be used for both pull-ups and chin-ups. The most obvious difference to most is just the way you place your hands on the bar. If you put your hands on the bar so your palms are facing you, than you will involve more bicep muscle use, which should make the exercise a little easier for most. On the other hand, if you were to place your hands on the bar so your palms face away from your body, than you would involve less of the biceps and more of the brachioradialis muscle or, more commonly, the forearm. The pull-up bar can also be used to perform hanging leg raises for the hip flexors and lower portion of the abdominal muscles.

Push-up Bar: The push up bar is pretty self explanatory. It’s a bar that is usually raised about 6 inches from the ground. Simply place your arms on the bar and proceed to perform a push-up. Since the bar is raised, your leverage is increased and push-ups should be easier to perform.

Monkey Bars: The monkey bars are very rarely used by adults for exercise and which I feel is a big mistake. The monkey bars provide a great way to strengthen the muscles of the upper back and arms much the same way as discussed in using the pull-up bar above. If you really wanted to build up the shoulder and upper arm musculature, doing parallel chin-ups on the monkey bars is a great way to go (palms facing each other). You can also do close grip chin-ups and pull-ups with the monkey bars allowing you to do more in one station. And for many, simply swinging crossed the monkey bars provides a great workout and dynamic stretch for the upper body.

Squat Posts: These look like round metal rods coming out of the ground and usually have a pole to hold onto in front of them. These posts can be used to step onto and step off, which will work the muscles of the lower body. The higher the step, the more glute (butt) muscle you will utilize. Another popular exercise made possible by these posts is a one-legged squat. This is a tough exercise, but critical for all athletes to perform. Simply stand on the post with one leg, the other at your side and held in the air. I suggest holding onto the post until you have mastered this exercise. Slowly squat down to until the supporting leg is at least parallel (your thighs should be parallel with the ground), do not allow your hanging leg to touch the ground, and than slowly come back up. Switch legs after desired number or reps have been performed and than repeat.

Now that you see some of the basic stations at your local parcourse, how can you use this to create a whole body workout? Here is a sample program for someone just getting started. Adjust the intensity, sets, reps, and frequency to meet your needs. For fat loss, try to mover through each station as quickly as possible. The less rest you give yourself the more energy (calories) you will burn.

Workout A: Full Body Circuit
1. Alternating lunges
2. Chin-ups
3. Bodyweight squat
4. Dips
5. Monkey bar cross over – simply cross through the monkey bars
6. Lunges to the side
7. Pull-ups
8. Calf raises
9. Push-ups
10. Sit-ups
11. Low back extensions

Workout B: Intermediate Back workout
1. Wide grip pull-ups (no rest)
2. Close grip chin-ups (rest 45 seconds)
3. Parallel grip pull-ups on monkey bars (no rest)
4. Bodyweight row on low bar (rest 45 seconds)
5. Reverse shrugs on parallel bars (dip pars)
- Repeat this sequence at least 4 times. This is to be used with a complete full body program.

Well, there you go; a few exercises you can easily do outdoors. Total cost to you for use of the facilities: $0.00