As I mentioned a little while ago, this summer I’m trying to take my workouts outside. Whether it’s just a run or a walk or a boot camp, it’s just a nice change of scenery to be outside rather than in a stuffy gym. On top of that, there are so many things that can keep your mind occupied while working out, which decreased the chances of becoming bored and quitting early 😉

These are some of my favorite parts of outdoor workouts:

• People watching is awesome
• You can work on your tan
• Forces you to get creative
• Fresh air
• Pretty scenery
• Hills and stairs help with training

Last week, the weather was so hot and humid that my plans for a long (for me) run went out the window shortly into the run. I did manage to do 3 miles, but they weren’t pretty. Since I still had some gas in the tank and was in a mood to push myself, I went to a nearby park and used various pieces of equipment (stairs and benches) there to help give me a butt kicking finisher workout! Note: if you don’t want to run first, I’d do the bootcamp part of the workout 3 or 4 times through for a full body workout.

After doing 10 sets of these:

(they’re steeper than they look!)

I felt like this:

#sweatybeastmode

I’ve thought of some other creative ways to incorporate the stairs into my workout, so that makes me excited to get out there again. I did this on Monday:

• 1 stair run, 10 burpees
• 2 stair runs, 9 burpees
• 3 stair runs, 8 burpees
• etc. until you do 10 stair runs, but instead of doing 1 burpee, do 10 😉

So, the moral of this post is: go find a set of stairs and make them your b*tch! (ok, that was aggressive, but you know what I mean 😉 ).

Questions for you: Does anyone else get motivation to workout when they’re introduced to something new or figure out something new?? What’s your favorite outdoor piece of equipment?