With the pandemic moving some gym workouts to the outdoors, it’s important to upskill your knowledge in body weight training to ensure that your clients get great results.
Outdoor workouts offer a great change in scenery and for many who long hours indoors is a chance to get some fresh air and exposure to sunlight and Vitamin D.
Unique Ways to Train Your Clients Outdoors
1. Create progressive overload
It is easy to increase demand in training when you are inside the gym so that you can see marked improvements in results. This is a little harder to achieve when working outdoors because the only weight you can work with is your client’s total body mass or the limited equipment you can carry.
The easiest way to achieve progressive overload with body weight is manipulate leverage so that you can increase intensity and this can be done by changing the angle of the body to the ground.
a.Push-pull moves
Start with their hands on an elevated surface like benches to make the movement easier. After some time, lover the elevation and have them do push-ups on a flat surface. When they are able to do this with ease, you can elevate their feet to increase the load. Same principle applies with pulling exercises.
b.Single-leg training
With leg training it is always better to focus on one leg at a time, one good workout would be reverse lunges. Instead of increasing the reps, just have your clients do single-leg work. To help with balance, have your client hold on to a tree to be able to do the workout without assistance.
c.Reps and Tempo
Slow down every rep, take longer as you lower the body into a lunge. Your clients should be able to build muscle to increase their metabolism, this will help them get to this point more efficiently.
d.Outdoor equipment
There are a few things that you can use to make outdoor workouts more effective. Dip bars will be good for doing dips and pushups at different angles. Gymnastic rings or TRX will make self-spotting easier and will allow your clients to perform a pullup or a single-leg squat while hanging onto the rings.
2.Use appropriate exercises for the setting
Ask you client their ideal outdoor environment and find out as much as you can from about it before proceeding with working out with your client.
a.At the beach
When at the beach you can have your client run in the sand, the instability will help increase the strength of their feet and ankles. They can do hill sprints in dunes or have them do long-jumps in sand pits if there are any.
b.At the park
You can do glute training using park benches or picnic tables. Hip thrusts and two-legged thrusts are also a good idea when at the park. A box jump is also a good option if your client wants more power and intensity in the workouts.
c.At the playground
Swing sets will be very useful for ab training using the same movement used in a rollout with a Swiss ball or ab wheel. You can also do some pullups and dips using monkey bars.
d.At a hill
Hill sprints are way safer than sprints done on flat ground because it lessens the risk of having hamstring pull. These workouts are still pretty intense so ease your client into it.
e.In the street
For those living in the city, they may not have access to parks and the closest they have to the outdoors is the street. For this setting, you can focus on doing reverse lunges on curbs or doing standing rows using stop signs.
3.Targeting muscle groups
Clients would come to you wanting to target a specific problem area in their body. When doing outdoor workout, have these requests in mind to tailor your client’s workout programs. Be resourceful in alternative equipment that you can use to complete a workout that would usually be done inside your gym.
EXERCISE LIBRARY LINKS
Mens Health – 70 Bodyweight exercises
21 moves to get shredded with little bits of equipment
