About Outdoor Fitness
A growing body of research is giving us even more compelling reasons to heed our desire to get outside. Discover why time spent in nature is time wisely invested in personal well-being. Putting our entire selves into direct contact with nature might offer us even more profound benefits. Indeed, time outdoors has been proven to have beneficial effects on blood pressure, brain waves and cholesterol levels. It has also been proven to boost immunity and to promote a good night’s sleep. Outdoor activities encourage deeper breathing, which relaxes muscles and infuses the body with oxygen.
Getting adequate exposure to sunshine helps your body manufacture vitamin D, which plays a role in preventing health problems like bone and muscle weakness and pain, and autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Called the “sunshine vitamin,” vitamin D encourages the body’s absorption of calcium.
And those “feel good” chemicals in the brain created by outdoor activities? “We’ve shown that artificially produced negative air ions significantly benefit both seasonal and non-seasonal depression,” says Columbia University researcher Michael Terman, PhD, who has overseen controlled studies of artificially produced negative air ions delivered to subjects experiencing clinical depression. Naturally occurring negative ions are found in the greatest concentrations in the mountains, near the crashing ocean surf, near waterfalls and rushing streams and in the clean air after a thundershower.
Going outside is immediately rejuvenating. It doesn’t take days and weeks. Just one experience of feeling open to the elements — waterfalls and streams, wind and sun — can make a difference.
In our outdoor workouts fallen logs become the base for bodyweight exercises and balance drills, tree branches become fixtures for our resistance tubes. Uneven terrain further enhances strength and creates kinesthetic awareness. The soft forest floor is our platform for tai chi and yoga. The result: feeling refreshed, energized and uplifted.
