What I’ve Learned in Four Months of Outdoor Sports
Since the gyms closed in March, I’ve been training at home. And since there is no suitable place in my house for many of the exercises that I love to do, I mostly did the lifting outdoors. Here’s what I learned.
Find the right place
Everything in the gym is as it is. At home, you choose where to do the exercises. I was hoping to get it up in my garage, but the ceilings are too low. If I raise my arms above my head, I must be careful not to bump into the garage door opener. If I want to hold something larger than a dumbbell, I have to take it outside.
And this is where things get more complicated than you might expect. I don’t need much: just a platform and a barbell. But there are still problems.
First, my driveway is bumpy and gravel. This is fine for some lifts, but for others I need a smooth and solid surface. Okay , I have a stall mat . I can pull it out.
Secondly: the territory is generally flat, but not perfect. It took a bit of trial and error to find the right place to install the rug.
You also want to know your surroundings. If I drop the barbell, where will it go? My sweet spot is away from cars, home, trash cans, and wherever children tend to play or walk. Now, if I drop the barbell behind me, which sometimes happens with jerks, it will roll over. But there is a line of shrubbery that will keep it from rolling into my neighbors’ yard, so we’re fine. Here’s what you need to think about.
Keep track of the weather and your light
It is not interesting to raise when the sun is shining in your eyes, and it is a pity to raise when the sun beats you down. I quickly realized that my favorite place is only in the shade if I get up before about 10 am or after five. (These are approximate figures and vary with the season.)
The weather, of course, also needs to be monitored. Before I take all my belongings outside, I make sure that it won’t rain for an hour. I definitely had days rushing to finish all my elevator sets before the storm clouds rolled in.
It’s important to have a rain plan. In fact, it started raining yesterday right before my workout. But it was Wednesday, and I knew that Thursday workout could be done indoors, so I changed those two days in my schedule. If it rained for several days in a row, I would have to make more radical changes. My workout in the rain is power cleansing and seated presses, both of which I can do indoors. If I didn’t have a garage, I would instead do yoga or dumbbell accessories that I could do in my living room.
Have shelter from the weather between sets
This might not be a problem if you’re doing circuit training or CrossFit, but we weightlifters and powerlifters need to take luxurious three to five minute breaks between sets.
In the spring, when it was cold, between filming, I would go to the camping chair in the garage. I threw the sweatshirt over my shoulders and drank coffee from a thermos.
Now that it’s hot, I have the same camping chair, but now a fan is blowing right on it. I drink water or, if I feel sore at the end of my workout, sometimes frozen bananas.
Beware of dangers in the open air
Here’s what I didn’t expect: In wet weather, my equipment takes time to warm up. The rug still stays cool after being in a partially air-conditioned garage, so as soon as it gets into the hot summer air, condensation starts to form on it – the same phenomenon you see with an ice jug of lemonade. On particularly wet days, it takes a good half hour or so before the mat is dry enough and I don’t have to worry about slipping when I do the split jerks.
Other hazards depend on your climate. Kettlebells and other equipment may feel hot or cold to the touch after spending time outdoors. You may need to be wary of falling pine cones or overhead branches. I saw chipmunks and birds trying to break into my garage when I had the door open during training.
Don’t go back to the house
My house is full of people. I have a husband and three children, and they usually wake up and eat breakfast while I do my morning workout.
For a while, there were pull-ups in my program. We have a pull-up bar in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. But getting inside is a trap. Children will want something from you. If you don’t have children, you can sit on the sofa or watch the TV. It’s best not to leave your home until your workout is complete.
So I found a place to do chin-ups outside. If I didn’t succeed, I would replace another exercise, such as the deadlifts, or, as a last resort, exclude them from my regular workout and schedule a workout with only pull-ups for lunch or sometime in the evening.
It’s weird while he’s not at home
The first few weeks of outdoor training were just weird . All sounds, sights and smells were different. My bumper pads didn’t bounce like they always do at the gym. I had to watch the children out of the corner of my eye. Everything seemed wrong.
But I resisted the urge to skip workouts or dodge lifts that were outside of my comfort zone (for some reason, I found the jerks and jerks really unnerving at first when I was doing this outdoors). Whenever I was upset about the inconvenience, I reminded myself that throughout history, people have accumulated strength in much worse and stranger situations than I have. I kept showing up.
And after a while, I felt more comfortable. By now I even like it . My gym opened and I thought I’d be tempted to go back, but all I did was build myself a squat rack when I realized I was going to be home for a long time. This is home. My red camping chair in the garage with water or coffee in the cup holder, this is my home. The place where I set up the tripod when I shoot the shape check video is my home. The exact place, four feet by six feet, where do they put my rug every morning? This is also a house.