Even with all the rain lately, I’ve managed to write (and do) quite a few really fun outdoor workouts
While working out in a gym or indoors (the living room here is pretty much a gym at this point) is nice, especially in the summer, working outdoors is always a special treat, even in the 90-something degree NC summer. It cracks me up though, since moving here how everyone likes to remind me that “oh well it gets hot here too!” Yeah well, kinda… but it’s been nothing like the past two brutal summers in Florida with the unrelenting humidity (heat AND humidity even at 3AM) and even more unrelenting tourists. Needless to say I can handle the low 90s… not even a problem. There’s some semblence of seasons here, I’m very very grateful.
I’ve always enjoyed trying and making up little non-stop sequences with kettlebells and calisthenics. A few years ago I used to teach and certify others in a program that very heavily focused on creating these types of sequences and part of that has always been in my training. Depending on the exercises chosen, this can be a real brain teaser too!
The next day I had a few people over to train and decided to bring out the Dragon Door Bodyweight Master for the day – while this awesome pull-up bar is not designed for outdoor use, I’ve found a way to partially disassemble it to easily take it outside for the day then easily bring it back indoors. I’ve also been known to stash it in one of the sheds if I feel like I can’t beat the rain. I’ll make a video about the partial disassembly at some point, but the short answer is simply remove the four bolts holding the top bar on, then remove the 4 bolts holding the back brace to the frame. It’s not something I’d want to do daily, but it’s a nice option to have.
After training someone with a similar flow-style workout circuit I decided to make one of my own featuring a few moves I wanted to work on, too. I warmed up with joint mobility, a few mace swings, and then got into it (the video below is a demo of what I did, complete with a silly timelapse section for LOLs). I did the workout with my trusty 24kg kettlebell.
- 5 Goblet squats
- 6 “Spiderman” pushups
- 3 Jump squats
- Crab walk and table top bridge
- Crawl to stand
- 10 Kettlebell swings
I like to do these sequences for a minimum of 5 rounds, but 10 rounds gets really fun and challenging! As a “finisher” of sorts I did a few tire flips and then some dead hangs from from the gymnastic rings in the tree.
Since it’s “Workout Wednesday” according to the internet, here’s another workout! This one happened on a day when I dragged a TON of kettlebells out in the yard, I put together a sequence that would do well with a short carry/walk at the end of each round… so, here’s presenting the:
Bringing Everything Back Inside “It’s Cleanup Time” Circuit Workout
I didnt’ have too much time, but wanted to make the most of it – so after warming up, I set the timer for 20 minutes and the mental goal to go through 4 rounds of the workout (this would allow me to carry a total of 8 kettlebells to the fence while doing a total of 20 very strict–I slowed these down on purpose–pull-ups, 12 double 20kg kettlebell clean and presses, 12 double 20kg kettlebell squats, and 100 kettlebell snatches with my weight class’s RKC snatch test weight (14kg) since I added two extra per side on the last round.
- 5 strict and slow pull-ups (I do thumbless “tactical” pullups, but choose your favorite grip)
- 3x double 20k kettlebell clean and presses (be sure to choose appropriate size kettlebells)
- 3x double 20kg kettlebell front squats
- 12 14kg kettlebell snatches each side
- Grab 2 kettlebells (other than the two 20kg and the one 14kg) and carry them to the fence so I can put them inside…
Afterwards I carried the rest of the items to the fence as part of the cool down.
Needless to say it was time for a break, so today I decided to just do some skill training as active recovery. I’d recently realized that I’d been neglecting free standing handstands which have always been annoyingly difficult for me. Annoying because I’ve been able to do strict handstand pushups against the wall for a while now. Fortunately this backyard is great for handstand practice, and doing some random handstands and cartwheels the other day encouraged me to start working on them again. So far so good! Knife throwing has been pretty difficult for me, but every time I seem to get a little better. I just have one of the better sets of throws in the video below 🙂 This is totally a “highlights reel.”
Really looking forward to a delivery tomorrow – a set of throwing stars from Cold Steel! I’m planning to do an unboxing video too 🙂
Leave a Reply