The gym-worshipping crowd is losing to outdoor workout enthusiasts as exercise regimens get more liberating. This workout sub-culture started a few years ago. Today, from pro-level athletes to weight-watchers, among the cardio addicted and cross-fit beginners to the calorie-burning obsessed, contemporary workouts are breaking the norm, choosing the outside over air-conditioned interiors. This trend is turning innocent playgrounds, sleepy backyards, and under-used entryways into exercising zones. However, there is something that the lifestyle bloggers are not talking about. Even the fitness gurus seem hesitant to mention that there are many serious threats lurking out there. Read ahead to understand how you need to protect yourself and your family when exercising outdoors.
1. The Most Commonly Preached Basics – Always Know Your Terrain
It is a common practice among workout aficionados to carefully examine the indoor gyms and studios before choosing their spot or corner. The same should be carried forward for outdoor spaces. If you are opting for the outdoors to be your workout environment, careful measures should be taken while looking at the equipment or the lack of it. Machines, no matter how well protected and treated are prone to corrosion and can bring about technique glitches or slips and falls. Hence, checking-out the humidity levels is important. During winters and in the rainy season, outdoor exercise equipment and the surface below can be very slippery. If you are looking for something exceptional, like a truly unique exercising area around a hiking track, mountain site, or near a forested region, be very careful about the terrain because it might put-up the most unexpected problems. For marathon runners, a green countryside with long roads looks tempting, sudden temperature drops could be a problem. For athletes requiring an HIIT workout session, a rocky mountain site looks like the ideal place but unknown natural obstacles can lead to severe pressure/impact on the joints, bringing about injuries.
2. Sun Hazards Can Be Worse Than Perceived
One of the many attractions of working-out in the open include the joyous scenery, fresh air, open spaces, and plenty of sunlight that helps to boost vitamin D levels. While all these things are scientifically proven to help regulated physical and mental functions of the body, there are hidden hazards like excessive sunlight that can cause complications like heat rashes, severe exhaustion, sun burns, heat strokes, and even muscle cramps. If you plan to use the refreshing outdoors for exercise, ensure there is some back-up for weather-related challenges like heat, rain, excessive sweating, and also carry any emergency medication that might not be available in areas far-fetched from urban populations.
High-intensity sunburns often require emergency room visits – extended workout under a bright sun without protection & hydration can be recipe for a workout disaster!
For intense workout sessions near the wilderness, carry different types of fluids including water, BCAAs, pre & post workout drinks, and energisers. Protective clothing can also be carried as an option while hitting the weights or running on a rough track. Choose apparels that have proven outdoor protection performance such as UV ray protection – BugShield Clothing has been grabbing attention as the provider of high-level protection-wear for the entire family.
3. Insects – Small in Size but with Gigantic Damage Potential
This is perhaps the most ignored aspect of working-out outdoors. While people in the gym are also advised to ensure that the electric mosquito repellent is switched-on, it seems people exercising in the open tend to forget that the insect threat is much bigger, at its maximum, in the outdoors. You don’t need to study or ask about the potential insects and how likely you are to encounter a fleet of blood-sucking mosquitoes. Ignore all inputs that tell you not to feel anxious about mosquito bites. Be alert about the threat of stings from bees, wasps, and hornets or bites of ants, ticks and midgets. The health-scare from insect bites can range anywhere from mild rash and to severe skin allergies, Lyme disease, malaria and dengue.
Insects, especially mosquitoes, are attracted towards people who are working out. The generous amount of CO2 released while exercising, high body temperature and the odour of sweat attracts mosquitoes!
Marketplace studies and research data clearly suggests that using roll-ons, skin dabs, patches, sprays and mosquito coils does not prove effective enough against most insects, i.e. Indoors and/or Outdoors! Therefore, it makes sense to create thumb rules irrespective of where you are working-out. This essentially means using an insect protraction medium that does not under-perform due to variations in climate, temperature or the immediate environment. BugShield Clothing has surfaced as the ideal answer to such problems with its range of protective, insect-repelling apparels that repel the hungriest mosquitoes. The insect-repelling capabilities of such clothing does not wear-off even when the kids get sweaty or play outdoors under the hot sun or in muddy conditions.
Some Last Pearls of Wisdom…
To conclude the discussion, we are quickly sharing some more precautions and better choices you should adopt when working-out outdoors:
- Try to wear light coloured clothing as insects are attracted towards dark shades
- Be light on the workout gear and the stuff you are carrying
- If the workout will include yoga/meditation, invest in carrying yoga mats to get a safe, snug seating
- Don’t pick or cut plants you don’t know about, they can be poisonous
- Don’t drink water from a stream just because it looks ‘natural’
- Carry some dry tissue that might become inevitable if nature calls unexpectedly
And lastly, if you going to try an outright challenging landscape that is difficult to locate even on Google Maps, inform somebody about your whereabouts.