fitness in public

Fitness is coming out in the open, it’s back to basics and no-nonsense. You wonder yearh, what’s so special about that? Nature and the outdoor has always been for free for everybody to use almost any way they want. Well the new thing is that people get out of the fitness club and out into the open and free public space or nature. The hottest training method is Bootcamp it’s derived from American military training programs and includes simple exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges and jumping jacks and running short distances. It’s a full body work-out without any use of machines.

Run2Day group in the Voorveldsepolder, Utrecht

citypark, Austin

Recently I participated in a session of outdoor fitness in my local park, I had been persuaded by my not-so-sporty husband, that this was really a great way of exercise. And I must say it really was great. Mickey from Komvandiebankaf did a great job. Around 8PM we gathered in the park, the temperature was close to 0ºC and it was already dark, not the most encouraging conditions.We did some running, some push-ups, some poweryoga flows, and we used each-other as buddies to do different short and quick exercises to train our stamina. And there was fresh fruit and small-talk afterwards. Of course you couldn’t help but notice the starring glares from people passing us in the park, it was a rather unusual view on Monday evenings.

It was a very refreshing way of exercising, it feels so much more real and authentic to be outdoors to run and to do exercises without machines. I have always loved running outdoors in nature, but the combination with the exercises makes it even better because more muscles and parts of your body get trained. Of course there are places where the city-council has placed some bars etc to encourage you to exercise during your run, but they seem generally to be poorly used. As you are not a bunch of people closed up in a confined space there also seems to be much less look-at-me behavior. And the only ones looking at you seem to be the passers-by. They are probably just jealous

I would like to believe that we are seeing the birth of a new kind of fitness movement.