Outdoor Workouts

Fantastic, warm summer weather means you can save money by canceling (or pausing) your gym membership and taking your workouts outside.  I used to be a little apprehensive about this idea because I felt my toning exercises lacked direction without an instructor, but then I discovered the wonderful world of YouTube (and its 4, 7, 10, 30, and 60 minute ab videos), as well as downloadable videos, and my personal favorite for the sake of being able to do these outdoors: magazine exercise cutouts.  Self magazine has these awesome cutouts, each showing a different toning move to be done in sets of 20. There are 9 moves, and you do the circuit 3 times (3 reps of sets of 20 for each move). I tore the flashcards out and took them with me to the park, and to my surprise, nobody stared or laughed or threw things at me while I went from burpees, to under-the-knee claps, to lunges, to jumping squats, to twist jumps, to...well you get it, I worked out.  Then I skipped on my speed rope for 30 minutes, and then I went home limping because it was a very great, tough workout.  I feel just as sore as I used to feel in my boot camp or core classes, and best of all I really feel like I got the most out of the warm, sunny day. Sure, I would've loved to chill with a mango daiquiri on a patio somewhere, but I had a giant brownie for breakfast (on top of an already greasy dish prior to that), so I had work to do before kicking back!

I would definitely recommend the Self Drop 10 Challenge workouts that are in every monthly Self magazine (and they're always different, so you get to switch it up every 4 weeks!), and don't worry about not getting enough of a challenge when working out on your own - these will definitely make you sweat.  Combine with a cardio session (skipping or running) for a real toughie ;)