Outdoor Workout Collection - Fitness Coach Guide

It happens every year: The weather gets warmer, the daylight lasts longer, and the stuffy gym sounds more and more unappealing. But since spring-like weather is also a sign that bikini season is right around the corner, skipping your gym session to sip cocktails at happy hour won't get you any closer to revealing those tight, toned abs (or to reaching any health or fitness goal).

The good news is you can still skip the gym and get an effective total-body workout. We asked top fitness pros to share some of their favorite ways to blast calories outside (typical answers like cycling and rollerblading were not accepted). Check out their awesome ideas below to get out of that turtleneck and into that bikini—pronto!

It's time to embrace the sun and get outside while you strength train. You can print every single one of these no-equipment workouts (or just pull them up on your phone) to take with you the next time you want to get out of the stuffy gym and strengthen those muscles. These workouts are especially fun to do after a good long run so you can skip the warmup, but they also work well alone. No matter how you decide to do these, it's time to get outside and get inspired!

More: 7-Minute Jump Rope Circuit for Core Strength

How important are genetics? How many sets should I do? And why are the guys in the park who seem to do only chin-ups so much more ripped than I am? These are some of the age-old questions on the mind of every guy who ever wanted to build muscle. We can’t tackle the first two right now, but we think we may have the answer to the third. You can build slabs of muscle without a gym, fancy equipment, or heavy weights—while simultaneously getting a tan and soaking up some vitamin D. Here’s your summer training plan.

HARD-CORE JUNGLE GYM
First of all, those “guys in the park” don’t do just chin-ups. You can train every muscle using just your body weight—which is what Queens, NY, native Hit Richards has done since 1996. Though he’s experimented with more conventional training, Richards—who’s 39, weighs 182, and is our model for the exercises on these pages—swears body weight training is best, and today relies purely on calisthenics (apart from some use of resistance bands and a jump rope). He’s the founder of Calisthenics Kingz, a company he started in 2007 to popularize what he calls “a different, more entertaining, more challenging form of fitness.”

By “extreme stuff” he means the kind of cool, show-offy body weight exercises you rarely see outside of a Cirque du Soleil tent: muscle-ups, handstand pushups, the human flag (where you grab on to a vertical object and raise your body till it’s parallel to the ground). Even if you’re a world away from doing fancy moves like these, Richards says a basic calisthenics regimen will serve you well. “The injury risk factor is much less than with weights,” he says. Plus, you can do body weight workouts virtually anywhere, from your house to a hotel room. Of course, being that it’s summer, we want you to go outside, which is why the following workouts—prescribed by Richards—are perfect for a park, or anywhere else you can find a sturdy bar to hang from.

The other big advantage body weight training has over free weights is that nearly every exercise is “closed-chain,” meaning that your working limbs exert force in a fixed position—such as against a chin-up bar or on the ground. Exercises like bench presses and curls are open-chain movements—the bar or dumbbells move freely in the air. Closed-chain exercises require more overall muscle activation and core strength, which accounts for the densely muscled physiques of gymnasts and wrestlers (who often never touch a barbell). These workouts also emphasize volume and conditioning. Because you won’t be straining with max weights, you need to stimulate your muscles with a large number of reps, a wide variety of angles, and short rest periods. This is the ticket to getting the ultra-lean, hard look of an acrobat or gymnast.