This week your challenge is to Take Your Workout Outside! By now, the weather is getting better. Use that to your advantage and get outside to avoid workout boredom! This can mean bringing your regular treadmill and stationary bike exercises to life by hitting the pavement or trail. It can also mean spicing things up by trying exercises that you just can’t do in a gym or at home.

CHALLENGE 11: Outdoor Workouts. This week you will expose yourself to the elements and take on new terrain by taking your workout outside. Outdoor workouts are really effective because they are usually fun so you don’t realize how long you are working.

RD Fit: Week 11 – – What to Do?

Go outside at least twice a week for your workouts. Look for things that add excitement or challenges and that maintain the level of intensity that you established last week. If you can’t decide what to do, try one of the following activities:

Trail Hiking or Running: Trails offer unlevel terrain and obstacles that will test agility, strength and conditioning. If you know the trail well, try to gradually decrease the time it takes to complete a loop. If you are just learning the trail, walk it first and gradually increase your speed as you become more familiar with the area.

Hills or Stairs: Head to your favorite grassy hill or football field and challenging yourself to run up and either walk or jog down is another great outdoor exercise. Incorporating hills or stairs works the muscles in a different way than just running or jogging on a flat surface like a track or treadmill.

Outdoor Sports: The weather this time of year is also great for joining an outdoor sports league. Try something that you loved in high school like soccer, baseball/softball, rugby, golf (carry your own bags and skip the cart) or touch football. Lots of adult leagues start up in the early Spring so check your town’s recreational facilities or look online for a team near you.

Course Training: Outdoor course training uses a combination of existing elements and some small training equipment like ladders, mini-hurdles and cones to improve speed and agility. Set up a course for yourself that lets you weave through cones, jump over mini hurdles, run agility training drills through your rope ladder, jump through tires, step up on benches or pull up on a jungle gym. Repeat whatever combinations you try three to four times.

RD Fit: Week 11 – – Where are you?

Let’s see where you are in the RD Fit: Lifestyle Challenge program.

With just two full weeks and a maintenance week left to go in the program, the finish line is in sight. Week 11 is about starting to make the promises to yourself that are necessary in order to keep up with the program. Often it is in the last few weeks that participants start to slack off as a reward for all the hard work that has been done. Remember, the best reward you can give yourself is your health, so make yourself that promise.