Everyone understands why exercise is important both physically and mentally but lacing up those sneakers and getting out there is another story. As the weather becomes milder during the fall season, conditions are ideal for outdoor exercise. Here are a few reasons why you may want to switch up your exercise routine and move some of your workouts outdoors while the weather is so nice:
Being Outdoors Helps Fulfill Vitamin D Needs:
One benefit that really separates exercising indoors compared to outdoors is the difference in vitamin D exposure. Vitamin D is absorbed through spending time in the sunlight. There are alternative ways to get vitamin D, however, the sun is one of the best (and easiest) sources to obtain it. Vitamin D not only helps to regulate the amount of calcium & phosphate that is in the body, but it also helps to keep your bones, teeth and muscles sustained.
Provides Variation to Regular Routine
Switching up your exercise routine can have many benefits for the body overall. Incorporating outdoor exercise can really help give you a chance to try new things, which can help you avoid common overuse injuries. For example, doing walking lunges up a hill gives a shock to different muscle groups and areas of the body; stabilizer muscles are activated more regularly as the terrain is on an incline. Being outside for exercise will also switch up your training environment. Fresh air is not only good for your body, but for your mind as well.
Provides Other Health Benefits that Indoor Gyms Cannot:
Aside from the added benefit of access to vitamin D, exercising outdoors gives us many other health benefits as well. Mentally, exercising outside is a fantastic de-stressor on top of helping to lower blood pressure. Being outside also helps play a role in reducing levels of insomnia and can allow for better overall sleep. Exercising outside can also provide you with access to fresh air–not air-conditioned air that is being breathed in and blown around a hot, sweaty gym full of other people. Working out outdoors also allows you to burn more calories purely from the environment that you are in alone.
Dr. Barbara Edwards, a Princeton MD is the Academic Director for the Ambulatory Residency Program at Penn Medicine Princeton Health, providing quality care to uninsured and under-insured New Jersey residents in Mercer and Middlesex counties.