Take It Outside
Outdoor Exercise Classes Are In This Spring
by Shelby Murphy

The lemon-colored sun hangs lightly in the sky, awakening tender buds on the branches and the seasonal desire within each of us to come outside and play. It’s spring time again, and our spirits yearn to escape the confines of four walls. When the office, the house or the gym start feeling too small or just uninspiring, we know it’s time to get out, stretch and move in the natural world, the way our bodies were intended.

The main benefit of exercising outdoors is intuitively obvious; we just feel better. Breathing in fresh air and absorbing the beauty that surrounds us can’t help but make us feel more complete. But there’s a biological component to it as well. Outdoor exercise and exposure to sunlight improves our mood by triggering the production of serotonin, an anti-depressant hormone. Spending time in the sun also helps our bodies produce vitamin D, necessary to absorb calcium and phosphorus, two crucial elements for healthy bones. Experts say that vitamin D also slows down the growth of cancer cells and fights infection. And if that isn’t enough, ultraviolet light also helps our bodies break down cholesterol.
But beyond the enjoyment factor, or the multitude of health benefits, exercising outdoors can also be kind of like training for life itself. As anyone who has ever run on a treadmill and then run outdoors can attest, the outside environment is certainly more uncontrollable and forces our bodies to adapt to uncertain circumstances. With outdoor exercise we must remain focused, making adjustments for grade changes, obstacles and the elements, rather than just putting one foot in front of the other.

“When you train outdoors,” says Tom Mixon, C.S.C.S. (certified strength and conditioning specialist) and instructor for Navy SEAL Conditioning, “you train within the parameters Mother Nature is providing at that time. The gym’s indoor environment provides consistency and comfort. But the variability of the weather definitely provides more experience to the event.”

Traci Waters, general manager of Powerhouse Gym, says taking your workout outdoors is critical for those preparing to spend time outside in Austin’s unforgiving summer months. It’s important, she says, to slowly begin conditioning our bodies to the humidity and high temperatures right around the corner.
Fortunately, Austin’s fitness-forward workout gurus have a variety of outdoor exercise programs beginning this spring, from the gentle breathe-and-release of yoga, to hard-core “Yes, drill sergeant!” boot camp regimens. The following is a sampling of some of the ways you can commune with nature and feel the burn, all at the same time.

Powerhouse Gym
Situated just steps from the splendors of Town Lake, Powerhouse Gym makes outdoor workouts a staple in its offerings. This month however, Waters says they are pushing about 50 percent more of their classes into the great
wide open.
Course instructors can take almost any class outside, but some of Powerhouse’s perennial favorites are:

Fit Diva and Power Diva
These women-only classes are less intense than other conditioning classes and focus on training what women typically consider “problem areas.” Waters says these kinds of classes are popular because participants like the camaraderie of working out with other like-minded women without feeling intimidated by men. Fit Diva is the entry level class and, upon graduation, women can move up to Power Diva. Power Diva is always held outside, and is an hour-long strength and cardio class, explains Walters.

The House of Pain
This is a high-intensity workout, boot-camp style. A personal trainer takes participants through an hour of grinding exercises such as jumping rope and shuttle runs.

Running classes
Some of these classes take participants on long runs on the Town Lake trail, and others focus on interval and speed training.

Brick workouts
Specifically for triathlon competitors, brick workouts help athletes maximize their transitions between swimming and cycling, or more commonly, cycling and running.

Rachel Ayres, a 30-year-old member of Powerhouse Gym, says one of her favorite workouts is a class where participants start off Spinning inside, then head outside for a three mile run. Although the workout is often focused around Town Lake, Ayers says it isn’t uncommon for an instructor to use other outdoor elements to cross-train, like running the stairs at a nearby garage. “It just adds more to the workout,” says Ayres. “Being outside seems more inspirational, a distraction from just being inside a gym.”
Waters says Powerhouse Gym’s new location, near Quarry Lake at Braker Lane and Highway 183, opens this summer. Because of its proximity to water, and the gym’s pro-outdoor philosophy, look for an even greater variety of classes outside.

“These classes make [participants] feel like kids,” says Waters. “It’s like gym class or recess. Outside, we can even get adults to race. It doesn’t feel like exercise.”

YOGA YOGA In The Park
What could be better than escaping the confines of a cubicle for some mid-day yoga under a blue sky? Doing it for free, of course. The Austin Parks Foundation, Downtown Austin Alliance and YOGA YOGA teamed up to offer Austinites outdoor yoga classes every Wednesday at noon this month. Certified yoga instructors will teach class at Republic Square Park, on Guadalupe Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets. Jamie Hodge, YOGA YOGA outreach coordinator and yoga teacher, says all ages and abilities are welcome.
“Yoga is about uniting with the world around us,” says Hodge. “The poses are named after nature. It only makes sense to practice outside. It is fun to do the tree pose surrounded by trees and the sun salute under the sun.”
Gustavo Soto, 50, a regular yoga practitioner, attended some of the sessions in the park last year and hopes to take advantage of the program again. “It was a calming energy that helped me through my day, mentally and physically,” he says. “Being outside gives you a different feeling ... when you actually feel the ground, see the sky and the birds. It was a good experience.”

SEAL Fit And Navy SEAL Conditioning — Boot Camps
If you want to ratchet up your workout a couple notches and enjoy, or endure, the best that Mother Nature has to offer, consider a boot camp. Chris Neelley, a former Navy SEAL and instructor at

SEAL Fit in Round Rock, says his boot camp is “a crash course in getting into shape.”
SEAL Fit boot camp meets predawn and puts participants through a punishing round of drills and runs. Negative reinforcement is used (if you’re late, everybody must do bear crawls, for example) to enforce conformity and to build a team. While graduates of the course may not make the military elite, they sing the praises of their teams, their instructors and the experience. Debby Carter, a 53-year-old woman who has always made fitness her lifestyle, signed up for Neelley’s boot camp for a change of pace ... and a challenge.
“There were days it was difficult to brush my hair — I couldn’t lift up my arms!” says Carter. “Painful as it was, it was such a good pain and a good gain. I loved it!”
Although Carter found her boot camp workouts outdoors often invigorating, Mixon says sometimes the elements are more grueling than the exercises. “The workout calls for starting at 5:30 a.m. and running a short distance to the dreaded SEAL sandpit,” he says. “Here, exercises are performed in usually semi-wet sand, where the sand underneath is colder than the ambient air. Your hands are freezing cold and your lungs are on fire from running sprints intermittent with push-ups and eight-count body builders (a demanding exercise that combines a pushup and a squat thrust in the same motion) in the sand. Then it’s time to run to [Barton Springs], jump in and get the sand off ... I mean, how much more benevolent could the instructors be? Now you’re completely wet, running in 33 degree air, on your way to do jumping jacks and flutter kicks before finishing for the morning.”
SEAL Fit classes meet behind the Clay Madsen Recreation Center in Round Rock (www.seal-fit.com) and Navy SEAL Conditioning classes meet at Zilker Park (www.navysealconditioning.com.)

Triathlon Training, Running And Walking Classes
After months of the same old indoor workouts, athletes often have greater aspirations in the spring. With several local triathlons just months away, March is the perfect time to start training, in earnest, outdoors.

The Hills Fitness Center
The Hills offers Team Survivor and regular triathlon training. Alan Veenendaal, general manager at The Hills, says Team Survivor is a free program for cancer survivors who want to train for the Danskin triathlon. The regular triathlon training program is open to members and nonmembers alike, and utilizes The Hills’ winding, outdoor track as well as an outdoor pool. Both programs are eight weeks long and begin this month.

Full Court Fitness
A new running class begins in March, taking participants on different routes from the gym and focusing on stretching, core training, running form and interval training. Rosemary Chriswisser, group exercise director for Full Court Fitness, says a walking group will also begin in April, allowing walkers to meet several times a week and wear pedometers to help track their daily goals. Ideal for those who want to lose weight or are just starting their journey toward better fitness, Chriswisser says the program will motivate participants through camaraderie while also encouraging them to do additional walking on their own.

Joanne Blackerby, Spirit Fitness
After 15 years in fitness, Joanne Blackerby is now building her career around a philosophy of outdoor-only training. It’s what she calls “functional fitness,” training for the rigors of everyday life. Because we are constantly moving through the natural world, Blackerby explains, it only makes sense to train in a way where our bodies must navigate common obstacles, adjust to a changing climate and carry their own weight in a realistic environment.
Blackerby offers two outdoor classes that meet rain or shine. “Girlfriends” is Blackerby’s women-only class, where children can accompany their moms. The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays at different locations, like Doss Elementary, Auditorium Shores and Zilker Park. Besides the lasting friendships that evolve within the group, Blackerby says “Girlfriends” proves women don’t have to put aside their fitness goals just because they are moms.
Blackerby also offers a co-ed cross-training course at Murchison Middle School every Saturday morning. Participants – often the husbands of “Girlfriends” – are led through a heart-pounding series of drills, plyometrics, medicine ball and resistance tubing exercises, walks and runs.
Students need bring only an exercise mat… Blackerby and Mother Nature provide the rest. “This is a way to turn people on to what they can achieve in their own bodies, without the assistance of any machines,” she says.