Relax Hard, Get Fit

If you want to throw a wrinkle into your regular routine this summer, taking on a new outdoor challenge can give you a lift and test your overall fitness. This summer, turn idle time into fitness time and reap the benefits, outside and inside the gym. Slacklining and body surfing are two easy-to-learn and affordable outdoor activities that squeeze some fitness out of your beach/BBQ time.

SLACK OFF
Slacklining may sound like something you do with your laundry, but this balance sport will challenge your body and your mind. Some extreme types rig lines across cliffs, but the majority of slacklining is done a foot or two off the ground in your own backyard. Here’s how:

Rig It
A homemade slackline set-up with nylon webbing and carabineers runs about $60-80—and it’s easy to mess up. For about the same price, pick up a purposed slackline set-up that will come with a tightening hitch. Rig your line up about a foot off the ground to start; you can raise it higher as you get a feel for the balance.

One Foot at a Time
“When you only have one leg on the line, you only have to control one leg,” says Riccardo Bottome of Gibbon Slacklines. Start from the far end of the line (not the middle) by standing on one leg for 15 seconds at a time trying to minimize the wobble, and then switch. “Keep your arms up so that you can adjust your balance with small movements of your upper body,” says Bottome.

Core Effort
“For balance you need the whole body,” says Bottome. The key to settling down “the wobble factor” is drawing in your belly button to activate your core muscle groups and focusing on a fixed point out in front of you (like the anchor point at the far end of the line). With your core engaged, you’ll get a better sense of how small movements in your upper body can affect your balance.

Get Low
As you move further away from the anchor of the line you started at, you’ll likely feel increased wobble. You can counteract that instability by lowering your center of gravity, says Bottome. “If you get down on the line, it’s easier to keep the balance—when you’re losing your balance, you can almost sit on the line to find it again.”

BOARD FREE
Find yourself lying around at the beach? You’ll tan faster in the ocean, and get a better workout, too. Take a crack at bodysurfing: it’s cheaper than buying a board, and the learning curve is steeper. Master the basics, and you’ll find yourself cruising to shore on your own torso in no time.

Survey the Sets
Before you get in the water, watch the water. Waves come in sets and sets tend to have patterns. If you watch long enough, you’ll likely spot a wave that’s the right size for you (3-5 feet for beginners) and (more important) where in the water it starts to break.

Fin Up
No board means no floating and lots of hard swimming. Bodysurfing is essentially an interval swim workout, and to catch up to the speed of any significant wave, you’ll need to outfit yourself with fins. Use caution getting in the water with fins on, and then swim out a bit beyond the break point you spotted to start scoping your choice wave.

Catch the Crest
With the wave approaching, it’s time to get a kicking. Sprint toward the shore (not necessarily the direction of the wave’s path) so that you get up to the same speed as the wave just as it’s upon you. Unlike board riding, you’ll be looking to catch the wave just at the tip of the white water at its crest, not in the middle. As you feel yourself get picked up by the wave, angle yourself with your shins in the direction the wave is traveling, firm up your torso and extend your arms across the water (to help steer yourself along the wave). Try to keep your legs from dragging down in the water. You’ll know have it right when you ride that sucker all the way to shore.

The Moves
Jenn Burke, fitness manager at Chesterfield Sport 24 Hour Fitness in Missouri offers these exercises that will help get you up on the line or the wave, and on track in the gym.

100-Meter Gos
Block out a 4- or 5-minute period to swim 100 meters at a high-intensity pace that you can only sustain for 3-4 minutes. Use whatever is left of the 4-5 minutes as recovery, and then get right back on the intensity for another 100-meter/4-5minute block of effort and recovery. Repeat 10 times.

Floor Bridge Glute Raise
Laying on your back, raise yourself into a bridge, holding at the top for ten seconds as you squeeze your glutes (try not to lift with your lower back). Come down to the floor with control, touching your butt briefly before coming up to hold for another 10 seconds. Feeling the urge to cheat? Raise your toes off the ground. Do three sets of 15-20 repetitions.

Single-Leg Dead Lift Toe Touch
Stand on one foot and pivot at your hips to reach down towards your toes. As you reach down, keep your suspended leg and torso in line; they should be parallel to the floor when you touch your toes. Keep your belly button drawn in and don’t let your shoulders round in as you approach the ground; also keep your other leg suspended off the ground when you are upright. Start without weights, aiming for three sets of 10 repetitions on each leg (alternating).

Theraband Single Leg Chest Press
Wrap a theraband around a post or pole. Facing away from the pole on one foot, do a chest press, keeping your elbows level with your chest. Do three sets of 20 repetitions (setting the tension on the theraband so you can do 20).