It was 6am. I don’t like training in the morning but I don’t have much choice when traveling. I met my buddy Andrew in the lobby and we headed outside.
It was 80 degrees with what felt like 100% humidity. We were in the middle of Dallas and needed to get a feel for what we had to work with.
After taking a lap around the general vicinity, we had a training plan.
- Rows on a square shaped handrail. This was a test for grip strength, as well as a back workout.
- Push-ups with feet elevated on some sort of odd cement structure.
- Bulgarian split squats on same structure.
- Sprints from light post to light post in a large wide open parking lot.
- Plyo jumps on a cement retaining wall.
Andrew repping out some banister rows.
45 minutes later we were thoroughly worked. Now I could feel somewhat at peace with sitting in meetings for the rest of the day.
Getting a buddy or a group to train with outdoors is a blast. This is especially true when traveling.
Obstacle workouts offer variety and friendly competition. It also takes some creativity to work with your surroundings and create a workout course. The following are some ideas that have worked for me in creating memorable and effective group sessions.
- For your warm up, take a short group run to scope the terrain and surroundings.
- Get everyone’s input on what they would like to include.
- Set up a minimum of 4 stations using natural surroundings.
- Hit all facets of training: aerobic, strength, and conditioning.
- Stay together as a group. If you finish a station first, then you get extra rest time.
- Complete first thing in the morning.
- If everyone is competitive, run it like a circuit and do elimination rounds.
- Most importantly, make it fun.
After training in Dallas for a few days, I have a new appreciation for the lower humidity of Upstate NY.
Take action, get some friends together and create your own local training course!