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Simple adjustments to your workouts can have a lasting impact on the next generation.
You can do that by creating your own eco-friendly exercise regimen. With mountain biking, you breathe in fresh air and use less fossil fuels. By using a dining room chair to strengthen your triceps, you are able to benefit your health and the earth all at once.
These eco-friendly exercises save energy, reduce your carbon footprint, and improve both your physical and mental health.
Best Eco-Friendly Exercises
Here's a look at six such exercises:
1) Yoga
Yoga is a great eco-friendly way to exercise and relax. It can also help improve balance and range of motion, not to mention focus and concentration. If you're new to yoga, do yoga outside, and enjoy the fresh air while you practice.
Yoga does not require expensive equipment and can be done at home or in a studio. For the uninitiated, you can watch free 'Adriene With Yoga 'YouTube videos to get started or take free classes at your local gym. You can also study yoga with a private instructor or join an online class.
2) Hiking
When you take a hike in the woods, you do more than enjoy the scenery. You also strengthen your muscles and bones, improve your cardiovascular system, lower your risk of respiratory conditions like asthma, and improve your sense of balance by traversing hills and leveling out again.
Researchers measured the heart and breathing rate of participants before and after a walk in either a natural or an urban setting. They found that neural activity increased significantly after walking in nature as opposed to an urban setting.
3) Home Workout
Get a tennis ball, stress ball or any type of pliable ball you can find around the house. Use the wall for wall push-ups.
Stand a couple of feet away from the wall; stretch out your arms, and place your hands slightly wide of the shoulders. Push yourself up, and lower yourself using only your bodyweight.
Bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges can be performed without any equipment, which makes them convenient eco-friendly workouts.
4) Running or Walking
Walking and running are good for the environment. They don’t require a car, as you can do them right outside your door.
Exercising outside in nature is better than using a treadmill — it’s more interesting and can help develop different leg muscles than working out indoors on machines.
According to a 2015 study published in Biology of Sport, runners have a better running economy when they run outdoors. Researchers found that the runners used less oxygen while running on a 1% incline outdoors than they did while running on a treadmill at the same incline.
5) Local Sport Community
Playing in a neighborhood sports team can be an enjoyable way to get in some exercise and make friends. For example, a softball, volleyball or kickball team often practices outdoors and often play with used equipment, which saves on plastic and rubber manufacturing.
6) Mountain Biking
Cycling is a great way to burn calories and get some fresh air while reducing environmental impact. Moreover, you don't need to be a lifelong athlete to do it.
Cycling is an eco-friendly activity that can help strengthen tje joints and bones. If you find other forms of exercise, such as running or walking, too difficult on your joints or bones, cycling could be a good option for you. The gains you will make from cycling would improve your performance in other physical activities.
For example, you may find that climbing stairs, picking up your children or moving groceries into your cabinet could become easier.
Takeaway
Whether you have an opinion about the environment, or feel so strongly about it that you invest a lot of time and energy in making changes to your personal impact, the aforementioned list should help you discover some fun green workouts for all kinds of lifestyles.
Try a new eco-friendly activity on your weekend getaway, or start incorporating one of them into your current routine. The more information we have on these activities and their impact, the better equipped we are to make choices in the future that can help our world.
