{"id":411596,"date":"2010-03-10T12:54:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T16:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marksdailyapple.com\/?p=11278"},"modified":"2010-03-10T12:54:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T16:54:22","slug":"urban-workouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/411596","title":{"rendered":"Urban Workouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UrbanExercise\"Remember Blair Morrison? He\u2019s the dude who got Primal in the Netherlands<\/a> for his entry into the PB Fitness Video Contest, and also placed 7th<\/sup> at the 2009 CrossFit Games<\/a>. Blair wrote to me with his latest workout video \u2013 which will close this post \u2013 and a reminder: don\u2019t forget about urban Groks!<\/p>\n

I live in Malibu, just outside of LA proper, and it\u2019s not exactly an urban environment. LA itself isn\u2019t a classic urban landscape; it\u2019s more urban sprawl than anything else. We\u2019ve got hundreds of miles of wilderness \u2013 mountains, beaches, trails, canyons \u2013 to climb, run, crawl, or hike, but very little skyscraper to scale or subway turnstile to hurdle. We give a ton of attention to the great outdoors, partly because of my affinity for it and partly because it fits the Primal theme really well. For today, though, I want to address the urban warriors among us. If you\u2019re lucky enough to live in a vibrant, bustling cityscape teeming with ledges, poles, fences, staircases, and tall buildings, you owe it yourself to expand your workout regimen to encompass your (un)natural environment.<\/p>\n

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Whenever I visit a new city, I like to go for a walk. Cities are meant to be traversed by foot, in my opinion. Sticking to taxis or buses erects a barrier. You gotta put foot to pavement and really connect with a city, especially if you\u2019re just visiting (no time to spare). On my walks, I invariably find myself scoping out the scenery for possible workout \u201cequipment.\u201d I do this everywhere I go, in fact, not just in cities. It may mean I annoy my wife with my roving eyes (hey, at least I\u2019m just scoping out park benches to jump, rather than beds to lie in!), but it also means I\u2019m never unequipped for an impromptu workout.<\/p>\n

There are no immutable laws governing urban workouts, because every environment is different. In LA, for example, an urban workout probably means climbing a fifteen-foot tree in front of some suburban house, doing pull-ups at the top branch, and running from an eventually pound-bound pit bull that\u2019s broken loose. Or hitting the Venice drum circle for a bout of Primal dancing. But there are certain features that every urban environment should offer to the intrepid, kinetic explorer, and these include:<\/p>\n

Ledges, overhangs, horizontal overhead poles<\/strong> \u2013 Perfect for pull-ups and muscle-ups. Hit some knees-to-elbows if there\u2019s room to swing.<\/p>\n

Vertical poles <\/strong>\u2013 Climb these. Pigeon droppings make for a worse payoff than wild coconuts, but at least you\u2019ll build great grip and pulling strength. Traffic lights are pretty easy to climb (plenty of handholds).<\/p>\n

Benches, turnstiles, weird public-owned stone cubes masquerading as art<\/strong> \u2013 Leap these. Box-jump them. If the bench is mobile, lift it. If you\u2019ve got stones, try to lift the stone.<\/p>\n

Hills <\/strong>\u2013 Sprint them. Grok crawl<\/a> up them, then back down. Don\u2019t worry; you can wash your hands after.<\/p>\n

Stairs <\/strong>\u2013 You can also sprint<\/a> these, but I like climbing them hand over hand (if there\u2019s room to grab, that is) from underneath, ninja style. Just don\u2019t let go at the top.<\/p>\n

Construction sites <\/strong>\u2013 Sure, they\u2019re slightly dangerous and it\u2019s probably illegal to trespass, but there\u2019s so much to do! Heavy slabs of metal to drag and deadlift, shards of concrete to hurl, structures to climb, and if you\u2019re unwilling to go all the way in, you can usually find sandbags lining the perimeter.<\/p>\n

Cars <\/strong>\u2013 Outrun them. Yes, I\u2019m serious. No, I don\u2019t mean in the street, neck-and-neck with the hulking metal beasts, but on the sidewalk, using the cars as motivation. And if you see a pregnant mother trapped beneath a wrecked one, you can always call upon your ATP and lift the back end.<\/p>\n

Dumpsters <\/strong>\u2013 Push and pull them, treat \u2018em like big stinky weight sleds.<\/p>\n

Buildings <\/strong>\u2013 Scale them, if you dare. Enter them to reveal massive staircases (see \u201cStairs\u201d above).<\/p>\n

Little old ladies trying to cross the street <\/strong>\u2013 Carry them! It\u2019s much faster than simply lending them an arm and walking them to the other side. Plus, it works your core.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just what I could think of off the top of my head. There are plenty of other options, many of which are just waiting to be discovered. The key is to keep your eyes open and your mind fixated on exactly how this feature or that object could be used to exert force or manipulate resistance. It may mean thinking outside the box or looking at the environment from a totally different perspective \u2013 you\u2019ll have to see the urbanity as something to be accosted, assaulted, and conquered, rather than avoided or merely walked past. It\u2019ll probably also have you end up looking a bit crazy, but if you\u2019re eating Primal, you\u2019re probably used to the weird stares from passers-by.<\/p>\n

Just have fun! Living in the city doesn\u2019t mean you have to work out at the gym\u2026 just ask Blair, who seems to get along okay without one.<\/p>\n

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Last, I’d be remiss not to remind you to be careful! <\/em>Injury avoidance is top priority with Primal Blueprint Fitness, so take caution with your urban workouts just like you would any other.<\/p>\n

Any Primal urbanites got workout tips to share? Do so in the comments!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts<\/a> Delivered to Your Inbox<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/h4>\n

Related posts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Urban Gardening<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Urban Areas Becoming Supermarket “Deserts”<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Workout Suggestion: Planned Spontaneity<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    Remember Blair Morrison? He\u2019s the dude who got Primal in the Netherlands for his entry into the PB Fitness Video Contest, and also placed 7th at the 2009 CrossFit Games. Blair wrote to me with his latest workout video \u2013 which will close this post \u2013 and a reminder: don\u2019t forget about urban Groks! I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}