Urban Cardio Training-are you up to the challenge?

Working out and getting fit, let’s face it, can get boring. The last thing I want to do is spend an afternoon running in place on a treadmill, going nowhere. Worse even than that is standing in a gym next to a guy in too tight gym shorts while he admires his beautiful arms in the mirror and curls until his biceps are about to explode. I am not knocking going to the gym, or even running on a treadmill, I am just saying that to stay motivated and keep your exercise program going in the right direction, sometimes you have to mix it up a bit. Urban Cardio training can certainly do that.

Urban Cardio Training is a term used to describe a workout that utilizes the natural surroundings of a city setting to give the participant a fantastic cardiovascular workout. These types of workouts stemmed from some of the training sessions developed by Police Swat teams to help train the police officers for real life urban combat situations. A cityscape can be an incredibly varied environment and this training allowed the officers to experience a wide variety of obstacles to basically get them ready for anything. The same is true for the avid fitness professionally simply looking to take their cardio workout to the next level.

Take a close look at the environment the next time you are driving or walking through a city environment, what do you see? Park benches, huge staircases, swing sets on public playgrounds, outdoor tables, all of these things can be perfect “equipment” for an urban cardio session. A short urban cardio session may look something like this:

 - 1 mile run to the city park

-  100 jumping jacks completed in 3 minutes or less

-  Quick sprint to local schoolyard

-  Complete 25 pull-ups on the monkey bars as quickly as possible

-  25 incline pushups using bench of picnic table

-  Run backwards back to the park

-  Complete 50 plyometric jumps using park bench

-  Jog to museum and climb museum steps to top and run down

This is just one example of the multitude of exercise routines that can be comprised using the model of the Urban Cardio training model. Your body will respond quickly to such a rigorous workout, but it is not recommended for the beginner. Often, these types of sessions are boot camp or military style and are very intense. They combine regular cardio such as running with muscle building exercises like pushups and pull-ups all designed to shock” your system into burning fat, building muscle, and increasing your cardio vascular output.

So, is an Urban Cardio workout for you? The variety and intensity of the workouts themselves make this type of training a favorite of regular exercise enthusiasts. The results of those who regularly perform these workouts are similar to what one might achieve in a 6 week boot camp if the regimen is followed consistently. Sometimes, you have to mix it up to keep your exercise interest high. If you have reached a plateau in your workouts and boredom is setting in, you might just want to give an Urban Cardio training session a try.