Tag: outdoors

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Easily Add Some Cross-Training To Your Outdoor Excursions

Tim Irvine

It won’t surprise you that our society is forward-focused. This is also true with how we move our bodies.

Typically, we move forward in a straight line for our activity. Walking, running, and cycling are good examples of this. While any movement is positive, as we get back to outdoor activity after a long winter there is an opportunity to move differently as well. Mixing up directions of movement to keep your body guessing and promote cross-training is a good example.

Let’s focus on walking/hiking and running. This article by Alex Hutchinson shows how rough trail running requires greater energy use than smooth trail running. This isn’t entirely surprising, but the reason this happens is related to the amount of side-to-side movement necessary to avoid some of the ground covers on a rough trail, including rocks and tree roots. The idea of making your run harder may not be particularly appealing but the benefits for your body are substantial. Sideways steps, small jumps, the landing of those small jumps, long steps, etc. All this extra motion takes more energy, but it also requires your body to move in different ways. This ‘cross training’ helps you be a better mover overall.

Here are some ways you can accomplish these bonus movements in your regular routine:

  1. Walking/running
    1. Typical – paved or cement trail
    2. Cross Training – dirt, grass, or gravel trails; incorporate sideways or backwards steps (safely)
  2. Hiking
    1. Typical – smooth, low incline trails
    2. Cross Training – higher incline trails; rough trails; a combination of these two
  3. Biking
    1. Typical – road riding on paved trails
    2. Cross Training – dirt, grass, or gravel trails; mountain biking

As a bonus, you can also stop on your outdoor adventure and do some step-ups onto a tree stump, push-ups against a low branch or rock, and more.

As with anything that has higher levels of difficulty, proper safety approaches are important. Some considerations include proper footwear, avoiding wet or slippery surfaces, making sure there is adequate light, bringing along a friend, etc.

This spring and summer, get outside and enjoy the world around you a bit differently. Your body and brain will thank you.

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Forest Bathing – What it is and why you should do it

Tim Irvine

Last weekend I spent three spectacular days hiking on the Bruce Trail here in southern Ontario. It reminded me about how important getting into nature is for our physical and mental health. It also reminded me that I had to let more people know about the practice of forest bathing. No, I didn’t take my clothes off and roll around in the leaves, I just had to be in the forest for a good chunk of time.

Forest Bathing is an Asian concept that has been around since the early 1980s. It was officially named in Japan as Shinrin-Yoku but quickly gained momentum in China as well. You can imagine that living in some of the most densely populated cities in the world created a need to get back to nature in some meaningful way. Our modern, fast-paced, and stressful lifestyles create the tension we are not always aware of but is consistently there. One of the ways to effectively deal with this tension is to get out in nature.

This concept isn’t new, but the conscious practice of it is. I would argue that getting into nature in any way possible is helpful, but Forest Bathing suggests that being stationary, or moving very slowly, in nature is the most effective way to get the benefits. That could be swinging in a hammock, sitting on a stump, hanging out by a stream, or any other way to be still and at one with your natural surroundings. The length of time can vary from 30 minutes to hours. It’s really your choice.

Research on this subject is fairly sparse overall, but what has been done has shown a direct relationship with time spent in forests with a reduction in physical and psychological symptoms of stress. While time spent in any type of forest is valuable, it appears that evergreens, such as fir, pine, cedar and spruce, provide the greatest benefits. This is due to their production of phytoncides which help to protect them against rot and mildew.

To put a bit more of an objective spin on this, adding some metrics can be helpful. It can be as simple as measuring your heart rate before and after you ‘bathe’, or something more involved if you have the type of wearable technology that can provide blood pressure or brain activity. You can also subjectively score your level of anxiety before and after to provide a reference of how this works.

Even with a lack of substantial research, people are using forests as part of the treatment of many mental health-related issues. While the empirical evidence is not there to support it yet, it seems logical based on the simple fact that we take a break from the stressful environments of city life. This would explain why the rooms with a view in hotels are the ones most sought after. Our instinct is to be in those types of environments but often ignore them. That’s the problem with city life, we train ourselves to ignore what we intuitively know we should have. For more on this subject, you can check out a great read entitled Your Better Instincts by Dr. Stacy Irvine.

The key is to make sure you can get yourself into a forest or natural environment as often as possible. We know enough to know it works, so it’s something we all need to incorporate into our daily or weekly routines. Happy bathing!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793341/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504269/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580555/