Remember how much fun it was to play? As little kids, we learned how to cartwheel, played tag, and out-jumped our friends on the trampoline. We played sports, we hula-hooped, and we spent hours climbing and swinging on everything in the neighborhood playground. Little did we know that we were burning calories and building muscle. We couldn’t have cared less. We were having fun!
Now that we’re “grown ups,” exercise takes a different, more serious form. A typical adult workout might involve running exactly 25 minutes on a human hamster wheel, lifting and pushing 15-pound dumbbells through five different motions precisely 100 times, and finally, powering through 200 crunches on the ab machine. Instead of smiles, we wear determined, “gotta-check-this-off-my-to-do-list” expressions. Where did the fun go?
Whether the workout you used to love now bores you or your gym atmosphere is so proper you feel like you should be wearing a tie with your sneakers, it’s time to bring back recess.
1.) Playgrounds
What better place is there to relearn how to play than a playground? Playgrounds are full of monkey bars, balance beams, jungle gyms, rings, slides, and these days, some even have fancy rock walls. Not only can you practice traditional exercises like pull-ups and muscle-ups on these structures, but also, you can build muscle and enhance your sense of balance just by climbing around this youthful paradise.
My personal playground favorite is the swing. Throughout my childhood, whenever I got in a fight with my brothers, I would run down to the playscape in the valley behind my house and swing until the sun set. As my feet rose above the orange and pink clouds, I would pretend I was flying.
This morning — the second to last morning of my week in New Orleans — I jogged to a playground in the famous Audubon Park. After hurrying through push-ups, lunges, and wall sits, I ran over to the swing set, and jumped on a black swing. As my body climbed up past the nearby oak tree, I realized I was flying again, just as I had when I was a little kid.
Head to Zilker, Adam’s Hemphill Park or your neighborhood playground, and get busy swinging, climbing, and sliding!
2.) “Hooping”
Until a fateful day in 2006, I had won every hooping contest I had ever entered. That cursed afternoon, outside the Rainforest Cafe in Galveston, only an eight-year-old girl and I, at the time 17, advanced to the final round of the hooping competition: hoop to hoop combat — while standing on one leg. After five minutes of crashing our hoops together and then recovering, the eight-year-old girl valiantly leaped into the air and swung her hoop into the top of mine, sending it crashing to the floor. I haven’t competed since.
But now, with Laura Scarborough of Hoop Circle offering two classes per week, I have hope that I will hoop again. Not only does Laura offer lessons on the hooping technique, but she also offers Hoop-making 101 classes! Her website serves as another great hooping resource, complete with hooping tips for beginners, a page on constructing your own hoop, information on her homemade hoops, and even articles on the history of hooping. In fact, it was her website that taught me that “hooping” — rather than “hula-hooping” — is now the correct nomenclature for spinning plastic or rubber circles around your waist (or your neck, arms, or legs…). Laura also suggests hooping.org as a resource for newbies and experts alike.
3.) Jumping Rope
The best thing about jump ropes is that you can take them anywhere — the office, a three-month backpacking trip, or even to campus for easy endorphins between classes. As long as you have enough space to swing your rope, you can exercise — or rather, play — practically anywhere. To spice up the monotony of mindlessly bouncing up and down, try out the double under.
To perform a double under, you need to jump higher than usual while swinging the rope under your feet twice. After watching this video to learn the technique, the only way to really learn is to try the trick over and over again. After you’ve managed to pull off a few double unders, complete 100 double unders for time to speed up your learning process. If you choose to do singles instead, you must do three singles for every one double under, meaning 300 jumps if you do only singles. When I tried a similar workout, I found myself repeatedly performing double unders after only 30 seconds of jumping rope. Apparently, lactic acid is a powerful motivator.
4.) Handstands
The first step to developing a champion handstand is building up your shoulder strength. Plant your hands about three inches from a smooth wall as you simultaneously kick your legs up against that wall. Once you have stabilized your legs, maintain this pose as long as you can. To make it easier on yourself, maintain “active shoulders,” by locking out your arms and pressing your shoulders towards your ears. This way, you can rely on your bones instead of solely muscle to stay upright.
After you build big and strong shoulders, get to work on practicing the actual handstand! There are a variety of ways to approach the wall-free handstand, with yogis and gymnasts presenting entirely different strategies. I liked this wikiHow article because it offers lots of tips and illustrates the technique with a video.
This morning, after swinging in Audubon Park, I took the tips I had learned on wikiHow and spent five minutes attempting hand stands. I was able to improve my balance tenfold by taking the article’s advice to center my weight at the base of my fingertips . Although I still crashed down into the grass every other attempt, I was able to hold the handstand for an average of five seconds each time rather than my usual half-second efforts.
After a morning playing on the swings and practicing my handstands, I jogged away from Audubon Park dirty, sweaty, and smiling. Whether you decide visit the playground or choose to perfect your the handstand, I can promise you that running around covered in dirt, grass stains, and scrapes will feel just as good as it did when you were a little kid. So break up with your boring, serious workout and reward yourself with recess instead!
Reinstating Recess Honorable Mention:
*Roller blades, roller skates, and scooters: Pick your wheels of choice, find a stretch of smooth pavement, and you’re ready to cruise!
*Neighborhood games: Whether you choose tag, pickle, horse, sardines, or all four, meet some friends at an Austin park, and hustle your way to victory!
*Trampolines: There is no way not to smile while bouncing, flipping, or playing “crack the egg” on a trampoline.
*Cartwheels, round offs, headstands and other acrobatics: Dredge up a few yoga mats or simply find a soft patch of grass and start flinging your body through the air!
*Any sport: Join a co-ed soccer team or enter a beach volleyball tournament. Don’t know what you want to do? Go to the Austin Sports Expo on December 4th or check out the Austin Sports and Social Club, and discover your athletic passion!
Have another idea for taking the work out of working out? Leave a comment!
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1 comment
jaobrien1
September 9, 2010 at 2:15 PM (UTC -6)
I recently attended a BodyTribe seminar at Westlake CrossFit. We learned the concept of “play”. Chip told us that he and his trainers would often circle around a weight or piece of equipment of their choosing and figure out new things that they could do with that weight. We also created various mobility and kettlebell circuits that were fun because we got to explore programming and what was fun and what was more “working out”. Great article!