By Conor McLean, Drummond Tutor & Senior Lecturer, & Lifestyle & Obesity Specialist for Edinburgh Leisure
You only need a local picnic or park bench (& body weight) – for these great resistance training exercises! A brilliant excuse to get outdoors…
| Exercise | Description |
|---|---|
| Incline Press Ups | Placing hands onto the bench, perform a traditional press up. You can play around with the height! The lower down the more difficult it will be |
| Decline Press Ups | The opposite of the above! Place feet onto the bench this time, and hands on the floor. You will be playing around with gravity a little, so this will be more difficult! |
| Step Ups | Using the bench as a step, simply step up and down. Alternate legs to ensure you’re engaging both sides equally. |
| Tricep Dips | Placing hands onto the bench, facing away, lower yourself down into a traditional tricep dip. The lower you go, the more you will feel it in your triceps. |
| Glute Bridge | Placing shoulder blades/upper back onto the, bring your feet roughly hip to shoulder width apart, and as close to underneath your hips as possible. Lower your bottom to the ground and using your glutes to extend back up. Keep heels on the ground at all times. This can be progressed to single legs to make it more challenging if need be. |
| Sit to Stand | Standing facing away from the bench, about 1 step away or so. Feet around shoulder width apart, keeping the chest nice and high, bend at the waist/hips first, lowering down until you reach the bench. Reverse the movement to extend back up to standing. |
| Box Jumps | Standing facing the bench, lowering down into a ½ squat, explosively extending up into a jump and land on the bench. Ensure you are a safe distance from the bench to land safely onto the bench, but also avoiding any shin clashes! |
| Single Leg Split Squat/Lunge | Facing away from the bench, place just one foot (where you find the laces of your shoe) onto the bench. Place the standing leg about 1 metre or so infront of the bench. Lowering down and bending the front standing leg will load the this leg, and then extend back up to standing. Again, be sure to do each leg! |
| Bench V-Sits | Placing bottom on the bench, get into a traditional v-sit position and perform the exercise. Balance will be challenged! |
Select 6-8 of these exercises to create a wee session in the park – maybe even in the middle of your run!
You can do a Tabata style workout – 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for 3-4 for rounds per exercise (around 2 minutes per body part)
Or just do 3 sets of 10-12 reps per exercise.