Research shows that taking your exercise outdoors, whatever the weather, offers way more bang for your buck than the gym, says sports scientist Professor Greg Whyte
When it comes to exercise, the tendency in January is to focus your efforts on the gym. It’s cold, wet and often dark outside, so being indoors feels the sensible choice right?
I would argue that, counter-intuitively, January is in fact the perfect time to rely less on the traditional gym, with its artificial lights and dodgy music, and make some time for what sports scientists like to call the Green Gym (outdoor exercise) and Blue Gym (open-water swimming) instead.
As the old Scandinavian phrase goes, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad equipment.
The research demonstrates effectively that all of the positive effects that you get from exercise are heightened when you take it outdoors, for lots of different reasons.
The first big benefit is psychological - your mood has shifted. With natural light you get an improvement in mood, and because you get an improvement in mood, you enjoy it a little bit more.
Then because you enjoy it a little bit more, that means you tend to do it more often, for longer, and at a higher intensity.
And if you do it with others, now you're sharing an experience, and that shared experience then becomes part of the conversation that runs throughout the day. So now you're also improving your social health.
If you consider the WHO (World Health Organisation) guidelines for optimum health, it’s not just freedom from disease, it also relates to the quality of our mental, emotional and social health.
The great thing about about the Green Gym and the Blue Gym is that they encapsulate all of these elements simultaneously.
For all of us who are time poor, with commitments in all areas of our lives, you simply get a better bang for your buck if you do it outdoors.
"Open water exercise gives you benefits no other type of exercise can."
It’s shown that activity helps us sleep better too, so you're getting this double whammy of activity and recovery simultaneously.
Yes, you’ll have to face some interesting weather, especially at this time of year. But I always find it a bit odd in the UK that so many of us think that if it’s cold and rainy, then we can’t go out.
In a country that isn’t exactly blessed with fine weather, you think we might have got a bit more resilient to it.
After all, our skin is waterproof. Just making sure that you've got the right kit and you know what to do with that kit, and that you take the appropriate routes and all of a sudden it becomes accessible.
Going an extra step and taking your exercise to the Blue Gym - open water - is well worth trying as it gives you benefits no other type of exercise can, namely the impact of the cold.
There's been a couple of nice studies which have looked at the impact of cold water immersion on mood specifically, because it actually alters brain chemistry.
Now you have to be very careful, of course, because cold water is inherently dangerous. Unfortunately, one person drowns every 20 hours in the UK. So making sure you do it in the right way is absolutely crucial.
We’ve just published the Royal Life Saving Society guidelines for open water swimming and there are some golden rules to follow.
The number one rule is you never do it alone. It doesn't matter whether you're on water or in water, canoeing, paddle-boarding or swimming, this is the rule you never break.
The other thing I would recommend for beginners, is to start at a recognised centre, which are generally life-guarded and where there are people that can give you advice.
Do it right, though, and there’s nothing like it. As well as reaping all those extra benefits on your physical, mental, emotional and social health in one place, you’ll also be challenging yourself in a new and interesting way.
What better way to get the year started than that?
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