Achieving a strong core is essential for overall fitness and well-being, and the great thing is that you don’t need a gym membership or fancy equipment to do it – you only need access to a Sunshine Gym!
Once you find your nearest Sunshine Gym at a park or public space, you’ll find everything you need to work on your core muscles. As an open-air fitness area, outdoor gyms are equipped with various piece of equipment that can help you get a solid core workout, all while enjoying the fresh air and natural surroundings.
What are the core muscles?
The core muscles include the abdominals, lower back, obliques and muscles around the pelvis. Strengthening these muscles improves balance, posture and stability. It also reduces the risk of injury, especially to the lower back.
Whether you’re lifting heavy objects, playing sports, or just doing everyday tasks like bending down or twisting, your core is involved in every movement. This makes core training essential if you’re looking to improve your overall fitness and functional strength.
Warming up before a core workout
Before starting any workout, it’s important to warm up to help increase your heart rate, loosen your muscles, and prepare your body for exercise. When you’re at an outdoor gym, a simple warm up could include walking or jogging around the area for ten minutes. This gets your blood flowing and raises your body temperature, which help prevent injury. You could also add in some stretches such as leg swings or arm circles to help loosen your muscles and joints.
Which outdoor gym equipment is best for a core workout?
Sit Up Bench
A sit-up bench is one of the most effective pieces you can use for building your abdominal muscles. To perform a sit-up, sit on the bench with your feet secured under the foot holds.
Slowly lower your upper body back, engaging your core as you go, then bring yourself back up to a seated potion. As you do this movement, focus on tightening your abdominal muscles, as this is what will give you the most benefit. To add variety, you can twist your torso when you come up, which will engage your obliques and make the exercise more challenging.
Parallel Rails
While parallel rails are often used for upper body exercises like dips, they are also incredibly effective for targeting the lower abdominal muscles.
To work on your core with parallel bars, position yourself between them and grip the bars firmly with both hands. From here, raise your legs up in front of your, keeping them straight if you can, or bending your knees if you’re just starting out. This motion works the lower part of your abdominals, which is often harder to target with traditional exercises like sit-ups. Lower your legs back down slowly, ensuring that your core stays engaged throughout the movement to maximise the benefit of the exercise and preventing strain on your lower back.
Pull Up Bars
Our outdoor pull up bar is great for doing hanging knee raises or leg lifts to challenge your core even more. This is one of the most effective exercises for building core strength because it requires you to lift your legs and stabilise your body as you hang from the bar.
To do a hanging knee raise, grip the bar with both hands, making sure your arms are fully extended. Then, bring your knees up towards your chest while keeping your back straight and your core engaged. Lower your legs back down slowly and repeat. If you want to add an extra challenge, try keeping your legs straight as your lift them which will make the exercise harder and target your entire core.
Multi Rigs
An outdoor multi rig usually features various suspension points, pull-up bars, and hanging apparatus to engage the core muscles in diverse ways. Whether you want to perform hanging leg raises, knee tucks, or dynamic movements like hanging twists, a multi rig enables you to target your core from multiple angles and intensities.
Our Sthenos Outdoor Fitness Rig’s height and structure allows you to incorporate both cardio and full-body exercises into the core workout, making it an invaluable asset if you’re looking to build a strong and functional core.
Building up core strength
Aside from specific exercises, it’s essential to remember that consistency is key when it comes to building core strength. Doing a core workout two to three times a week is enough to see progress, but it’s important to allow your muscles to recover in between sessions. Core muscles, like any other muscle group, need time to rest and rebuild after being worked, so make sure you’re giving yourself enough time between workouts to avoid overtraining.
Core training with Sunshine Gym
Outdoor gym workouts are a fantastic way to get in shape while enjoying the outdoors, and they offer an excellent opportunity to focus on core strength. The variety of exercises you can do using a Sunshine Gym ensures that your core muscles will be engaged from different angles, leading to balanced strength and improved fitness over time. Plus, working out in an outdoor gym allows you to break free from the confines of indoor spaces and enjoy the fresh air.
By keeping your core engaged, being consistent, and progressively increasing the difficulty of your exercises, you’ll be well on your way to achieving a strong and stable core with the help of Sunshine Gym equipment.