Quick Summer Reference Workout Guide

With Summer fast approaching, I've compiled a reference guide to see if your yard work/outside work is an actual  workout or worthless.

Walking; if you are under the age of 100 and weigh less than 300 pounds, this is not a work out. This is how people move.

Walking your dog;  We can group this with the above activity. Unless you actually run with your dog, walking or walking your dog should not constitute the foundation of your exercise regime.

Side note: if your dog is overweight, they and you could/would probably appreciate more walks/activity.

Gardening: planting small plants/perennials and or pulling weeds does NOT count as a workout. Especially if you’ve  purchased one of those rolling carts to SIT on while you ‘garden’.

Power washing your deck: You are using a machine to push water through a hose, enough said.

Golf: See above; walking/walking your dog. You actually lose points here if you ride in a cart.

Softball: Any of the calorie burning effects of this game will be negated by your "just one" drink at the fine establishment that sponsored you.

If you're playing softball 2-3x week and hitting up the bar after every game, its going to be hard to maintain your weight, let alone lose any.

Mowing your lawn: unless you have 3+ acres and are using a non self propelled push mower, this doesn't count as exercise either. Did you really think walking behind a self propelled machine counted anyways?

Washing your car/boat/self propelled lawn mower/cleaning your garage/ all of the above don't really count as exercise.

As you can see from the above examples, some of your daily/weekly chores however tedious/boring they may be, cannot replace quality time spent in a gym doing some good old fashioned hard work(squats, dead-lifts, pushups, pull-ups,  med ball slams etc)

If you're trying to lose weight and or make continued progress, replacing your weekly gym sessions with yard work will be less effective and leave you short of reaching your goals.

I understand summer is only 12 days long and you want to be outside as much as possible. Try to have outdoor workouts 1-2x week(or more if you have some equipment that can be used outside: kettlebells, dumbbells, jump rope and a TRX suspension trainer)

There are also quite a few bodyweight exercises you can do such as pushups, squats, lunges, pull-ups(find a tree) hill sprints etc. Get creative, and keep your workouts fun but intense. 

Make your warm up and or cool down a brisk walk/run/bike ride to and from the gym before your actual workout/training appointment.

Do your cardio outside: similar to the above, hit the weights/resistance training hard and then do your cardio outside( bike ride, hill sprints,roller blading etc)

Just because summer is approaching quickly and its duration is unfortunately too short for most of us, don't use that as an excuse to cut your workouts short and or make them less effective.


Christopher R. Tybor
Proud Owner 
ChrisFit Personal Training 
www.ChrisFit.net