The Adventure-Ready Workout

Heather Eastman
·2 min read

This article originally appeared on Oxygen

Amelia Earhart famously said, "Adventure is worthwhile in itself." If, like Earhart, you crave the physical and mental test of wild, challenging and daring activities, then this adventure-ready workout is the perfect preparation. From hiking and backpacking to rock climbing and rafting, use this sequence to get in shape for any outdoor adventure.

This adventure-ready workout is broken into three parts, emphasizing the skills and strength needed for different challenges and activities. While you can certainly focus on one area if you are training for a specific excursion or competition, use the entire sequence to build the strength and endurance you need to be ready for anything.

3 Adventure-Ready Workouts

Perform each exercise in sequence as a circuit with as little rest as possible between exercises. Rest one minute between rounds, performing three rounds of each circuit before moving on to the next. Each circuit should take approximately 20 minutes total, which means you can finish the entire workout in about an hour.

Circuit 1: Hiking and Backpacking

If hiking and backpacking are your activities of choice, you must be ready to travel long distances over rugged terrain, potentially while carrying a heavy pack. And unlike traditional big lifts you'd find in the gym, you won't always have the option to use both sides of your body together simultaneously, which is why relying exclusively on barbell exercises and machines won't always get you into adventure-ready shape.

Kari Pearce, six-time CrossFit Games athlete and four-time Fittest American Woman, understands the value of thinking outside the box to get in the kind of shape that can take on any challenge. "When I was competing, one thing people noticed about my training was how much accessory/unilateral work I did," Pearce says. "In daily life, we have our dominant side and tend to use that more often than our non-dominant side, which leads to imbalances."

This is why weighted step-ups and stair climbers are the best exercises for building leg strength and endurance in this adventure-ready workout. Each time you step up, you're only able to use one leg at a time, forcing each side of your body to get strong and developing better core strength and balance at the same time. Meanwhile, side squats challenge your balance and coordination in a different plane of motion, strengthening the stabilizer muscles around your hips, knees and ankles. Adding AMRAP burpees provides a total-body challenge for any fitness level to build the power and endurance to reach the top of any mountain.

The Workout

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