Lupita Nyong'o Spent Her Summer Hiking, Biking, Swimming, and Exercising Outside
Getty Images
Lupita Nyong'o is looking back at her summer, which was filled with outdoor activities. The actress shared a series of clips on TikTok depicting a variety of sun-soaked fun along with some sweaty workout sessions, all packed into a 30-second video.
"Summer was a beauty! Hiking, biking, swimming, exploring, dancing, working out, floating, lounging, and more lounging!!" writes the Black Panther star in the caption of her post.
Related: Lupita Nyong'o Just Put Her Balance to the Test with This Challenging Ab Workout
The first clip shows Nyong'o in a swimsuit on the beach, dipping her feet in the water. Then, she's wearing sunglasses for a couple of hikes in nature, followed by a bike ride through a tree-lined path. In between all that activity, the 39-year-old took some time to rest, sharing clips of herself lounging by the ocean and on a raft in a body of water.
Next, she's on the grass beneath palm trees in a yellow workout set for some outdoor exercises, including impressive plank shoulder taps. This clip comes from another TikTok video Nyong'o shared back in July 2022. In it, she shared her go-to warm-up, which involves doing 20 dead bugs, 10 rolling dead bugs, 10 glute bridges, five single-leg glute bridges on each side, 10 breaths in bear pose, 10 plank down dogs, 10 shoulder taps in plank, and 10 scapula push-ups.
Related: 7 Easy and Creative Ways to Exercise Outside
She wraps up the video with a shot of her looking out at the ocean as the sun sets. "Drop me ideas for how to get outside this fall," adds Nyong'o in her caption.
Nyong'o has the right idea taking her workouts and other activities outside. "We're wired to coexist with nature," Eva Selhub, M.D., a resiliency expert, previously told Shape. "Being in the environment reduces the body's stress-response reactivity, lowers inflammation, and improves the immune system."
There are actually many proven mental and physical health benefits that come with getting outside. For instance, being in nature can help with heart disease, depression, and anxiety, according to research published in the journal of Environmental Health Perspectives.
What's more, changing up your workout location also offers benefits to your training. Running or jumping on sand creates less impact and can burn about 30 percent more calories than solid ground, Paul O. Davis, Ph.D., a fellow at the American College of Sports Medicine, previously told Shape. Running barefoot on the sand also impacts your form, creating a more joint-friendly strike down with each step, he added.
Related: What Is the Proper Running Form, Anyway?
If you can't make it to the beach, even taking your run from the treadmill to outdoor terrain makes a difference. Not only will you reap the feel-good benefits of being outside, but running on flat terrain requires more muscles than a running on a treadmill, which you'd need to set to 0.5 incline to match a flat road outside, Colleen Burns, the sourcing director for outdoor retailer Backcountry, previously told Shape.
Just because summer is ending doesn't mean you have to keep your workouts indoors. You can still reap the benefits of exercising outside in cold weather. Don't know where to start? Check out the best outdoor workout to mix up your routine.
