“Adults and children alike, with outdoor gym equipment like this, there’s really no excuse not to have a go!”
Designed to offer a workout for all abilities, from beginners to experts and from children to the elderly, outdoor gyms have the same low-impact, resistance-based equipment found at indoor gyms, but the lovely views and fresh air are included.
The open-to-the-elements gym can include apparatus such as sit-up benches, triple pull-up frames, body twisters and chest presses – which are ideal for stretching, flexing, toning and strengthening muscles and limbs, as well as improving cardiovascular fitness.
Better still, it’s said that exercising outside can burn up to 30 per cent more calories than doing the same workout indoors, and it’s more green because none of the equipment is run off electricity.
When Wicksteed Playscapes introduced their Xerscape range of outdoor fitness equipment to one of Bedford’s oldest residents last year, he proved that it's not the years in your life that count but the life in your years!
The fighting fit eighty-year-old showed that age is no barrier as he joined youngsters in a keep-fit session at the outdoor gym, at Bromham Village green, which was created by Wicksteed using the range which was developed in association with Staffordshire University’s Centre for Sport and Exercise.
According to Sport England, "cost" and "access to quality facilities" are the two main reasons why people avoid exercise but, as a Wicksteed spokesman says: “With outdoor fitness equipment like this, there’s really no excuse not to have a go!”
