It’s 7:30 AM, your alarm clock rings and you wake up to another cold winter day. You reminisce about the summer days on the beach when the sand was hot beneath your feet and everyone had fun splashing in the water. What you would give to have that much fun again. Now the sun sets before 5 and well there’s not much you can do in the snow… Or is there?
Snow Shoeing
Believe it or not, snowshoeing is an ancient form of transportation used to allow for humans to travel in deep snow. Snow shoes distribute your weight evenly so you can stay above the snow. Nowadays, snowshoeing is used as a form of exercise that lets you extend your hiking and running season into the winter. One of the best parts about snowshoeing is the convenience to be able to do this activity almost anywhere. Whether it's a trail in the woods, a mountain, or even your backyard; if there's snow you can snowshoe. On top of this, snowshoeing has many health benefits. To list a few, it's a great cardiovascular exercise and helps build endurance. As we all know, Minnesota gets tons of snow so snowshoeing is a great activity to try out!
Cross country skiing
Cross-country skiing has been around for thousands of years as a way of traversing across
wintery conditions. Today cross-country skiing is mostly used for recreational purposes and exercise. Cross-country skiing rose in popularity again during COVID-19 winter months when people had to look outside for exercise and activities with friends. Cross-country skiing is the perfect way to workout, relieve stress, and have a fun activity to do with friends in the winter months. Studies have even shown that cross-country skiing burns more calories than any other form of exercise - over 1000 calories burned an hour! There are dozens of free cross-country ski trails in the Twin Cities metro area alone, so once you have your gear then you’re good to go!
Ice Skating
Whether you’ve skated before or are just recently been inspired by the winter Olympic, Spending a couple of hours skating offers some great benefits to improve balance, joint flexibility, mental health, muscle mass and motor coordination. Not only is it beneficial to working every muscle group, but skating is low impact, which means it puts minimal stress on your joints. That makes it great for cross training, daily fitness, or fun family workouts as the weather gets colder. On top of that, not much equipment is needed, and most frozen ice rinks in the twin cities area are free, so just bring your skates (or rent them if you need) and channel your inner figure skater!