This article originally appeared in Shape.
You probably became a champ at doing burpees between the couch and the coffee table during the frigid winter months, but warmer temps mean you can hit the grass or pavement for workouts with a little more legroom. Besides the extra space and fresh air, taking your workouts outdoors comes with mental and physical health benefits: Science shows exercising outside relieves stress, boosts mood, and makes the workout feel *much* easier than if you did it indoors.
To get all the perks, try these creative ways to exercise outside. At the very least, they'll make you feel like a giddy little kid at recess again.
1. Play Ball
With a big sky, you can throw things that are off-limits inside. "If you have a basketball, a volleyball, a soccer ball, or a football, use it for medicine ball exercises," says Ashley Joi, a celebrity trainer and instructor on the Centr workout app. (Try this medicine ball core workout, for example.)
2. Chalk Up a Custom Circuit
After the lockdowns started last March, Claudia Lebenthal, creator of the athletic-chic website Style of Sport, started hosting socially distanced boot camps in her backyard in New York, chalking the names of exercises on her driveway as 30-second stations: push-ups, squats, high knees. "We improvised weights with gallon bottles and detergent jugs — whatever was handy," says Lebenthal. (Here's how to make homemade weights to take your workout to the next level, and how to design a circuit workout yourself.)