5 Things You Can Do Right Now To Increase Your Athleticism Without Going to the Gym

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

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Being an athlete is so much more than how you train in the gym.

Being an athlete is so much more than just going to the gym.

Being an athlete is about making decisions for your physical health.

Being an athlete is a lifestyle.

Athletes are people who engage in physical activity. That doesn’t mean just in the gym. It means the physical tasks you choose to engage in daily life.

These activities don’t need to challenge the upper echelons of athleticism either. Being part of any physical activity that requires you to solve problems will incorporate enough variation of athletic characteristics that you’ll cover your bases.

So here are 5 physical activities to participate in to be live a more athletic lifestyle:

1. Recreational Team or Field and Court Sports - Soccer, basketball, pickleball, volleyball, or badminton. It doesn’t matter. Pick what you love the most. But we all know sports are the best way to challenge the characteristics of athleticism all in one. Not only that, sports tend to be a highly social and cognitive activity as well. Forcing you to use your social skills to play the sport itself and build relationships. It’s full of problem-solving tasks that force you to improve cognitive and physical literacy which increase longevity.

2. Extreme Outdoor Sports - Skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, skateboarding, or rollerblading. Don’t let the word extreme throw you off. All of these sports can be done safely. You don’t need to sign up for the X Games! Choose something you’ll enjoy, take a class, and learn the skill. People who engage in these sports tend to stick with them into retirement and force them to get outside and into nature. There’s so much benefit to our health here!

3. Dancing - Yes, taking dance classes, whether it’s salsa, hip-hop, ballet, breakdancing, or country dancing is a great physical challenge. The amount of body awareness a dancer has is higher than most professional athletes. It’s a highly social activity that forces you to build movement variability. Depending on the type of dance, it may not challenge all the components of athleticism, but it can be quite demanding of your aerobic fitness levels.

4. Hiking and Camping - Going out for a hike into the woods with a weighted backpack, learning the skills of camping and bushcraft, and, not to mention, getting out in the beautiful landscapes can be a life-changing experience. All of that also demands a lot of your physical potential. Hiking through varying and challenging terrain will demand more athleticism than you think.

5. Yard Work or Farming - No, not just your typical planting of flowers here. Think more along the lines of landscaping. Building and tending to a vegetable garden, mulching, chopping wood, or building a retaining wall. If you’ve never done outside work like this, you don’t even realize how much fitness and athleticism you’ll build. Personally, I developed so much of my kinesthetic and proprioceptive skills by helping my parents in the yard and working construction as a kid.

Being an athlete doesn’t mean you have to do things that make you look like Barry Sanders, Usain Bolt, or Serena Williams. Those activities are displays of the upper tiers of athleticism and are only focused on the output of sports performance.

Being an athlete doesn’t mean you have to go into the gym to sprint, jump, throw, do plyometrics, or do agility drills. That’s a way to TRAIN certain characteristics of athleticism.

Being an athlete DOES mean that your lifestyle is full of physical activities. Those that require you to solve tasks in life that demand athleticism. The list above is not even close to an exhaustive list. This is meant to inspire you to think outside of the box and to inspire you to figure out how to be more physically active.

Our long-term health depends on that more than anything!

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