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We had recently talked in some comments on a previous post about what an Urban really looks like.  If you find yourself in the midst of total boredom, I have written about it before here and here and here and here and here and here. If you want a “Reader’s Digest version” and a quick painting, so to say, of an Urban Run, skip the links and read below.

The quick explanation is you run for a while, then stop and do some bodyweight exercises while using your urban landscape, then repeat for a total of about a mile (or shorter or longer).

But does this “stop and do some bodyweight exercises while using your urban landscape,” look like?

First off, a true Urban Run is not running down the sidewalk and stopping for some Push-ups and Burpees here and there. That would still qualify as a Functional Fitness workout in an urban environment, but you would be missing all the fun and benefits of the Urban Run. You need to keep an eye out at all times for things suchs as cement walls, railings, stairs, tunnels, bike racks, and benches (among other objects).

When you see those items, you have to utilize them. Here is what it looks like:

Pull-ups on a cement wall, Bodyweight Rows hanging under a railing, Dips on the bike racks (depending on what style they are), crawling under objects or small tunnels, Bear Walking down a small flight of stairs, declined Spiderman Push-ups while your feet are on a small wall or bench, Box Jumps on a bench, Lunge Walks across a bridge, Frog Jumps for 4 or 6 or 10 parking spaces, Crab Walk up a hill and then back down, or run up the stairwell in a parking structure with Hindu Push-ups at each floor.

This is just the beginning. If you find a green space, or even if not, come up with little mini-circuits.  Steal some from the Bonus Circuit or Warm-up pages, or just use your imagination. Try a small sprint with Burpees at each end, or do various planks together, or have a V-Sit competition with everybody, or do animal walks back and forth, or….you get the idea hopefully by now.

The key is to have fun and be as creative as possible.