Gym-Free Beach Workout Routine & Yoga Flow

Calling all beach lovers! This post is for you. I recently went to the beach and the hotel we stayed in did not have a gym. So what did I do? I turned the beach into my fitness playground. You can take the girl out of the gym, but you cant take the gym out of the girl. And let me tell you, I was so sore the next day, more so than I expected. I’ve got the full beach workout for you in this article!

Also, it was our first time going the any real beach where it was warm enough to sunbathe since moving to San Francisco 10 months ago. We went to Santa Cruz spur of the moment and I normally don’t like spontaneous trips but after the week I had I needed a getaway more than I knew at the time. We had perfect weather: 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We ate dinner on the pier, rode amusement park rides and strolled the boardwalk. It was marvelous.

We found this cluster of mussels laying on the beach!

Back on track here. If you are planning a beach trip, or you’re somewhere where you don’t have access to a gym, you can totally use this as a multi-purpose workout.

I started with a 45 minute yoga flow using the Asana Rebel app. They offer yoga-based workouts that range from 5-24 minutes. You do have to pay for the app ($58.99/year), so if that’s a barrier for you, I totally understand. But, there are plenty of yoga routines available on YouTube for free so you could still get your flow on 🙂

For those that have the app, or are simply curious, I did the Core Strength Builder II and Max Upper Body Strength workouts, and these already include a pre-programmed warm up and cool down.

I shared a cool time lapse video of my flow on in Instagram here.

After yoga, I did a quick body weighted beach workout. You can use a yoga mat or a towel for any exercise where you’re laying on your back, and don’t want to be totally covered in sand.

Warm up

I warmed up with my yoga flow, but if you decide to skip this, it’s not a good idea to go into the workout cold turkey.

You can do a quick warm up of dynamic stretching and movements to get you warmed up.

• 25 jumping jacks
• 25 high knees
• 10 shoulder circles to the front
• 10 shoulder circles to the back
• 20 wide leg standing alternating toe touches

Full Body Beach Workout

• 10 burpees with a push-up, and a jump at the top
• 20 walking lunges with a twist. When your left leg is in the front, twist left, and when the right leg leads, twist right, holding each for a beat.
• 20 mountain climbers
• 20 bear crawls
• 25 tricep dips (if you have access to a bench or ledge)
• 20 slow bicycle crunches, holding for a 3 count on each side, doing each side 10 times
• 20 jump squats
• 20 jackknife sit-ups. Lay on your back with arms and legs outstretched. Then in one single motion raise your arms and legs up the air, to meet both in the middle (if you can).
• 20 shoulder touches (10 on each side). Get in plank position, with arms extended, touching left hand to right shoulder and right hand to left shoulder. Keep core engaged throughout!
• 3-5 sand sprints — if you’re feeling adventurous you can round it out with a few 25, 50 or 100 meter sand sprints (totally okay to eye ball the distance)
• Repeat 3-4 times (or as many as you feel comfortable doing given your fitness level)

Cool down

If you have time, take a few minutes to first catch your breathe, and second, do some stretching.

The beauty about this workout is that it is 100 percent customizable and you can do it anywhere, not just at the beach. If you want to reduce or increase the amount of reps, do it! If you want to swap an exercise out for a different one or modify it in any way, you can.

Namaste, friends.