6 Fitness Moves for Beach Workouts

A Souvenir from My Trip to the Beach!

When visiting the beach, it’s usually pretty easy to keep up with your cardiovascular fitness by enjoying a nice beach walk or run along the seashore. But, what if you’re not near a gym and want to keep up with your strength training routine?

You can still stay on track!

For today's episode of  Tighten + Tone Tuesday, I’m sharing some of my favorite bodyweight strength training exercises that are perfect for enjoying during your beach workouts. 

That's right -- Instead of bringing you a lousy t-shirt as a souvenir from my trip to Florida, I handcrafted a beach workout video for you!​

Tune in to see these beach workout moves in action:

Review of beach workout moves:

1. Burpee:

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Jump up, bring your hands to your feet, jump your feet back so you’re in a high plank, complete one push-up, jump your feet in, and jump back up.

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To modify this full body strength and heart pumping beach body move, you can make the higher impact jump optional and walk your feet in and out instead of jumping them in and out. To modify the push-up, try to bring your feet wider apart.

For a Lot more tips on perfecting your burpee, head HERE for tips from certified personal trainer, Shannan.

2. Surfer Steps

The perfect beach workout move! Channel your inner surfer girl for this pose.

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Start by kneeling on your beach towel. Then, step your right foot up making sure your knee doesn’t go past your toes. Next, jump into a squat facing your left. Return to kneeling by stepping one then the other foot back. Repeat on the other side.

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To modify this beach fitness move, walk into your squat instead of jumping into it. When squatting, be sure your knees don’t go past your toes (really sit back) and that your back is a straight diagonal line vs. curved.

3. Lateral jumps

Start on the left side of your beach towel and jump over it landing softly on your right foot, bending your right knee before pressing off your right foot to jump back to the left side of your beach towel and landing on your left foot. Continue to jump back and forth across your beach towel.

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To modify this move, complete it as a side to side lunge. Really sit back so that your knees don’t go past your toes. Keep your back flat.

4. High plank with side to side hops

Start in high plank (starting position for a push-up). Your palms should be in line with your shoulders. Then, move your feet to one side of your beach towel. Jump them up and over to the other side and back. Keep your abs tight as you complete this move.

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To modify this move, remove the impact and hold a stationary high plank for 30 secs OR go from high plank (on your palms) to low plank ( on your forearms) for your desired number of reps. 

Need tips for completing a plank and modifying it? Head HERE.​

5. Walking push-up

Arrange your beach towel so you’re starting on one end of the longer side. Start in high plank with palms and shoulders in line. Then, complete one push-up. Next, walk you hands and feet over a few inches while keeping your abs tight. Complete another push-up. Repeat this process until you reach one end of your beach towel. Then, walk and push-up back to the side you started on.

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To modify this beach body exercise, remove the “walk” and complete your push-ups in place and/or try moving your feet wider apart (standard push-up position is with feet together).

6. Walking plank

This fitness move is very similar to the walking push-up, but there’s no push-up! Start on one end of your towel in low plank (on your forearms - as shown in the video) OR high plank for more of a challenge for your arms. Then walk down and back the mat.

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IMPORTANT: Keep you abs tight so your hips are moving as little as possible. I was pretty rushed fitting this last move in after a few retakes so I’m more shifty than I’d like you to be!

Modify by holding a stationary plank.

How to make these fitness moves into a beach workout:

My favorite way to incorporate the strength training moves into my beach workout is to do them at the halfway point of a beach run.

You can aim for 10-15 repetitions of each move and side and 1-3 sets. Completing the moves as listed in a circuit would work well OR you could do 3 sets of 10 burpees, then 3 sets of 10 surfer jumps on both sides, etc.

Since this workout is high impact and high intensity, it’s something you’d want to do no more than 2 times a week. As with any strength training workout, you’ll also want to give yourself 48 hrs rest in between sessions.

If you did this workout on a Monday, you could do a run and yoga on a Tuesday and then repeat the beach workout again on Wednesday.

Have limited time?

The burpee and surfer jumps alone are great workout moves! Try 1-3 sets of them.

Don’t like going for a long beach run?

Remember to at least do a 3-5 minute warm-up walk or jog to get your heart rate up gradually before completing these intense moves.

Now that you've learned these beach friendly fitness moves, it's time to take action!

Leave a comment below this post to share your thoughts and how you'll incorporate these moves into your next beach workout:​