Willie Davis for The New York Times
Rey Soriano, foreground, holding himself on suspension trainers in a workout run by Discover Outdoors.
I HAVE spent a small fortune over the years on gym memberships. But all you really need to get in shape, I now know, are a few granite paving stones, some sandbags and a backpack full of water jugs.
Willie Davis for The New York Times
David Tacheny, center, leading an exercise known as “pack mule,” as Courtney McBride pulls May Yu Whu.
Willie Davis for The New York Times
Mr. Tacheny explaining how to use paving stones as weights.
Willie Davis for The New York Times
Wendy Tsang, left, lifting a Bulgarian sandbag.
Early one Sunday morning I arrived at the entrance to Riverside Park for an exercise class called Mountain Fitness. A Manhattan adventure outfitter, Discover Outdoors, describes the class as a way to “train like a guide,” and uses rocks, logs, sandbags and water jugs in a quest to improve “functional fitness.” The company started offering the class a year ago after customers asked how they should train for the more challenging hiking and trekking adventures it offers.
Our instructor, David Tacheny, a guide and personal trainer, told us that a typical gym workout doesn’t engage all the muscles you’ll use on, say, a rock-climbing excursion. A leg press machine, for instance, works the pushing muscles of the legs. Squatting while raising a heavy rock above your head, on the other hand, also uses the back, abdominal muscles and shoulders, and it better approximates what it’s like to lift an overstuffed backpack.
“This is how guides train,” he said. “We don’t go run miles on flat terrain. We don’t just pump iron.”
All the exercises can be adapted to different levels of fitness. Our group of eight (including one man) looked plenty fit and included several people who belonged to social sports clubs in the city and competed in triathlons. Melanie Pessin, a triathlon competitor, did an eight-mile run before showing up for class. “I’m training for a half-marathon,” she said.
After a 10-minute warm-up, Mr. Tacheny took us to a pile of rectangular paving stones, each weighing 25 to 40 pounds. Standing with legs apart, we swung our stones out from between our legs into the air, using our hips instead of our arms for power.
The “halo” routine entailed holding the stone at chin level and circling it in a tight arc around the head. Next were squat presses, with the stones raised over our heads. At this point my back muscles went on strike, forcing me to switch to an imaginary stone.
Why just lift stones, though, when you can run with them — or throw them? Mr. Tacheny had us hold our stones at chest level, heave them as far as we could toward a tree in the distance, then run to pick them up; we were to repeat the move until we reached the tree.
Next, he divided us into two groups for a rousing game of what I came to call ducking stones. Each team started with an equal number of stones at the base of a tree. We were supposed to fetch a stone and run with it, depositing it at the base of the opposing team’s tree. After two minutes, whichever team had the fewest stones remaining would win. Mayhem ensued, with stones flying everywhere, to the point where I would yell out, “Don’t hit me!” whenever I stooped to pick one up.
Next, Mr. Tacheny introduced the “pack mule” exercise. Each team of two received a harness made of straps. One person held the straps and pulled while the teammate, attached to the harness at the other end, resisted. To inspire us, he recounted the story of two guides who pulled 100-pound sleds up a glacier while carrying 85-pound backpacks.
Freed from their harnesses, the class members followed Mr. Tacheny on a five-minute jog to a remote section of the park. There, he had stored a jump rope, a backpack full of water jugs, two crescent-shaped Bulgarian sandbags and some straps that he tied around tree branches. Instant exercise stations: pull-ups and push-ups using the straps; squats and leg lifts with the backpack or with a sandbag draped over the shoulders; a cardio workout using the jump rope.
After completing our circuits, we gathered in a circle and applauded ourselves for our hard work. “You got a sense of how to vary your workouts a little,” Mr. Tacheny told us, adding that gym routines didn’t appeal to him anymore, and that riding his bike 60 to 70 miles a day had gotten old. “But this stuff,” he said as we all dragged ourselves out of the park, “you won’t get bored with it.”
Urban Athlete: Discover Outdoors Offers Mountain Fitness Class
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Urban Athlete: Discover Outdoors Offers Mountain Fitness Class
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Urban Athlete: Discover Outdoors Offers Mountain Fitness Class
