Life in the Time of Corona: Free Outdoor Workouts in Grand Rapids This Summer

​The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to take our indoor workouts at the gym and bring them outside, to our homes, or both. In a silver lining of sorts, the gym shutdown also coincided with Spring, which meant the weather in Michigan was final warming up - making working out at the park much more feasible than in mid-January.

But that was months ago, and while I’ve been enjoying getting in my exercise outside, running on my own at a park can get rather boring after a while. I miss the energy of being around other people. As someone who taught Zumba for practically a decade, I love group exercise classes, so perhaps it was divine intervention that when I googled “outdoor workouts in Grand Rapids” this past week, I was met with an entire list of free outdoor workouts that were beginning the same week! 

I immediately made time in my schedule to go to the next upcoming class, which is called SoulfulMOTION. This one involved a lot of squat exercises, so if you’re looking for that, you’ll definitely want to hit up their class. The class began at 9:30am on Saturday morning at the North Monroe Lot in Downtown Grand Rapids and lasted for 45 minutes. There were a lot of people there and yes, everyone was still practicing social distancing. Of course, weather in Michigan can be unpredictable but thankfully it was a nice sunny day for us. The energy was awesome. The music they use is workout remixes of Christian songs, but it's such a positive environment that it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable by any means if perhaps I don’t share the same personal views. At the end of the day, it’s a workout class, not Sunday School. And I genuinely had a great time!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though. The free outdoor workout classes in Grand Rapids include things like Zumba, Yoga, Kickboxing, and more. The city of Grand Rapids has provided a list of the workouts including times and locations on their website, which you can find here. 

So, while we may have to wait a little while longer for those gyms to reopen, free outdoor workouts sound like a pretty fantastic option right now. It's a wonderful way to lift your spirits and connect with the community.

Hopefully we’ll see each other there. In the meantime, hope you are staying healthy and well!