Spring affords an excellent opportunity to exercise outdoors. Here’s why:

1. Outdoor exercise provides an ever-changing, challenging environment.

2. Running or walking in the wind provides resistance, and helps burn more calories.

3. Exercising outdoors saves money compared to going to a gym.

4. Studies find people who exercise outdoors attain a greater sense of well-being.

5. Outdoor exercise boosts your exposure to vitamin D, the so-called “sunshine” vitamin, which is absorbed through the skin.

6. Exercising outdoors provides more opportunities to meet friends and neighbors, resulting in more social interaction, and lessening isolation, which is a heart disease risk factor.

7. When you exercise outdoors, you can bring your family or grandkids along, providing them with a good behavior model.